“We need to adapt from Europe everything that is universal, eternal and strong and to disregard all diseases,” UGCC Head

“The Church teaches: if democracy loses its moral orientation, does not base itself on moral laws and authentic values – it degrades.  And today we see certain instances of the degradation of democracy itself,” stated his Beatitude Sviatoslav (Shevchuk) in an interview to be published in Hazeta po-ukrainsky. In reply to a journalist’s question, whether post-modernism, so present in Europe, challenges the Church and society, UGCC Head noted that one can characterize European secular society during post-modernism as being morally relativistic.   That means that certain shared principles of social life are decided on the basis of a social agreement.  According to UGCC Primate, moral law is integral to the nature of man, it is “given by God” and is beyond any confessions; if the moral law does not coincide with the official one, then a Christian should not obey the latter. Additionally, His Beatitude Sviatoslav also expressed the Church’s position towards elements of post-modernism, especially juvenile justice, which distributes authority between the family and the state, favoring the latter.  UGCC Primate thinks that many of the new ideologies which involve many issues in the sexual sphere, reproductive health or juvenile justice, all have one motive - simulation. “This is a novelty – false and amorphous, it has nothing to do with fundamental principles of European civilization.  Even more, right now we are observing an interesting phenomenon when even some religious groups are trying to counter pose Christian values of Ukraine with European values. European values to Christian values. But European civilization was never constructed around principles of juvenile justice and homosexuality!  It was founded on other principles – individual responsibility and civic action, justice, respect shown even to the lowest ranking member of society, a struggle against totalitarian systems of governing people and society,” emphasized UGCC Head. Therefore, we need “to adapt from Europe all that is universal, eternal and strong and to disregard all diseases,” summarized His Beatitude Sviatoslav.  

UGCC Department of Information