The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, said that the people of Ukraine will celebrate Christmas.
“Stop the military actions, stop killing us. This will be the first step to genuine and lasting peace. Peace is something deeper than the absence of war. It is not just about winning in war, but overcoming the very spirit of war, defeating it in its causes,”he said.
As he makes this yet another heartfelt plea for Ukraine and its people, on the bookcase behind the Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halyč, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, points out the helmet and a bulletproof vest on the bookcase behind him. “See how heavy they are… We were putting them on every day. Someone joked: they are the new liturgical vestments!” The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was speaking with reporters on a mission with the Embassies of Poland and Ukraine to the Holy See of Poland and Ukraine, whom he welcomes to the Archbishop’s residence with biscuits and coffee.
Much has changed since those first terrible days of the Russian aggression against Ukraine in late February, during which, Shevchuk says pointing to a window, “a rain of fire could be seen coming down from there.” He himself was sheltered with hundreds of people in the crypt of the Cathedral of the Resurrection. Today he speaks more easily.
His thoughts are mostly on the coming Christmas: “We have the custom of singing Christmas carols to our neighbors, especially those most in need, to share joy and good wishes. Now everyone is asking, Will there be Christmas joy, will we be allowed to sing or should be silent and weep? I said yes, and yes, Christmas will be there. We have the right to celebrate Christmas joy that does not come from secular entertainment, but from Heaven because the Prince of Peace will be born.”
These celebrations will reach all the way to the front. In fact, there will be someone singing for the soldiers engaged on the fighting line, Shevchuk says. “In Soviet times,” he recalls, “Christmas carols were a form of protest against the atheistic communist regime. People sang to overcome anxieties and sadness. The carols are an expression of the Christian faith; they are a catechesis singing about the birth of Jesus. Many are preparing to sing with our soldiers at the border. I know several students are organizing.”
The same celebration will take place in every air raid shelter and foster home: “We will celebrate Christmas in the cold and dark. This will make us experience ‘on our skin’ the story of the Holy Family, also in the cold and dark but with heavenly joy.”
It is a message of hope that the Greek Catholic leader wants to spread at a time when attacks seem to have abated in Ukraine and many cities have been liberated. “But one has to be careful,” the Archbishop says. “When you hear the air raid warning, people don’t pay attention anymore. This shows that the danger is not decreasing but people psychologically get used to it. It is a risk because we now have the phenomenon of missiles. They can fall anywhere, in Kyiv as well as in Lviv. There is no safe place in Ukraine.”