Society of Saint Paul the Apostle

Society of Saint Paul the Apostle (Товариство св. апостола Павла у Львові; Tovarystvo sv. apostola Pavla u Lvovi). A Ukrainian Catholic religious society founded in Lviv in 1897. It was formed under the influence of the social action ideas espoused by Pope Leo XIII. Until the First World War it sought mainly to infuse a (Catholic) religious consciousness into Galician national populism (see Populism, Western Ukrainian), which had been marked by a spirit of secular liberalism or even radicalism. Indirectly it also promoted a sense of Ukrainophilism among the often Russophile Galician clergy. After the war the society promoted charitable work, particularly among orphans and other war victims. It published a series of nearly 50 popular booklets and the journal Nyva and led a campaign against attempts to enforce celibacy among the clergy in Stanyslaviv eparchy and Peremyshl eparchy. After sending a memorandum to the League of Nations in 1925 regarding the persecution of the Ukrainian clergy by Polish authorities, the society was forcibly liquidated.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]