Archimandrite Serge Keleher, chaplain to the Ukrainian Greek Catholics in Ireland, has been laid to rest following his funeral in Dublin at the weekend.
Msgr Keleher died on November 11 after a long illness. His remains were taken to the main chapel of Holy Cross College, Clonliffe, on Friday November 18 and received by Bishop Hlib Lonchyna, Apostolic Visitor for Ukrainian Greek Catholics in Ireland.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin greeted Bishop Hlib and the mourners prior to the commencement of the Parastas for a priest, a ceremony which lasted over two hours. Bishop Hlib led the service with help from a number of Greek Catholic priests from Ukraine and Canada.
He briefly referred to the archimandrite’s preference that liturgical traditions should be correctly observed.
This was followed by concelebrated Divine Liturgy for the repose of Msgr Keleher’s soul the following morning concelebrated by a number of Irish Latin-rite priests.
The Divine Liturgy was chanted in Old Church Slavonic, Ukrainian and English. Bishop Hlib preached in Ukrainian and English paying tribute to Msgr Keleher’s work as a priest and a scholar.
Msgr Keleher was an Irishman who loved the Irish nation and presided over the translation of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom into Irish, which he would regularly use in the course of the liturgy.
He also developed a love for the Ukrainian nation, which he contributed to both in the rebuilding of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church following the collapse of the Soviet Union and his historical studies of the Church.
Bishop Hlib referred to one of Msgr Keleher’s books "passion and Ressurection" – the Greek Catholic Church in Soviet Ukraine 1939- 1989, which chronicled the persecution and recovery of Greek-Catolicism, as a symbol of his own life, especially through his struggle as a committed pastor to the predominantly Ukrainian Eastern Catholic community in Ireland through his crippling arthritis.
Following the liturgy, the congregation was invited to make a final farewell before the coffin was closed and removed to Mount Jerome cemetery for burial.
At Mount Jerome, Bishop Hlib conducted the final prayers for the deceased in the presence of well over 100 often tearful mourners, most of whom were eastern European immigrants to Ireland.
Most participant joined in the closing Slavonic chant Vechnaya Pamyat (eternal memory) as many present help with the burial.
"Irish Catholic". November 24, 2011
