On the Sunday before Christmas the UGCC for the third time will celebrate the Day of the Migrant

On January 4, 2009, the UGCC for the third time will celebrate the Day of the Migrant. It is difficult to overestimate the value of the diaspora for preserving and developing the UGCC in the 20th century. At the beginning of the last century the Church actively responded to the necessities of the Ukrainian migration of that time. At the end of the 20th century the diaspora gave to the Church great treasures, a whole cohort of prominent, highly-educated, professional people. Presently more than 2 million Ukrainian Greek-Catholics permanently live outside Ukraine, which makes up about one-third of the faithful of our Church. At the beginning of the 21st century a new challenge appears before us – 4.5 million Ukrainians of the fourth wave of immigration need the united concern of the Church on both sides of the ocean. With the blessing of His Beatitude Lubomyr the Commission of the UGCC on Matters of Immigrants invites all to a common, church-wide prayer for immigrants and members of their families. "The distance and time which divide the families of immigrants create considerable challenges to endurance in the vocation of marriage that has public and spiritual dimensions. The first dimension is represented in statistics about the amount of divorces and also in growing relevance of problems of social orphans (to which teachers, psychologists and social workers started paying attention long ago). The second dimension contains key responses to these challenges. If a family is built on a strong foundation of Christian values and openness to knowing the living God, it does not matter where this house is built. Harmony will dominate in it and the fruits will be care and mutual understanding in married couples, and in parents for children." So Hryhoriy Seleschuk, head of the commission, commented for the Information Department. With the decision of the Forty-second Session of the Synod of Bishops of the Kyiv and Halych Major Archbishopric of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church (Lviv-Bryukhovychi, December 17-18, 2008 A.D.) the following petition has been included in the Liturgy for the Day of the Migrant: "Again we pray for our brothers and sisters who because of necessity have left Ukraine, and for their families." For your attention we publish a Ukrainian translation of the Message of His Holiness Benedict XVI on the occasion of the 95th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, done by the Commission of the UGCC on Matters of the Family, and also the address of the head of the Commission of the UGCC on Matters of the Family on the occasion of the celebration in the UGCC of the Day of the Migrant.

Information Department of the UGCC