"I give thanks ... for the witness given by Catholics in this land" (07/08/01)

THE PAPAL VISIT TO UKRAINE, JUNE 23-27, 2001

"I give thanks ... for the witness given by Catholics in this land"

Excerpts of pope's address at the Apostolic Nunciature in Kyiv during the Sunday, June 24, meeting with members of the Ukrainian Catholic episcopate.

... The joy of today's meeting will grow still stronger in the days to come, when together we shall take part in the solemn beatification of some of your brother bishops, who exercised their episcopal ministry in the most dangerous of circumstances. We will pay them the homage of our gratitude for having preserved intact, by their sacrifice, the heritage of Christian faith among the members of their Churches. ...

How can we fail to recall, among them, the Servant of God Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky? My revered predecessor, Pope Pius XII, declared that his noble life was cut short "not so much by his advanced age, but by the sufferings of his soul as pastor, struck down with his flock" (AAS XLIV [1955], p. 877). Together with him, I recall Cardinal Josyf Slipyj, first rector of the Greek-Catholic Theological Academy of Lviv, happily reopened in recent times. This heroic confessor of the faith suffered the hardship of imprisonment for 18 long years.

Among you there are still priests and bishops who were imprisoned and persecuted. In embracing you with deep emotion, dear brothers, I give praise to God for your faithful witness. It encourages me to accomplish my own service to the universal Church with ever more courageous dedication.

... in union with you, who have prime responsibility for your Churches, I wish to give thanks to God for the witness given by Catholics in this land, where the Church shows forth her divine and human reality, embellished by the genius of Ukrainian culture. Here the Church breathes with the two lungs of the Eastern and Western traditions. Here there is a fraternal meeting between those who draw from the sources of Byzantine spirituality and those who are nourished by Latin spirituality. Here the deep sense of mystery which suffuses the holy liturgy of the Eastern Churches and the mystical succinctness of the Latin Rite come face to face and mutually enrich each other. ...

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