Republished herewith for the first time online in English, on the feast of St. Elias the Great Prophet, in humble commemoration of the 120th anniversary of the birth of a great prophet of the 20th century, Patriarch Josyf (Slipyj) [b. 17. ii. 1892 – d. 7. ix. 1984], is His Beatitude’s Spiritual Testament.

Click on this link: Spiritual Testament of His Beatitude Josyf (Slipyj), Patriarch of Kyiv-Halych and All Rus’.

Except as noted (below) the text of the Spiritual Testament which appears here is the same as that printed in 1984 by the St. Sophia Religious Association of Ukrainian Catholics in Canada, being a translation of Rev. Fr. Myroslaw Tataryn, under the title Spiritual Testament of His Beatitude, Patriarch Josyf of Kyiv–Halych and All Rus’.

Except for slight modifications of formatting and several obvious typographical or other minor grammatical errors which have been corrected, the text here published remains the same as the above-noted 1984 printed edition (ISBN 0-9691657-1-4).

In order more faithfully to convey the meaning His Beatitude gave to his testament when citing from Sacred Scripture, a planned re-publication online will substitute the scriptural phrases & passages quoted in the 1984, printed English edition (which used The New American Bible, St. Joseph’s Edition) with the corresponding phrases & passages of the Douay Rheims Catholic Bible found online here.

[Editor’s note: the Testament containing the scriptural texts taken from the Douay Rheims edition in English appears embedded in this blog post — and finally in this .pdf document. April 23, 2013]

Sincere thanks to the following graduate & undergraduate students of La Salle University or/and Thomas More College of Liberal Arts for their generous contributions of transcribing and proof-reading of the Testament.

Yurko Didula
Augustine Kamprath
Antoine Buffin de Chosal
Mary Grace Lloyd