Shevchuk starts talking about united Kyiv Patriarchate

Sviatoslav Shevchuk and Epiphany Dumenko. Photo: odnarodyna.org

The head of the UGCC, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, declared the need for "one Kyiv Church in a single patriarchate," according to the official website of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

Such “one church”, according to Shevchuk, “without mutual struggle, but through sharing the gifts that we have collected on the way to this unity, is the dream of His Beatitude Lubomyr and his testament for all of us.”

Shevchuk is convinced that the transfer of the Uniate see from Lviv to Kyiv is "a turn home, a return to the roots, to the source from which the history, present and future of Kyiv Christianity take their origin."

The head of the UGCC recalled that Lubomyr Guzar "invites us to look at other brothers and sisters of the same tradition, our Orthodox brothers, as those who share the same root with us."

“Here is the idea of Kyivan Christianity as such, and then the search for what unites us in common roots ... Perhaps by this, His Beatitude Lubomyr invites all of us, the children of the Kyivan Church, who today live, pray, communicate with God in various confessions, to see a brother in one another, not a competitor, a rival or an enemy," Shevchuk said.

The head of the UGCC also recalled that Guzar “urged not only the Christians of Ukraine, but also the world centers of Christianity – Rome, Constantinople and Moscow – not to look at papers, at canons, at theoretical theological discourses but to accept the living reality. He called to look at the living Church and living Christianity, which today is experiencing a stage of its unprecedented flourishing on the territory of Ukraine."

“His Beatitude explains this burgeoning Kyiv Christianity with the idea, strength and flourishing of Kyiv as a national, state building, cultural center. The greatness of Kyiv is based on the greatness of the Kyiv Church,” said the head of the UGCC.

According to Shevchuk, Guzar also proposed a formula for the "unity" of all "co-inheritors of the Kyiv Church": "the restoration of the unity of the once united and now divided Kyiv Church in a single patriarchate."

According to Shevchuk, this idea of “one Kyiv Church should inspire us today, awaken our conscience so that we do not calm down and remain in confessional fragmentation. But let this unity not scare anyone, since unity is not a diminution of someone but the renaissance of everyone,” summed up the head of the Uniates of Ukraine.

Earlier, the UOJ wrote that according to Sviatoslav Shevchuk, thanks to the UGCC, Kyiv is becoming the spiritual center of Christianity.

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