Patriarch Sviatoslav: ‘When someone wants to draw us into the “Russian world,” he denies us of our identity’

Thursday, 06 September 2012, 22:48

Today to talk about the Ukrainian world is effective and appropriate. We have a powerful identity that nobody has managed to destroy. And it is developing. So when someone wants us to draw us into the "Russian world,” he is denying us of our identity. And when we talk about the Ukrainian world, we talk about the integrity of our own culture, language and worldview, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk, expressed in an interview for Ukrayinska Pravda.

According to the church leader, it is impossible to keep the identity of the Ukrainian world by just concentrating on itself.

“In today's world this can be achieved if there is openness. After all, openness is one way to preserve what we have. I have seen many times how those who are not native to Ukraine respect our culture. For example, in Argentina every parish has a dance troupe. And not only the parishioners of our communities dance in them,” said the patriarch.

He believes that it is advantageous for certain people to depict Ukrainians as aggressive, closed, representatives of the Ukrainian ghetto who are incapable of having a dialogue with someone without attacking them. But it absolutely does not correspond to the psychology of a Ukrainian.

The Primate of the church said that the “Russian world,” which certain forces are trying to build in Ukraine, is not a church project. “It is a national project. And the church is being used as an ideologue, an advocate, to renew or restore the Soviet Union, which is a utopia,” said Patriarch Sviatoslav in the interview.

UGCC Information Department