by Stefano Caprio

In a long Christmas interview, the Major Archbishop of the Greek Catholics, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, spoke about the future of Ukraine by looking at it with the eyes of faith. For him, the representation of God as the “Great Protector” who guarantees our well-being is a "stereotype that has now been destroyed, so we must learn again to ask ourselves: God, where are you? Where can we find you in a time of war? How should I communicate with You today?”

On Holy Christmas, a national holiday in Ukraine celebrated since last year on the same day by both Catholics and Orthodox, except for those still tied to Moscow and the traditions of the old calendar, RBK-Ukraine (РБК-Україна) published an extensive interview with His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the Major Archbishop of Kyiv–Galicia and Primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC).

In the liturgies, the faithful remember him as “our patriarch”, a title never officially recognised by the Holy See to avoid further confusion, but very clear in the minds of the heirs of the Union of Brest created at the end of the 16th century.

In addition to saying what he expects might happen in the war with Russia, a major topic on all international sites, the head of the Catholics who follow the “Orthodox tradition" focused on the issue that is really close to his heart: not the relationship with the Russians, but that with his own people, and with the future of Ukraine.

Ukraine is the Rus'(sia) that refuses to be part of the "Russian World", looking for its own identity and feeling part of Europe and of the universal brotherhood of Christians and all people of good will, that is those who do not try to impose themselves on others to assert themselves, as the Muscovite Russians have always tried to do.

According to sociological surveys, the number of Orthodox faithful linked to Moscow has drastically decreased in the three years since the invasion of the country, while the number of Greek Catholics has increased significantly, moving closer to the Autocephalous Orthodox Church, and becoming the second religious community in Ukraine.

Shevchuk, however, does not claim primacy or success in proselytising: on the contrary, he expresses his solidarity with those who have felt "betrayed by their Mother, holy Russia".

If anything, he highlights the active role played by Greek Catholics in constructive dialogue with the autocephalous Church, whose head, Metropolitan of Kyiv Epiphanius (Dumenko), was recently received in the Vatican by Pope Francis, to unite in the reconstruction of a country destroyed, humiliated and emptied by the assaults of the "elder brothers" from Moscow.

According to the archbishop, "the trauma of feeling betrayed by one's own Church is a particularly tragic experience, which is unfolding before everyone's eyes, and sociology cannot explain what happens in the souls of our Ukrainian brothers and sisters.”

The supreme pastor of the Greek Catholics is not interested so much in how to stop the war, a task that falls to the state and military authorities, but in "how the war has affected our society and our people, and the new challenges to which the Church is called to respond, ours, together with the Orthodox Churches in our country.”

This is the third wartime Christmas and New Year, and the conflict has upset all human relationships, which will not be easy to rebuild, even more than the devastated buildings and cities. For the Greek Catholic patriarch, this means, “first of all the relationship with oneself, with what each of us must do at present, the priorities and relationships with loved ones and neighbours, for whom we take on responsibility and duties.”

Regarding the issue of relationships to be rebuilt, Shevchuk makes a truly profound observation, noting that "relations with God, the rules and habits of our spiritual and religious life have also changed radically – we ourselves have changed.”

To all those who look at Ukraine from the outside, thinking they know the people who live there, "we must say that the Ukraine you thought you knew no longer exists today. . . We are different, and we want to be better.”

Having lived through such a tragic experience, “we are living the moment of a new birth, better still a rebirth", in which there are the heroes who defend the homeland not only on the battlefields, but also the "giants of the spirit who bring us back to the deepest foundations of the existence of our people, to the origin of our national and spiritual life.”

War is also the cause of a crisis of faith, since seeking shelter from the enemy by invoking divine help does not seem to work, but "this is not how the relationship with God works", explains the archbishop. “The true living God is a person, he is a Someone, not just something, and we must know how to recognise him in the personal relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in the context of our capacity for relationship.”

