Andrey Sheptytsky

Andrey Sheptytsky, OSBM (Polish: Andrzej Szeptycki; Ukrainian: Андрей Шептицький, romanized: Andrey Sheptytsky; 29 July 1865 – 1 November 1944) was the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Metropolitan of Galicia and Archbishop of Lviv from 1901 until his death in 1944. His tenure in office spanned two world wars and six political regimes: Austrian, Ukrainian, Soviet, Polish, Nazi German, and again Soviet.

According to the church historian Jaroslav Pelikan, "Arguably, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky was the most influential figure ...in the entire history of the Ukrainian Church in the twentieth century". He had a major role in raising Ukrainian national consciousness in modern-day western Ukraine and expanded the Ukrainian Catholic Church. He defended the interests of Ukrainians to the Austro-Hungarian House of Lords and Emperor Franz Joseph, established schools and a hospital society, and founded a seminary and the order of the Ukrainian Studite Monks. Sheptytsky also facilitated the appointment of the Ukrainian Catholic hierarchy for Ukrainian immigrants in Canada and the United States. He was a member of the National Council of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, and was briefly detained after Galicia became part of Poland in the aftermath of World War I. He also defended the Ukrainian Orthodox from persecution by the Polish government. In addition, he became the main sponsor of the nascent Russian Greek Catholic Church in 1907, with the approval of Pope Pius X, and remained responsible for the Russian Catholic hierarchy on behalf of the Holy See until shortly before his death.

Several locations in Ukraine have been named after him. The Lviv National Museum, founded by Sheptytsky in 1905, now bears his name. The Information-Resource Center of the Ukrainian Catholic University that was opened in September 2017 also bears his name — The Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Center.