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A New Academic Year Started at the Master’s Program for Ecumenical Studies

2012-02-16 13:45

The event began with a joint prayer. Students were greeted by the executive director of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies, Halyna Bokhonko, the head of the major course in Journalism, Taras Lylyo and the head of the major course in Christian Ethics, Halyna Sokhan as well as senior students. New students of master’s program received student cards.

“Two areas, Journalism and Christian Ethics, are a very good combination, which provides an additional chance for us and for those who chose to study journalism. Today, if we speak about professional journalism, which has been treated in a simplified way, we are told that journalism primarily involves skills and knowledge, but they forget about the third important component, which is ethics, morality. Without this third component the first two are worth nothing, they lose one hundred percent of their essence, their purpose,” pointed out Tars Lylyo. He also wished on the students that the horizons of their knowledge, hopes, dreams and worldview have never betrayed them.

The graduate student Iryna Husir compared the Institute of Ecumenical Studies with a shop from a parable of Bruno Ferrero: “Our institute is a shop in which fruit is neither sold nor given away, but one can get seeds, and everyone who manages to grow the seeds in their hearts and work will see how they will return a hundredfold.”

The guest of the event was Fr. Michael Nummela, monk-priest of the Finnish Orthodox Church of the Ecumenical Constantinople Patriarchate, the director of Public Relations Department of the cultural center “Sophia” in Helsinki, Finland. He gave the guest lecture “Importance of Spiritual Dimension in Person’s Life.”

“As a spiritual being, the person is able to communicate with God, which results into sanctifying of the person. In this process, our personalities can change to such an extent that they will be on the same wave length as God is… I encourage you to care about your spiritual life, because it will help you in your life and in relations with other people,” said Fr. Michael.

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