- Santa Sofia a Via Boccea
Santa Sofia a Via Boccea is a church at 478 Via Boccea, in
Rome, Italy . It is dedicated toHoly Wisdom ("Sancta Sophia" in Latin), one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It served as the Mother Church, of theUkrainian Greek Catholic Church , while St. George's Cathedral inLviv was controlled by the Russian Orthodox Church.The church is a meeting place and religious center for Ukrainians. Mass is celebrated according to the Byzantine-Ukrainian rite, while the church is in full communion with the
Holy Father .The church was built in
1967 -1968 on the orders of CardinalJosyf Slipyj , Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Catholic Church who had spent almost 20 years in sovietGULAG inSiberia , and was released in1963 but not allowed to return toUkraine . It is modeled after an eponymous church in the Ukrainian capital ofKyiv . Relics ofPope Clement I (88 -97 ) are kept in the church. As it is of theByzantine rite , it has aniconostasis , painted by Juvenalij Josyf Mokryckyj.In
1985 ,Pope John Paul II erected the church as one of the "tituli" suitable forCardinal Priest s. The first Cardinal Priest with title to Santa Sofia a Via Boccea wasMyroslav Ivan Lubachivsky . The current titular of the church is H.E. cardinalLubomyr Husar , M.S.U.,Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halych for the Ukrainians. He was appointed onFebruary 21 ,2001 .In
1998 the church was raised to the status ofminor basilica .External links
* [http://roma.katolsk.no/sofia.htm Nyborg]
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