Archbishop Borys Presides over Divine Liturgy for the Feast of the Presentation at the Ukrainian Catholic University

February 2, 2026, Lviv — On the Feast of the Presentation of Christ to the Temple, Archbishop Borys presided over the Divine Liturgy in the chapel of the Ukrainian Catholic University. The prayer brought together the university community to give thanks to God for the gift of Christmas and to experience the mystery of encountering Christ.

In his address to those gathered, Archbishop Borys emphasized the profound meaning of the feast, which concludes the forty-day period of Christmas celebration, “This feast brings to a close the forty days of our joyful celebration of the Nativity of Christ. We receive the gift of God — that God has come to humanity. He comes as a child, disarmed, and enters into all our suffering: into cold, displacement, violence, bloodshed, and political persecution. The Lord has come to us, and we, Ukrainians, who are experiencing the violence of the aggressor, feel in a particular way God’s coming to us in these circumstances.”

The Archbishop drew attention to the personal dimension of the Presentation, when the Mother of God and Joseph bring the Child Jesus to the Temple and place Him into the arms of the righteous Simeon, “Simeon and Anna, who had waited their whole lives, praying, listening, longing for the Messiah — finally, personally, hold salvation in their own hands.”

Archbishop Borys highlighted the special significance of this feast for the Ukrainian Catholic University. The first university church-chapel is dedicated to the Presentation, and the university choir is named after the same feast.

“We strive in various ways to cultivate this dynamic in our university, because it is the core of our spiritual life — the encounter with God, which shapes all our other encounters, our meetings with one another. They become divine when we see in our neighbor the image of God. When we know that, having clothed ourselves in Christ, we are called to recognize Him in one another — then everything becomes a great mystery.”

Photos by Ukrainian Catholic University