His Beatitude Sviatoslav: "Spiritual and moral education in schools fosters interconfessional tolerance in a society"

The Primate of the Church pointed out that in teaching the courses of spiritual and moral orientation the following programs are primarily used: "The Basics of Christian Ethics", "Christian Ethics in Ukrainian Culture", and "Biblical History and Christian Ethics". It's important, emphasized the hierarch, that practically all those programs are the result of activity of working groups, which included representatives of  various Ukrainian Churches.

The Head of the Church said that religious education at the schools of Ukraine in the last twenty years is realized via teaching interconfessional subjects of spiritual and moral character, which from time to time are put under attack as those which don't correspond to the secular type of education.

In 2015, alongside with the right to open schools, on the legislative basis there were distinguished the notions of "academic character of education" and "secular character of education", which unjustifiably had been considered practically synonyms.

The Head of the UGCC noted that the priority of Catholic school in Ukraine is its affordability for anyone, and also the desire to care about the good for children and serve the need of evangelization and catechesis for children and parents,  coevals of the recent atheistic past, who didn't have a chance to hear about God and Church. "Therefore, as we see, public demand and the need to establish such schools in Ukraine, are very high, and the Church realizes this very well", said His Beatitude Sviatoslav.

The innovation, according to him, became the collaboration of the Church and governmental educational institutions in several eparchies, concerning the establishment of schools of Christian orientation, which became possible on the initiative of some active laymen.  By means of agreements and  contracts, on the basis of state school, the Church and local authorities  created a new school - school of Christian orientation. The parents' community accepted such changes approvingly. We know that not all children at those schools are faithful or active members of the Catholic Church, however, friendly atmosphere, positive attitude, and Christian approaches to upbringing attract parents, and they agree that their children attend such a school.

"State school in Ukraine is focused on a certain standard of knowledge and skills, but it lacks understanding  the need to prepare a child for life and form in his/her the ability to use received knowledge in practice and life. Catholic school in Ukraine puts before itself the task to help children gain quality knowledge, obtain skills, and develop as a personality," emphasized the Primate of the Church.

The UGCC Department of Information