Atanasy Pekar
Atanasy Pekar (baptismal name Vasyl) March 1, 1922, Perechyn - September 28, 2011, Glen Cove (USA). Ukrainian church activist in the United States, Basilian priest, educator, Church historian, consultant to the Basilian Order of St. Jehoshaphat in 1992-1996. Member of the Theological Scientific Society in Lviv, the Shevchenko Scientific Society and the Ukrainian Free Academy of Sciences (UVAN) in the USA.
Vasyl Pekar was born on March 1, 1922 in Perechyn in the family of railway worker Atanasy Pekar and Maria from the Vasylykh family, who belonged to the Greek Catholics. The Bakers' family took an active part in the work of «Prosvitа» community in Perechyn. In 1928-1932 he studied at a public (primary) school in Perechyn and in Horozhanka, and then entered the Uzhhorod State Russian Gymnasium, which he graduated in 1940. His teachers at the gymnasium were linguist and ethnographer Ivan Pankevych, literary critic Volodymyr Birchak, and German language teacher and gymnasium director Andriy Aliskevych, all three from Galychyna who strongly influenced the worldview of the young Vasyl Pekar. He was a member and a chieftain of Plast community.
Education
On January 15, after high school, Vasyl Pekar enrolled in the Ukrainian Pontifical College of St. Jehoshaphat in Rome. He studied at the Pontifical University of Rome Urbaniana (Italian - Pontificia Università Urbaniana). In 1942 he received a bachelor's degree in philosophy and continued to study theology. On March 24, 1946 in the chapel of the College of St. Jehoshaphat he received priestly ordination from the hands of Bishop Alexander Evreinov. On June 27, 1947 Vasyl Pekar defended his doctoral dissertation at the Urban University on «De erectione diocesis Mukačoviensis», «Canonical creation of the Mukachevo diocese in 1771» (published in Rome in 1956). After his doctorate, he attended church history studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University for another year, and in 1948 he received a bachelor's degree in church history.
Church service
Being unable to return to Transcarpathia, he went to the United States, where he became a priest of the Pittsburgh Greek Catholic Exarchate. He first worked as a chaplain for Basilian nuns in Uniontown (1948-1950), and later became a teacher at the seminary of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Pittsburgh (1950-1956).
In 1956, Vasyl Pekar entered the rank of St. Basil the Great in Monder (Alberta, Canada), where on June 1, during the rite of passage, he received the monk's robe and the monk's name Athanasius. He then remained in Mondera as prefect and teacher of humanities students. He taught Ukrainian and Church Slavonic languages, Ukrainian history and literature at the monastery school.
In 1960-1961, Athanasius was pastor of St. Nicholas Church in Chicago, and a year later was appointed as a Master of the Novitiate in Glen Cove. It was there on June 19, 1960 in the monastery of St. Josaphat near New York that he made eternal vows. From 1967 to 1978, Pekar was a teacher and chaplain at the Greek Catholic Theological Seminary of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Pittsburgh. He continued to teach church history, Russian (Ukrainian) and other disciplines at the Byzantine Catholic Seminary of St. Cyril and Methodius, where he became a professor in 1969. His book «Perfect Christian» published in 1968 in New York, entitled «The monastic ideal of St. Basil the Great», educated a whole generation of Ukrainian clergy. For some time he was a clergyman at the Seminary of St. Jehoshaphat in Washington, pastor in the parish of St. John the Baptist in Uniontown, Pennsylvania in 1967-1972 and the parish of St. Eugene in Bedford (Ohio) in 1972-1978.
In 1978, the abbots appointed Father Athanasius Pekar as a deputy editor of the Ukrainian section of Vatican Radio for a four-year term. In the 70's and 80's, his voice was heard almost every week on the radio. In particular, his sermons and a whole series of topical columns were popular: «Matters of conscience - answers to listeners' questions», «Truth of the Christian faith», «Jubilee of St. Basil the Great», «Century of renewal of the Basilian order» and others. Some materials of these headings were published in separate books.
