SPEECH AT A BANQUET IN SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Nearly a century has lapsed, since the Motherland Ukraine bid you farewell, with great expectancies and hopeful foresight for your adventure on the other side of the ocean. The sorrow of your departure pierced her heart, and the worries about your uncertain future troubled her mind, because she was afraid that you would face misfortune or overlook the golden opportunities. Today, fortunately, that uncertainty has disappeared, and those worries have been reduced by a deep joy and replaced by peace and welfarc. You have achieved all your hopes, by preserving the Christian faith, and by witnessing it with majestic churches, by asserting your national identity in the political, cultural and economic societies, and by the various organizations, conventions, congresses, schools, kindergartens and institutions, for the care of the aged and the orphans, with their own adequate buildings: all enjoying the rights of loyal Canadian citizens. All these achievements have become a strong support for our Motherland Ukraine, in this hour of distress.

Today, we proclaim loudly and with special emphasis the unity of the Ukrainian Church and the Ukrainian people; unity, which-though sometimes fractured —has been always kept during the centuries, for this oneness is more necessary for us today, than at any other time in the past.

We wish to take this opportunity, to express our very special and deep gratitude to Canada and to the Government of Her Majesty, for having so readily welcomed the Ukrainian immigrants and having so closely cooperated with the Servant of God, the Metropolitan Andrew Scheptyckyj, in securing the spiritual assistance to the newly-arrived settlers, by the importation of Ukrainian Clergy, generously helped by the native priests, who assumed cur rite, and in the appointing of our first bishop in Canada, Nikita Budka, who ended his life of sufferings in the far-distant Kharaganda, as confessor of the faith. What a great joy we feel today, to see that this first bishopric has flowered into an ecclesiastical province, with its four eparchies!

May our visit offer you the occasion to feel the ture spirit of our native Land, give the opportunity to renew your fidelity to our Ukrainian Church and national convictions, and afford you the way to reaffirm your gratitude and loyality toward this great country of Canada and its civic institutions. God bless Canada, her government and all her Ukrainian citizens!

Speech of Cardinal Josyf Slipyj at the banquet in his honour in Saskatoon.