For Patriarch Shevchuk, the representation of God as the "Great Protector" who guarantees our well-being is a "stereotype that has now been destroyed, so we must learn again to ask ourselves: God, where are you? Where can we find you in a time of war? How should I communicate with You today? We must rediscover the authentic presence of God among us.”

For many people, God disappeared from the spiritual horizon, then manifested himself again. “In the last three years we have experienced many moments of this kind, moments of terror and helplessness, and then of regeneration of our strength, of common defence of our life and our land, then again of fatigue and depression, always looking for the source that can give us back energy and love for life.”

Wounds are healed and spirits are revived: this is the only secret of the extraordinary resilience of the Ukrainian people. The experience of war helps believers to rediscover in a new way the image of the life-giving God, not only to defend themselves from evil, but to rebuild themselves, society and the life of the people.

The interview cites the meeting of the Synod of Greek Catholic bishops with civil authorities, in the context of Ukraine's "plan of resistance", with the archbishop stressing the importance of the “increasingly significant enhancement of the role and place of the Church in these difficult times.”

People in power often cultivate the illusion that they can do everything alone, while now it is clearer that “the religious life of the people and the support of the Church are the secret of the authentic victory we want to achieve.”

Specifically, we are not only talking about the Church's social welfare services, or the defence of Ukrainian national interests at the international level, but "the role of accompanying our people, subjected to the madness of war.”

People need not to feel alone and abandoned, and the presence of priests reminds us that there is always someone who takes care of those who suffer, of those who need advice, rediscovering the pastoral nature of the Church, before its charitable and social role.

"We are a Church founded on roots that date back to early Christianity in Kyiv," Shevchuk notes, "with fraternal ties with the Orthodox, and in union with the entire universal Catholic Church. Half of our structures are located outside the borders of Ukraine.”

This is why "the Russian aggressor hates us so much, and has always tried to destroy the Greek Catholic Church, both in the time of the Tsars and during the Soviet era, all the more so today, when the master of the Kremlin is trying to rebuild the empire.”

Citing a term widely used by the Patriarchate of Moscow, the archbishop explains that the Greek Catholic Church is also “state-establishing” (gosudarstvo-ustanavitelnaya, государство-установительная) because of its contribution in history and in the current rebirth, but it has never been and does not intend to be a “State Church” (gosudarstvennaya tserkov, государственная церковь).

Asked about the role of the Holy See in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which has often left Ukrainians and among Greek Catholics wondering, Shevchuk explains that "war can be looked at from the point of view of the victims, or from that of those who seek to be arbiters at the international level, to serve all suffering peoples and carry out a mission as a universal peacemaker.”

When Pope Francis spoke of “two brotherly peoples”, he did not mean this in the manner of the Russians, as a justification for an invasion and genocide; in any case, “he lately said that we are cousins, not really brothers, even if, for us, it is enough to say that we are close, without specifying the degrees of kinship.”

Shevchuk remembers the years of his ministry in Argentina when Pope Francis was his superior as metropolitan archbishop of Buenos Aires. “I hear from him often and we talk to each other in Spanish,” exchanging points of view even if they do not always coincide.

The Vatican plays no active role as a political mediator in possible peace negotiations, notes the head of the Greek Catholics, also because “no one has asked it”, but the Holy See has been engaged for ten years in humanitarian aid, as well as religious dialogue, since Crimea’s annexation and the beginning of the conflict in the Donbass.

Finally, the primate notes that “mediators of all kinds have been proposed and assigned to us, but so far no negotiations have begun, so let's see what happens this year.” Meanwhile, Greek Catholics are already at work for the rebirth of Ukraine.

RUSSIAN WORLD IS THE ASIANEWS NEWSLETTER DEDICATED TO RUSSIA. WOULD YOU LIKE TO RECEIVE IT EVERY SATURDAY? TO SUBSCRIBE, CLICK HERE.

• ukraine
• kyiv
• shevchuk
• greek catholics
• orthodox
• russia
• moscow