As an employee of Vatican Radio, he prepared 77 radio programs about the persecution of the church in Transcarpathia and Presov in the postwar period. These programs were published in New York in 1982 as the 60th volume of the «Ukrainian Spiritual Library of the Basilian Fathers», entitled «Confessors of the Faith of Our Time».
In this collection 16 articles are devoted to Transcarpathia. In it, Athanasius spoke about the martyrdom of Bishop Teodor Romzhi, President of Carpathian Ukraine Augustyn Voloshin, priests Oleksandr Hira, Mykola Muraniy, Petro Oros, Kirill Fedelesh, Dmytro Popovych, Viktor Dulyshkovych, Ivan Cheypash and others. All these clergymens were victims of the communist regime for their religious beliefs, and any information about them in communist countries was strictly forbidden. About each of them, he obtained information (often in secret) from his friends in Transcarpathia, Siberia, Kazakhstan and other places where they sent those who disagreed with the Soviet authorities. Radio broadcasts by Athanasius Pekar of the Vatican were almost the only source to tell the truth about these martyrs for their faith.
From 1980 he was the editor of the second section of the «Notes of the Order of St. Basil the Great». From 1982 to 1992 he was a professor and clergyman at the seminary of St. Jehoshaphat (District of Columbia, USA). In 1992 he returned to Rome, because at the General Chapter of the Order he was elected Consul General (Vicar or First Counselor) of the Archimandrite Fr. Isidore Patril. After completing his term, he moved to the Basilian Convent in Glen Cove, where he continued to teach at the school and engage in historical research.
Since 1996, Athanasius has rarely left the monastery due to his health. In December 2008, he was transferred to a high-care geriatric home. He died at Glen Cove Hospital on September 28, 2011 at the age of 89. He was buried on October 3, 2011 in the Ukrainian Catholic Cemetery of the Holy Spirit in Campbell Hall (Hamptonburg, Orange County, New York).
Scientific researches
Father Atanasy Pekar is the author of hundreds of articles and dozens of monographs in Ukrainian and English on historical and spiritual-ascetic topics. The most important is the three-volume «Essay on the History of the Church of Transcarpathia» (Rome, 1967, 1997, 2014). He dedicated thorough investigations and separate brochures in Ukrainian to Petro Pavel Goydych (1961, 1980), Teodor Romzha (1961), Petro Gebey (1936), Yosyf Gahanets (1979), Ivan Bradach (1983), Oleksandr Hiry (1988), Yuri (1991), Oleksandr Stoytsa (1996), Vasyl Popovych (1996) and other church figures of Transcarpathia. He wrote several works about the monastic «Order of the Basilian Fathers».
Published in the magazines «Bizantine Catholic World», «Eastern Catolic Life», «Orientalia Christiana Periodica», «Light», «Notes of the Order of St. Basil the Great» (Analecta Ordinis S. Basilii Magni). It was thanks to him that this non-periodic collection, which was published in Uzhhorod in 1924-1941, was restored. As an editor, he edited 5 voluminous volumes of Analecta Ordinis S. Basilii Magni (1982, 1985, 1988, 1992, 1996).
Athanasius worked intensively until his last days. Each of his works is based on an in-depth study of primary sources, mainly archival materials. In the national question, he stood on the Ukrainian position, considering the Transcarpathian Ruthenians an integral part of the Ukrainian people.
Photo 1. Young Vasil Pekar.
Photo 2. Athanasius Pekar as Vatican Radio's program director in 1978-1982.
Photo 3. Atanasy Pekar in 1995.
References:
Mushynka Mykola. In memory of Atanasy Pekar - the most prominent researcher of the Transcarpathian church history.
Vladimir Moroz. Church historian Athanasius Pekar, Analecta Ordinis S. Basilii Magni (1922–2011)
Father Athanasius Pekar, Analecta Ordinis S. Basilii Magni:
