UGCC Head: “We are a people whose history has been stolen”

For us, Ukrainians, to be ourselves means to build “a Ukrainian world”. “A Ukrainian world” is a world of free people, a people born more than a millennium ago during the Baptism of Rus-Ukraine.  The Primate of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church His Beatitude Sviatoslav (Shevchuk) stated this in an interview with the Russian edition of Nezavisimaya hazeta [Independent Newspaper] in answer to the question about what constitutes the concept of being Ukrainian.

UGCC Head emphasizes that Ukrainians are a people whose history has been stolen, particularly to benefit certain imperialistic ideologies.  Therefore,when we speak of  “a Ukrainian world”, we are not propagating a concept of opposition to anyone.

However, the idea of “russkoho mira [Rusian world]” states His Beatitude Sviatoslav, “is based on the ideological foundation that has nothing to do neither with the Church nor history.”

“This is a concept in which during its time the ЦК КПРС [Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union] perceived a successful ideological instrument.  Right now, this pseudo-scholarly platform is reanimating itself as the imperialistic idea of the renewal of the Soviet Union.  The concept of “the common cradle” when applied to society, expresses itself in such initiatives as a unifying referendum.  When it is applied to the Church, there emerge such ideas as the     so-called “russkiy mir [Rusian world]”   -- although to name it correctly, it is rossiyskyi svit [Russian world].  We understand very clearly what is behind it, what are its origins and goals.  I think that an educated person, whether in Ukraine or in Russia, will only react with irony to such an attempt to reanimate the  flowerless buds of soviet ideology.  Ukrainians have their own, and at that, a very different concept,” believes UGCC Primate.

He reminded all, that in his time, his “great predecessor Josyf Slipyi” formulated the concept of being Ukrainian.  “It is contained in one simple phrase: Be yourself.”  For us, Ukrainians, being ourselves means building “a Ukrainian world,” concluded UGCC Head.

UGCC Department of Information