On Monday, July 29, Bishop Bohdan Dzyurakh, C.Ss.R, Exarch of the Ukrainians in Germany and Scandinavia, presided over the funeral of Father Johan Meijer, a Dutch Redemptorist priest, member of the province of Saint Clement (covering northern Germany, Belgian Flanders, the Netherlands and Switzerland).
The service took place in the side chapel of the Church of Saint Catherine in ’s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands, where the community of Saint John of Damascus founded by Father Johan, practices the Eastern rite. By a decree of Bishop Hlib Lonchyna of May 6, 2022, this community was integrated into the Eparchy of Saint Volodymyr the Great of Paris, which Father Johan took care of as long as his health permitted.
The Divine Liturgy in ‘s-Hertogenbosch 
Born on 26 March 1937, Father Johan Meijer joined the Redemptorist Congregation, taking his religious vows on 8 September 1956. He was ordained a priest on 24 April 1962. Since his student days, Johan Meijer had been fascinated by the Byzantine liturgy. The Dutch Redemptorists had all kinds of plans for him, but through the involvement of the superior general in Rome, Johan managed to do ‘Oriental work’, as he called it. He worked among others in Canada, studied in Thessaloniki and worked in a Ukrainian parish in Liège, Belgium.
From 1977 to 1982, he taught Eastern Orthodox liturgy and sacramental theology at the Theological Faculty of Tilburg. He then worked for the Apostolate for the Eastern Churches in the Netherlands from 1985 to 1998. In the meantime, Johan also founded a Byzantine chapel community John of Damascus, first in Tilburg and later in ‘s-Hertogenbosch.
In 1999, as leader of the chapel community, Johan was appointed archimandrite of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, an honorary title because of his many merits for connecting the Eastern and Western world within the Redemptorist congregation and certainly also in contacts with the Ukrainian Redemptorists in difficult times.
Father Johan died on 22 July this year at his home in Tilburg, the Netherlands, after years of battling Parkinson’s disease. He was buried in the crypt of the Redemptorist monastery in Wittem (the Netherlands).
at Wittem: outside and inside the crypt. 
During the funeral service, Bishop Bohdan commemorated the importance of Fr. Johan for the Ukrainians: “Father Johan got to know the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church at a time when it was heavily persecuted, in the communist time. As a Redemptorist, he was the voice of our ‘silent church’ in the east, and at that time, he secretly visited our bishops and confreres, and he was the connection between the General Government in Rome and the Redemptorists in Ukraine.”
In addition to Fr. Provincial Jan Hafmans and other Dutch priests, Ukrainian Redemptorists from Belgium concelebrated the funeral liturgy: Father Oleh Zymak, parish priest of Brussels, and Father Ruslan Pikh, parish priest of Antwerp. Archpriest Ivan Danchevskyi, episcopal vicar in Belgium, represented the apostolic administrator of the Eparchy of Saint Volodymyr the Great of Paris.
In a message of condolence, Bishop Hlib Lonchyna, Apostolic Administrator of the Eparchy of Saint Volodymyr the Great of Paris, expressed his gratitude to God for Father Johan’s life and works, his dedication to souls, especially those of the Dutch, and his commitment to the Ukrainian people. He thanked all those who supported Father Johan, especially the Community of Saint John of Damascus.
Jelle Wind,
Province Secretary
