Kunytsky, Leontii

Kunytsky, Leontii [Куницький, Леонтій; Kunyc’kyj, Leontij], b 20 June 1876 in Orikhovets, Skalat county, Galicia, d 25 September 1961 in Mostyska, Lviv oblast. Ukrainian Catholic priest, and church and political figure. He studied in Lviv, Vienna, Rome, and Innsbruck (D Th 1904). Ordained in 1901, he ministered to the Galician immigrants in North America until 1914. After his return to Lviv (1917), in an unusual act, the government of the Western Ukrainian National Republic appointed him canon of Lviv eparchy (1918). He was also pastor of Saint George's Cathedral in Lviv and taught theology at the Greek Catholic Theological Academy. He was one of the most prominent members of the Ukrainian Citizens' Committee. In the 1920s he was a prominent member of the Ukrainian Labor party and heled publish its organs Nova rada (Lviv) (1919–20) and the daily Nash prapor (1923–4). A founding member of the Ukrainian National Democratic Alliance and a member of its Central Committee, he represented that party as a deputy to the Polish Sejm (1928–30). In 1937–9 he headed an aid committee for Ukrainian political prisoners. In 1945 he was arrested by the NKVD and sent to the Gulag where he remained until 1956.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]