This is a video from June 1968 in which Cardinal Josyf Slipyj, Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), visited Winnipeg, where he was greeted like visiting royalty. This was not long after his release from the Soviet Gulag, where he’d been imprisoned essentially for being head of a church that was banned in the Soviet Union.
The video was brought to my attention because my 9-year-old self appears in it at 1:41-1:42. Didn’t even know it existed.
For those who don’t know, the UGCC is based in Ukraine and uses the Byzantine (i.e., Orthodox) rite while recognizing the supremacy of the Pope.
This archival footage is such a fascinating piece of history – how our immigrant parents, with WWII not that far behind them, must have felt to see this while Ukraine was still under the Soviet jackboot. Of course, Cardinal Josyf Slipyj’s visit didn’t much matter to me at the time (in fact, I remember sitting in the front row and giggling with a friend during the Cardinal’s homily) but I see it differently now, especially in the context of current events.