Patriarch Sviatoslav on Day of Unity: Today there again are attempts to divide Ukraine (video)

Tuesday, 24 January 2012, 23:25
The primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Patriarch Sviatoslav (Shevchuk) calls on the faithful to celebrate the Day of Unity, “because it is no secret that today there again are attempts to divide Ukraine, to give in to other states, to make us a people who dwell in the dark.” The head of the UGCC symbolically suggested: If today Jesus Christ walked on the banks of the Jordan-Ukrainian Dnipro and saw Ukraine, he would have said the same words said in Galilee, “Pagan Ukrainian Galilee,” because ever since our people first appeared, a lot of people, different religions, ideas, particularly atheist ones, have passed through our land, destroyed the understanding of seeing the true God and took light from Ukrainians. So many states have tried to divide the Ukrainian land, and hence, the Ukrainian people, trying to making it the servant of others.
The primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Patriarch Sviatoslav (Shevchuk) calls on the faithful to celebrate the Day of Unity, “because it is no secret that today there again are attempts to divide Ukraine, to give in to other states, to make us a people who dwell in the dark.” The head of the UGCC symbolically suggested: If today Jesus Christ walked on the banks of the Jordan-Ukrainian Dnipro and saw Ukraine, he would have said the same words said in Galilee, “Pagan Ukrainian Galilee,” because ever since our people first appeared, a lot of people, different religions, ideas, particularly atheist ones, have passed through our land, destroyed the understanding of seeing the true God and took light from Ukrainians. So many states have tried to divide the Ukrainian land, and hence, the Ukrainian people, trying to making it the servant of others. The patriarch wonders if perhaps today Christ gives us a special new beginning.  Today a light shines from us, from Christians who are called on to light up the land with their Christian life, and to bring God’s word, which today we hear in church. Patriarch Sviatoslav noted that today’s Day of Unity coincides with the beginning of the preaching of Jesus Christ. “We sometimes call this day the Day of Unity, when Western and Eastern Ukraine declared to the world that we are one great nation. And we can remain a great European
people, one of the major European nations only if we will be a united state, which embraces all the children of this people, who are children of the same mother earth, and who live by the same spiritual and cultural values. Therefore, today we should celebrate the Day of Unity. This is one of the holidays that can give us a lot, those who experience it today. Because it is no secret that today there again are attempts to divide Ukraine,
to give in to other states, to make us a people who dwell in the dark.” He believes that today a great line shone: “This unity is one of the manifestations of God’s life, because God is one, and each person who unites with him is capable of creating unity, above all, with his brother, who lives nearby.” He said that we Christians want to celebrate and experience the Day of Unity in a Christian way, because we understand that “no elections and no party unify our people.” His Beatitude Sviatoslav believes that unity has a much deeper foundation, which can be spiritual unity. He believes that as long as Christians in Ukraine are not united in one single family, the Ukrainian people and this unity will not have that foundation. “Therefore, today we begin our week of prayer for the unity between Christians. And we ask our Savior to give us spiritual unity, so that unity penetrated all aspects of the spiritual life of our people. Again, living in the light that today each person emits, we ask God to give us unity,” concluded the patriarch.  

UGCC Information Department

 
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