Declaration of Solidarity by the Bishops of the Peremyshl -Warsaw UGCC Metropolitanate in Poland with His Beatitude Sviatoslav

Saturday, 18 January 2014, 15:29
It is with great surprise and disbelief that we received the news made public today that government authorities in Ukraine are threatening the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church with a repetition of the scenario of 1946, when the Communist rule of that day passed a decision to forcibly liquidate the Greek-Catholic Church. We did not assume that after over 20 years of Ukraine’s independence and 25 years after UGCC’s exit from the underground, it can even cross someone’s mind to use old long-ago compromised means, the goal of which can be the halting of activities of relevant religious organizations of UGCC and which consider a person as nothing as well as a person’s rights, mainly one’s right of religious freedom.

As bishops of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in Poland, which is a living part of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church worldwide, we express our solidarity with UGCC Head His Beatitude Sviatoslav and all hierarchs, priests, monastic orders, and lay people of our Church in Ukraine.  We support the statement of His Beatitude Sviatoslav that, although the Church is not a participant  of political processes, it cannot stand aside when it’s faithful seek spiritual care.  Together with the Head and the Father of our Church, we also believe that the Church continues to have the right to provide an evaluation of the situation in the country if human rights are violated as well as principles of morality which evolve from God’s commandments and are reflected in the social teachings of the Church.   We expect that those who have been entrusted by the Ukrainian people with responsibility for Ukraine, will finally understand that the only way towards the resolution of the socio-political crisis in Ukraine is an honest and open dialogue of all sides, beginning with the initial willingness of the authorities to hear their own people.  Let us not even permit the thought that in a free Ukraine there can be a repetition of the terrible -- condemned by history -- time of the persecution of the Church and the faithful.

 

We urge UGCC faithful in Poland to pray for the gift of wisdom for those who today are called upon to serve Ukraine and to guarantee its constitutional rights, so that they can understand their responsibility before God and the people.  We ask for prayers for a peaceful solution of today’s urgent sore problems in Ukraine; that there is respect for: the free choice of the Ukrainian people and the dignity of every single human being.  Let us pray to God for the UGCC and other Churches, so that in a free Ukraine there will never be a repetition of the dark times of the persecution of the Church and its faithful.

 

                                               Archbishop Ivan (Martynyak) Metropolitan, Peremyshl-Warsaw Archeparchy

                                               Bishop Volodymyr (Yushchak),        Wrozlaw-Gdansk Eparchy

                                               Bishop Yevhen (Popovych), Auxilliary Bishop, Peremyshl-Warsaw Archeparchy

                                                          

                                               Peremyshl-Wrozlaw, January 13, 2014

 

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