The bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, gathered in synod in Rome, celebrated the Divine Liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica on September 10.
“You and I are in communion with the successor of the Apostle Peter of our days not for political or diplomatic grounds,” Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk preached. “We are sons and daughters of the universal Church, for we believe that it was on the rock of the Apostle Peter that Christ founded His Church.”
“Although Ukraine is facing the largest humanitarian crisis in Europe since the Second World War, thanks to the personal efforts of the Holy Father and the entire Catholic Church … this humanitarian crisis has not and probably will not turn into a humanitarian catastrophe,” he continued. “In Ukraine, no one died from cold, hunger or other humanitarian consequences where the power of Catholic love and universal solidarity, the heart and promoter of which is and will be His Holiness Pope Francis, reached.”
The Major Archbishop’s profession of unity with the Pope, and his tribute to Pope Francis’s humanitarian aid, came four days after the Eastern-rite Ukrainian bishops rebuked the Pope for his August 25 tribute to “the great Russia—the great Russia of the saints, of kings, the great Russia of Peter the Great, of Catherine II, the great Russian empire, cultured, so much culture, so much humanity.”