Carols are an instrument of national unity because everyone sings them, the Head of the UGCC at the presentation of the Great Christmas Book

In his speech, His Beatitude Sviatoslav called the publication "a book about carols in a modern way."

"This book is a special invitation to dialogue and communication between those who know how to sing carols and those who do not know, between believers and non-believers," said the Head of the UGCC and added that in carols secular and religious, modern and eternal are intertwined.

His Beatitude Sviatoslav stressed that carols are an integral part of Ukrainian culture. He also noted that the carol can be "one of the instruments of national unity, because everyone carols: Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, East, West, North and South."

Encouraging readers to discover the "Great Christmas Book," His Beatitude Sviatoslav expressed his hopes that it would become "our new Ukrainian spiritual bestseller and thus help pass on the phenomenon of Ukrainian carols for the next generation.

We invite you to buy the "Big Christmas Book" in the Church Shop of the UGCC: https://shop-ugcc.com.ua/

In a special way, the Head of the Church thanked the publishing house: “The fact that today we open a book, not another website about carols, is a feat. For, as the ancient Roman proverb says, ‘Verba volant, scripta manent’” (from the Latin "Words fly away, what is written remains").

"The more the Church speaks of its canonicity, the more it loses its believers, in particular those who could become them," said Mr. Yaroslav Hrytsak during a presentation in which he participated through an online broadcast, adding: "Christmas is always with us all year. Christ is also always with us. We understand that many modern people will not read the Gospels, so there is a great need to start talking about Christ in the language they would like to read.”

Mr. Yaroslav also said that he and Nadijka Herbish had written The Great Christmas Book like Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia. Those authors wanted to write the Gospel in a new form that would reach primarily those who are not believers. "Many people come to God because of such things - Narnia, Tolkien, music, movies etc. That's how we wrote this book. We hope that this book, when it falls into the hands of a young person, in particular somewhere in eastern Ukraine or even in Russia, will help him come to Jesus Christ. This is the news we wanted to convey," said Mr. Yaroslav Hrytsak.

We would like to add that the presentation of the publication "The Great Christmas Book," organized by the publishing and educational project "Portal" and the National Reserve "Sophia of Kyiv," was not only a cultural but also an ecumenical event. Together with His Beatitude Sviatoslav and the authors Nadijka Herbish and Yaroslav Hrytsak, the other participants were: Bishop Agapit Humeniuk (Orthodox Church of Ukraine), Bishop Mykhail Anishchenko, Ihor Kozlovsky (president of the Center for Religious Studies and International Spiritual Relations), and Denys Bloshchynsky, leader of the music group NESPROSTA. The presentation was moderated by Anton Drobovych, Chairman of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory.

Photo: Oleksandr Savransky

The UGCC Department for information