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Person attributes
Birthdate
March 29, 1835
Birthplace
Date of Death
April 28, 1918
Place of Death
Nationality
Educated at
Occupation
Biography
Kirill Seletsky was born on March 29, 1835 in Pidbuzh near Sambor. He came from an ancient family of Ukrainian nobility. My father, Mykhailo, was a teacher, and my mother, Ivanna, took care of the children.
From 1843 the Seletsky family lived in Sambir, where Kirill studied at the Main Sambir School.
Later he studied at the Sambir Gymnasium, and after successfully completing his high school diploma he began his theological studies at Lviv University. He studied at the General Theological Seminary in Lviv for three years, and in the fourth year he moved to the seminary in Przemyśl.
After graduating from the seminary, Cyril married Emilia, the daughter of Fr. Mykola Ivasivka and after six years of living together Emilia died. Father Kyrylo was left with two daughters, the eldest Olenka also died after a serious illness, and the youngest was raised by the Basilian sisters in Yavoriv.
On January 8, 1860, Cyril received priestly ordination from Bishop Hryhoriy Yakhymovych (1792-1863), Bishop of the Diocese of Peremyshl. For 14 years he could not get a parish, he lived quite modestly. He was a vicar and administrator in Staraya Sol , in Bilych Horishna, in Milkov, in Lyubachev , in Voroblyk Korolevsky , in the city of Yavoriv .
Finally in 1874 he became a pastor in the village. Zhuzhil near Belz and the attached parish with. Onions . Here he skillfully led people to God until his death.
He died on April 28, 1918.
Zhuzhelyany is a village in Chervonohrad Raion, Lviv Oblast, Ukraine.
Tsebliv is a village in Chervonohrad Raion, Lviv Oblast, Ukraine.
Religious activities
Fr. Cyril began by restoring the religious life of the parish. Father Cyril was aware of his faithful that they must honor their Liturgy. Among other things, he wrote the following on this subject: God forbid that one should get tired of it once and that the great service of the Divine Liturgy should be performed with due dignity. "
Father Cyril, as a good Shepherd (Jn 10: 9-16), cared for his faithful and defended them from every evil influence. In response to the election campaign of one of the members of the Radical Party in Zhuzhel, he wrote: So I ask you to take note that my parishioners are the only and only church of their saint, who sobered them up and taught them to live righteously.
The beauty of the church, and especially the order on the outside as well as in the middle of the shrine, according to Father Cyril, testify to the religious disposition of the pastor. This is a truth that no one will refute: for where there is no admiration for the beauty of God's house, there must be a lack of respect for both God and His law, where the soul admires vices. In Zhuzhel he finished the construction, took care of the iconostasis and the frescoes in the church; arranged the structure of the church in Tsebliv. The Father looked at the purity of the Jerusalem shrines and wrote that the filth and negligence in the holy church is a great contempt that we do to Him who is holy and holy. The Eucharist on the throne is hidden. Ordinary of the Diocese of Peremyshl, Bishop Konstantin Chekhovych, during the canonical visitation in the parishes of Zhuzhel and Tsebli on May 25, 1905, he found exemplary order everywhere. As a zealous pastor, Father Seletsky understood that the aesthetic appearance, neatness and beauty of God's churches bind the faithful and awaken in them a spirit of piety.
From the 2nd floor. XIX century numerically organized actions of sobriety of the Latin Church became an example and impetus for the spread of this activity among the Greek Catholic clergy. Of course, even before that, Greek Catholic pastors fought against drunkenness. However, the organized movement came about in the 1870s during the reign of Metropolitan Joseph Sembratovich . As we read in the Flag, the clergy decided the revival of the people through its sobering (() Christian campaign among the people against drunkenness.
Father Cyril could not be inactive when the inn deprived thousands of people of the Kingdom of Heaven, because drunken Ukrainians could spend their future. In 1874 in both villages Zhuzhel and Tseblivfound a terrible decline. With the help of a local teacher, Gerus immediately founded the Brotherhood of Sobriety. My father took care of spreading education among the rural population. He himself was an educated priest. He was fluent in Latin, French and German. He saw that working people must be educated. That's why he set up reading rooms in his parishes, where the villagers could borrow books for free. Reading rooms in the times of Fr. Cyril was considered a school for adults and was the first stronghold of the Christianization of public life. For the pastor, the reading room was a special place of work. Here the priest led people to God in a different way and through other means.
Father Seletsky also took care of the financial situation of his parishioners. He helped the poorest in the village. In 1895 on the initiative of Fr. Cyril in Zhuzhel founded the Society of John the Merciful. The members of that Society undertook to provide material assistance to widows, orphans and the downtrodden in their village. In Tseblov, thanks to the successful cooperation of Fr. Seletsky and local teacher Ivan Gerus established such institutions as a dairy, a low-interest loan office Raiffeisen. My father was sincerely interested in orphans and provided them with a dignified life and education. He used to say to the poor: Don't cry, surrender to God's will, and if you lack something, tell me, I will help you.
