By  August 11, 2017

Toronto - It should surprise no one that at a time of rising authoritarianism, democracy will be on the curriculum when the Sheptytsky Institute reopens in Toronto.

Along with teaching liturgy, Church history and systematic theology, professors at the institute’s new home in the University of Toronto’s St. Michael’s College are also preparing democracy lessons. And that makes perfect sense to those who know how the Eastern rite Ukrainian Catholic Church was forced underground by Stalinist Soviet rule between 1946 and 1989, said Borys Gudziak, Eparch of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Eparchy of Paris.

“What the Ukrainian Catholic Church became an expert at — an unwilling expert — was how to stand up to authoritarianism and totalitarianism,” he said.

About 500 people attended an official blessing and garden party July 25 to welcome the Sheptytsky Institute to Toronto. Founded at Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union in 1986, the institute moved to Ottawa’s Saint Paul University in 1990.

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