Volodymyr Sterniuk

Who was Volodymyr Sterniuk?

Volodymyr Sterniuk was a Ukrainian Greek Catholic archbishop and the acting head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine from 1972-91.

Sterniuk was born in Pustomyty near the city of Lviv in 1907. He was born into the family of a priest. He studied philosophy and theology both in Ukraine and at the University of Louvain in Belgium. He was ordained in 1931 as a Redemptorist priest.

During World War II he served parishes in the Ternopil and Stanislaviv regions. He witnessed the liquidation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church at the "synod of Lviv" by hiding in a loft of St. George's Cathedral. He was arrested by the Soviets in 1947 and spent five years in prison and labor camps in Arkhangelsk where he worked as a lumberman. While in the camp, he continued his priestly duties and occasionally managed to celebrate mass with a few crumbs of bread and drops of wine. After his release, he returned to his hometown where he worked various jobs including park gatekeeper, bookkeeper, janitor and nurse while secretly continuing his priestly ministry. He taught catechism, said mass, and heard confessions in his spare time in his room or in the woods.