Kushnir, Vasyl

Kushnir, Vasyl or Basil [Кушнір, Василь; Kušnir, Vasyl'], b 17 September 1893 in Vikno, Skalat county, Galicia, d 25 September 1979 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Community leader and priest. After serving in the Austrian army during the First World War, Kushnir studied at the Greek Catholic Theological Seminary in Lviv and at the University of Innsbruck (DD 1929). Ordained a priest in 1927, he taught at the Catholic Theological Seminary in Stanyslaviv (1930–4). In Canada he was parish priest of Saints Vladimir and Olga Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in Winnipeg (1934–79) and chancellor (1947–57) and vicar general (1957–79) of Winnipeg eparchy. He helped form the Ukrainian Canadian Committee (UCC). Representing the Ukrainian Catholic Brotherhood of Canada, Kushnir was president of the UCC for 26 years (1940–52, 1957–71). In 1944 he worked with the Ukrainian Canadian Relief Fund, which assisted the Ukrainians in displaced persons camps in Germany to resettle in Canada. A founding member of the Pan-American Ukrainian Conference in 1946, he was its chairman (1947–67) and the first president of the World Congress of Free Ukrainians (1967–78). In 1972 Kushnir was appointed to the Order of Canada.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]