The Patriarch of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has made a heartfelt appeal to European Nations for solidarity and support for the people of Ukraine. Speaking at a Feb. 25 press conference held at Vatican Radio, Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk denounced the lack of public attention to Ukraine’s unrest until an explosion of violence last week that left some 100 people dead, and thousands more injured. He said Ukraine is now living through a dark time because nobody knows how the situation is going to evolve, Vatican Radio reported.
But he also said it was a moment of great hope because Maidan has become a yeast that has caused the whole Ukrainian population to ferment.
After recounting the reasons for the unrest, which centered on President refusal to sign a pact with the EU, Patiarch Sviatoslav made an appeal for solidarity. “I would like to ask Europeans to wake up because what is happening in Ukraine, sooner or later, will touch all of you. Because Ukraine is part of Europe. And if people continue to pretend that nothing is happening, not only will things worsen in Eastern Europe, but this will cause great lack of faith in European values in the Western nations,” he said.
The Patriarch also drew attention to the problem of Ukrainian students obtaining visas to study in Europe and appealed for solidarity and help for the many thousands who have been wounded during the Maidan uprising. He noted that Poland, Lithuania, the Czech republic and Slovakia have already offered to receive the wounded and he appealed to Italy to do the same. He also expressed his
gratitude to Germany, Poland and France for having sent their foreign ministers to Ukraine to act as peace mediators in the most difficult moment of the standoff. “This kind of solidarity must continue because the danger that one of our neighbours will provoke a civil war has not blown over,” he warned.
Read online here – but please note that above we have corrected the Latin-imposed (and offending) description of the Head of the Kievan Church as “major archbishop”. The Kievan Catholic primacy is older than the Russian Orthodox Church’s own autocephaly and the Moscow patriarchate, and this should be respected with no less than the same respect shown to the revived Patriarch of Moscow.
Ukraine’s Catholic Patriarch Appeals for Solidarity and Support | ZENIT – The World Seen From Rome