‘Build Ukraine at home, look for your happiness here on your native soil,’ Patriarch Sviatoslav during a meeting with young people in Odesa

“Build Ukraine at home, look for your happiness here on your native soil. When I communicated with your peers who went abroad, I saw nostalgia in their eyes, only in the church do they see a piece of Ukraine,” Patriarch Sviatoslav (Shevchuk) said on December 9, 2011, at a meeting with young people in Odesa as part of his pastoral visit of the Odesa and Crimea Exarchate of the UGCC. The UGCC head also remembered the words of Pope John Paul II, who urged the Ukrainian youth to “stay home because this is your land.” During the conversation, the primate of the Church emphasized the dignity of the human person who “comes from God who created man in His own image and manner, so nobody as the right to encroach upon this dignity.” “Dignity gives us not the state, not power, not even a passport of a certain country. The state must protect everyone, no matter what his position is in the society,” said the head of the Greek Catholics. Young people interested in the idea of the Ukrainian world. “I understand the Ukrainian world as unity and solidarity of Ukrainians in Ukraine and worldwide. To build the Ukrainian world means to care about one’s culture and love the Ukrainian people, as well as to make sure the dignity of Ukrainians is respected by other nations,” said Patriarch Sviatoslav. In addition, the head of the UGCC called upon the youth to take responsibility for the future of their people. “We want to be members of the European community, hoping that it will come to us, that someone will build a Russian, American, or Ukrainian world for us. Instead, we must take responsibility for the future of our nation,” he said. Among other things, His Beatitude Sviatoslav said that the UGCC is “seriously thinking about how to communicate with young people, who are very good and who are looking for a living parish community.” The UGCC head said he promises to respond to questions he left unanswered in an audio CD “100 Questions for His Beatitude.”  

UGCC Information Department