Ukrainians have dreamed of the unity and unification of all Ukrainian lands for centuries. In particular, it was the leitmotif and defining idea of the National Liberation War of the Ukrainian people in the middle of the seventeenth century. These events led to the fact that the idea of the unity of the Ukrainian lands became a part of the public consciousness of Ukrainians.

There is a number of meanings of the term "catholicity". The most commonly used are: the unification of all lands inhabited by a particular nation in a single territory; spiritual consolidation of all inhabitants of the state, cohesion of citizens regardless of their nationality. Finally, catholicity is inseparable from the statehood, sovereignty and real independence of the people - the foundation for building a democratic state.

Taras Shevchenko, the great son of our people, undoubtedly played a significant, unsurpassed role in forming a sense of unity and Ukrainianness. The idea of the unity of Ukrainian lands began to be embodied in the political program of M. Drahomanov "Brotherhood of Tarasivtsi", works of I. Franko, L. Ukrainka, M. Hrushevskyi, virtually all Ukrainian parties and other political organizations of the late nineteenth - early twentieth century. In 1895, the Ukrainian politician Yulian Bachynskyi proclaimed in his book Ukraina Irredenta: “Ukraine for itrself! Here is her call. A free, large, sovereign politically independent Ukraine - one inseparable from Sian to the Caucasus - that's its flag!"

The Ukrainian national-democratic revolution of 1917–1921 made a dream come true for many generations of Ukrainians to unite into a single conciliar state. It has absorbed all the centuries-old experience of the national liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people. It was during the years of liberation struggles that the creative forces, love of freedom and national spirit of the Ukrainian people were revealed with extraordinary force. As a result of the liberation struggle, two democratic states were formed - the Ukrainian People's Republic (UPR) and the Western Ukrainian People's Republic (WUPR). The statehood of Ukraine has become a historical fact.

On January 22, 1919, at 12 o'clock in Kyiv, a solemn Reunion ceremony took place on Sophia Square in a festive atmosphere (the day was declared non-working). At 11 o'clock in the morning, to the sounds of music, Ukrainian military units began to come here, standing on all four sides of the square. A large number of people gathered, filled the entire area and neighboring streets. The military band played the National Anthem. Lev Bachynskyi, the head of the Galician delegation, began the act of conciliarity with his greeting, and Lonhyn Tsehelskyi read the statement of the Presidium of the Ukrainian National Council and the State Secretariat on the will of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic to unite into one Ukrainian conciliar state. "The Western Ukrainian People's Republic (Halychyna, Bukovyna, Hungarian Rus) and the Dnieper Greater Ukraine, which have been torn apart from each other for centuries are merging together for centuries. The eternal dreams of the best sons of Ukraine lived and died. There is only one independent Ukrainian People's Republic,” was said in the universal read in the center of the capital. After that, Lev Bachynskyi presented a diploma to the Chairman of the Directory Volodymyr Vynnychenko. After receiving it, he greeted the delegation of Western Ukrainians with a short speech in which he emphasized the historical significance of the Act of Reunification. The next day, January 23, 1919, in the premises of the Kyiv Opera House (modern National Opera of Ukraine), the Labor Congress of Ukraine discussed these documents and approved them. By ratifying the Universal Directory in this way, Congress gave it a legitimate legal character. As if addressing contemporaries, one of the authors of the Act of Unification, State Secretary of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, Lonhyn Tsehelskyi, spoke about January 22 : “This is a date that will be memorized by Ukrainian children of future generations along with dates such as the Christianization of Kievan Rus', the battle of Kalka, like the battle near Poltava or the destruction of the Sich”. His words truly became prophetic. The culmination of cooperation and consolidation of efforts was the joint march of Ukrainian armies on Kyiv in August 1919. However, the unification of the UPR and WUPR into one state was not brought to a logical conclusion due to a number of circumstances. The two national Ukrainian formations were rather a confederate state union. The union of the Western Ukrainian People's Republic and the Ukrainian People's Republic was symbolic rather than a state-legal one, and no real unification took place. The united parties did not have enough state-building forces to withstand the difficult conditions of the time.

The dream could not be fully realized, but it remained. As a goal, as a lesson, as an inheritance. And today, the idea of unity not only has not lost its relevance, but has become even more acute.

The first celebration of the Synod took place on January 22, 1939 in Khust. At that time, this city was the capital of Carpathian Ukraine - Czechoslovak autonomy. On this day, under the blue and yellow flags, a 30,000 strong demonstration took place, which gathered in the capital of Carpathian Ukraine people from all over the region to commemorate the events of 20 years ago.

The main tradition on the Day of Reunification is the formation of a "living chain" of unity. The first such mass action took place on January 22, 1990 - on the 71st anniversary of the Act of Unification. Then more than a million people, holding hands, formed a continuous chain from Kyiv to Lviv. The action became a bright manifestation of the unity, the desire of the Ukrainian people for freedom.

Unity Day has been officially celebrated in Ukraine since 1999. However, in 2011 it was abolished and the Day of Unity and Freedom of Ukraine was established instead. And in 2014, a presidential decree restored the holiday as the Day of Unity of Ukraine. Unity presupposes not only the memory of the past, but also the need for united joint work and interaction in modern Ukraine, when we, from different regions, communicate, work together, create significant and important things. Today, Ukraine continues to fight for independence and unity. Therefore, catholicity remains on the agenda of national tasks. An integral Ukraine is the return of the occupied Crimea and certain districts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Volodymyr Hrechenko, a professor of history.