The Head of the UGCC named three main spiritual wounds of Ukrainian society

"On the one hand, the deeper you understand the church life of Ukraine, the more clearly you see the greatness and holiness of our God's people, and on the other hand - their weaknesses and sinfulness. Since my mission as a pastor is to heal the wounds of sin, I am always saddened by the spiritual diseases of Ukrainian society,” said the Father and Head of the UGCC.

His Beatitude Sviatoslav singled out three main spiritual wounds of Ukrainians.

According to him, the first wound is that "we do not know how to be free." "Freedom is a great gift from God. But freedom is also the ability to do good. And we often interpret it as an opportunity to do anything. Freedom is a certain quality of the human spirit. After all, it is possible to have external freedom from enslavement, imprisonment, but not to have the freedom to build, to use this gift of God correctly,” he explained.

"Our next flaw is the lack of understanding that freedom is always about responsibility. We are as mature in our personal, church, public life as we are able to take responsibility: for our actions, for the fate of our nation, for our future,” said the Father and the Head of the UGCC.

Another feature, says the Head of the Church, which manifests itself in the Ukrainian society, is legal nihilism. The year of the pandemic, according to His Beatitude, showed this very clearly.

The Head of the UGCC noted that contempt for the law, which guards the common good, is associated with a very deep social disease - corruption. "Corruption is one way to destroy the law. We often see how the very lawmakers are the first violators of the laws they pass,” the bishop stated.

His Beatitude Sviatoslav is convinced that, since we are all marked by such stigmas, we should always start treating them with ourselves.

"For example, we have long had to follow the quarantine rules that guard our lives and health. But we see how Ukrainians neglect them, and the disease has gone beyond control. We really have a big task ahead of us to create a new culture of life and health. So, as Christians, we had to realize from the beginning that we must follow these sanitary norms in our churches, in our families, in our personal lives. Not because someone is forcing us but because it can protect me and my neighbor from the spread of a dangerous disease," said the spiritual leader of Ukrainians.

The UGCC Department for Information