My father worked closely with the Polish count Stanislaw Potocki (1837-1884 [1] ), with whom he became friends while in Milkowo at the chaplaincy. The Potocki family had their own farm and yard in Oleszyce. Together they fought against drunkenness and the darkness of the village, tried to introduce a healthy and religious education. Together they founded wage and craft societies. In her diary, Countess Anna Potocka wrote about Father Kirill Seletsky as a zealous pastor, a talented writer and considered him a great friend of her family.
Father Cyril highly valued the monastic life and spoke many times on this topic.
Tohelp the peasants, who in the season of field work were additionally burdened with the care of young children, Fr. Cyril set about founding burials. On the initiative of Fr. On November 19, 1893, the first Ukrainian burial ground in Galicia was erected in Zhuzhel. Thus, the father began work on the Christian restoration of Ukrainian society; seeing the material and moral poverty of the rural population, abandoned and abandoned children, he wanted to alleviate that sad situation. Burials became the carriers of Christian and popular education.
As Fr. Theodore Vergun, the spiritual authorities did not appreciate the work of Fr. Cyril Seletsky, but the time came when he was awarded various awards.
By a letter dated 14 / XI 1890, 4696, Bishop Ivan Stupnytsky awarded him Kryloshan honors for his zealous performance of pastoral duties and as a reward for merits in church activity.
By a letter dated September 21, 1891, Metropolitan Sylvester Sembratovich appointed Father Seletsky a member of the Third Scientific Commission of the Provincial Synod. That commission also included the Servant of God Fr. Isidor Dolnytsky , a longtime clergyman of the Lviv Seminary.
Bishop Julian Peles appointed Fr. Cyril Seletsky censor of books of religious content.
From 18 / X 1897 he was the dean of Belz, and on May 23, 1900 he became the real dean. From 1898 Fr. Cyril was an intern commissioner for schools of the Belz deanery, he became a commissioner for easement affairs in 1901. He repeatedly received letters of commendation from his diocesan bishop.
On March 30/3, 1905, Pope Pius X appointed Fr. Seletsky honorary chamberlain.
On August 8, 1910, Fr. Cyril Seletsky received the title of Papal Chamberlain and the highest imperial award - the Knight's Cross of the Order of Franz Joseph .
At the invitation of Fr. A. K. Stoyan, a famous priest of the Catholic Church in Moravia , August 2 and 3, 1892 Fr. Cyril was one of the first among the Ukrainian clergy to take part in the solemn Velehrad Academy. Velegrad is the center of Catholicism in Moravia. (Since 1863, church celebrations dedicated to Saints Cyril and Methodius have been organized in Velehrad. Ecumenical congresses have been held there since 1906, with the participation of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky .). During the meetings Fr. Kyrylo Seletsky presented to the gathered theologians and scholars the history of the Russian people, the church and the directions of development of education and culture in Galicia. Father Kyrylo described his impressions of this trip in the pages of the magazine Poslannyk. In 1906 Fr. Seletsky took part in the first all-Ukrainian pilgrimage of Greek Catholic faithful to the Holy Land. At the age of 71, he was the oldest pilgrim among the pilgrims.
The last ten years have been devoted exclusively to the newly founded Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph the Betrothed of the Blessed Virgin Mary .
In 1910, the father celebrated the golden jubilee of the priesthood.
In one of the letters to Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky we find the following words of Fr. Cyril: "In recent times, many titles have honored me. Frankly, the sweetest title for me is when a parishioner says "spiritual father" or just "father." That is the title of what I am for the souls of my flock of attorneys, and what they should be for me. Blessed Jehoshaphat Kotsilovsky, Bishop of the Diocese of Peremyshl, in a letter on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the death of Fr. Cyril wrote that the father was a gift of God for the whole diocese. He was a priest of angelic goodness and simplicity, a man of God's Spirit, an example of holy Christian life.
Beatification procedure
The solemn opening of the beatification process of the Servant of God the Father Cyril Seletsky took place on July 11, 2009 in Sokal, Lviv region, in the Cathedral of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. The Hierarch's Holy Liturgy was presided over by the ruling bishop of the Sokal-Zhovkva Eparchy of the UGCC, Bishop Mykhailo Koltun , in collaboration with His Eminence Bishop Ihor Wozniak , Archbishop of Lviv. After the Divine Hierarch's Liturgy, the first session of the tribunal began .
Honoring the memory
On December 10, 2015, at the initiative of the chairman of the Ukrainian Noble Society Ivan Matkovsky in his native village of Pidbuzh, Drohobych district, the memory of Father Kirill Seletsky was honored and a memorial plaque was erected on the school premises.
Sources
with. M. Vasilishin. A short biographical essay by Fr. Cyril Seletsky
A. Sapelyak . Prelate Father Kirill Seletsky is the founder of monastic congregations. - Lviv: Halytska vydavnycha spilka, 2004. - 116 p.
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