On August 27, c. Drohobych became the place of awarding Ivan Franko International Prize; the first prize-winner by category “For significant personal contribution to the development of social and human sciences” was His Beatitude Lubomyr, Archbishop Emeritus of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The former head of the UGCC obtained the prize for the monograph “Andrey Sheptytsky Galician Metropolitan (1901-1944), a forerunner of ecumenism”.
In the speech Roland Franko, the chairman of Ivan Franko International Fund stated that the Prize was founded in order not only to represent Ivan Franko’s scientific achievements, not studied and forgotten in museum and archival vaults, but also to show to the world that Ukraine is not Terra incognito; Ukraine has genii to be proud of.

“The Ivan Franko Prize is International because he deserved it. My dream is to make Ivan Franko International Prize well-known in the world and, along with the Alfred Nobel Prize, to make it worthy and desirable reward for the scientists from around the world for research in the social and human sciences and Ukrainian studies”, said Roland Franko.

Director of Ivan Franko International Fund – Ihor Kurus – stated that the organizers did their best to provide a high level of competition and have selected undoubted Prize-winner.

The award ceremony involved the members of the international jury from Germany and Slovakia, the authorities and public.

Members of the international jury – Professor Mykola Mushynka and Professor Alfred Sproede – described the criteria used to assess scientific papers. The council includes scientists from 4 countries. 14 monographs on theology, history, philosophy, cultural studies, literature, ethnology and Ukrainian studies were submitted for the prize.

“I would like to note that this year’s prize laureate made a significant contribution to the development of social and human sciences, especially theology, thus he deserves such recognition”, said Mykola Mushynka, Professor of the University of Presov in Slovakia, assessing the scientific work of His Beatitude Lubomyr.

According to Alfred Sproede, professor of the University of Munster in Germany, the monograph “Andrey Sheptytsky Galician Metropolitan (1901-1944), a forerunner of ecumenism” was defensed by His Beatitude Lubomyr as a doctoral thesis in 1972 at the Pontifical Urban University. Scientific work was written in English, and in 2015 it was translated into Ukrainian with the support of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. Translators brought text up to date and provided the most relevant bibliography.

Then the awarding ceremony was held. As due to objective reasons His Beatitude Lubomyr Husar could not visit the event, he authorized Bishop Yaroslav, Bishop of Sambir-Drohobych UGCC to accept the award and speak with the word of gratitude on behalf of His Beatitude.

In this speech His Beatitude Lubomyr thanked the jury for having decided to give the main prize for the paper about the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky. “Metropolitan Andrey deserves special attention. I believe that it is important to not only know about Metropolitan. Far more important is that, after having known about his acts, we tried to take after him”, said the prize winner. His Beatitude Lubomyr thanked also to the administration and researchers of the National University of Lviv, whose initiative and work resulted in publication of this book.

The audience was also greeted by the head of Lviv Regional State Administration – Oleg Syniutka, mayor of Drohobych – Taras Kuchma and Rector of Ivan Franko State University of Drohobych – Nadia Skotna.

The first part of the awarding ceremony ended with laying flowers in front of the monument of Ivan Franko.