Ukrainian Catholic ChurchAustralia, New Zealand and Oceania
Canberra — Place of Pilgrimage
“There should be our church in the capital of Australia, which should be a representation of our people” — by these words Patriarch Joseph Slipyj initiated the construction of a Ukrainian Catholic church in Canberra. It happened in 1973, when the Patriarch visited Australia and took part in the Eucharistic Congress in Melbourne. He immediately established a church building fund with a significant personal contribution.
The rite of blessing of the site took place on 14th June 1982, and on 25th December of the same year, the cornerstone of the temple was laid. And within a year, on 16th December 1983, more than a thousand people were present at the special blessing of the new church of St. Volodymyr.
It was as if through God’s Will that the important Church was consecrated by the Confessor of the Faith, Bishop Pawlo Wasylyk. This was significant since both Bishop Pawlo and Patriarch Cardinal Joseph Slipyj, the founder of St. Volodymyr’s, had together endured imprisonment and persecution by the occupying Soviets in the gulags of Siberia. The consecration of the church occurred on Sunday, 28th July 1991 and this date, which is also the feast day of St. Volodymyr, has become an important day in the Church’s calendar.
Before the consecration of the church, Bishop Ivan Prashko, appealed to the Patriarch Myroslav Ivan Lyubachivskyi with a request to give the church-monument in Canberra privileges of Indulgency for every year on the first Sunday of March. Bishop Ivan motivated this request not only by the fact that the church is a monument to the 1000 anniversary of Christianity in Ukraine, but also by the fact that this church have a copy of the icon of the Pochaiv Most Holy Theotokos, which travelled around Australia and visited almost every Ukrainian home. Also, Bishop initiated an National pilgrimage to Canberra once a year in March.
At the request of Fr. Andriy Mykytyuk, the administrator of St. Volodymyr's Parish in Canberra in 2012, to Bishop Peter Stasiuk, and through him to the Apostolic Penitentiary, St. Volodymyr's Church received the privilege of the Plenary Indulgency for seven years on the Parish Feastday, every fourth Sunday of the month, on the day of the memory of the Most Holy Theotokos glorified in the Pochaiv icon and once a year on a day chosen by the faithful to pray to St. Volodymyr's Church in Canberra.
During his pastoral visit to Australia in September 2014, while in Canberra, His Beatitude Patriarch Sviatosla Shevchuk declared the St. Volodymyr’s Church a place of Pilgrimage for Ukrainians in Australia and entrusted the relics of the blessed martyr Volodymyr Pryjma (patron of the laity of the UGCC) for worship.
In January 2023 Bishop Mykola Bychok, continuing the tradition of his predecessors, appealed to the Apostolic Penitentiary with a request to extend the right of Plenary Indulgence for St. Volodymyr's Church in Canberra. As a result, the Penitentiary extended the right to a Plenary Indulgency on the Parish Feastday, every fourth Sunday of the month, on the day of the memory of the Most Holy Theotokos glorified in the Pochaiv icon and once a year on a day chosen by the faithful to pray to St. Volodymyr's Church in Canberra for another seven years from 10th January 2023.
On June 10-11, 2023, after a long pause, a large National Pilgrimage took place in Canberra, where St. Volodymyr's Church was once again proclaimed a place of Pilgrimage with the right of Plenary Indulgence.
