The Ukrainian Catholic University is an open academic community living the Eastern Christian tradition and forming leaders to serve with professional excellence in Ukraine and internationally – for the glory of God, the common good, and the dignity of the human person. The Ukrainian Catholic University has inherited and continues to uphold the scholarly traditions of the Greek Catholic Theological Academy established in the late 1920s by Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky. Rev. Yosyf Slipy was the academy’s first rector. After the institution was closed in 1944, its mission and function were assumed by the Rome-based Pope St. Clement Ukrainian Catholic University organized and chaired by Metropolitan Yosyf Slipy in 1963.