greetings to all viewers of espresso , thank you for being with us, thank you for having the opportunity to be with you, my name is khrystyna yatskiv, and on the eve of one of the biggest christian holidays, christmas, we... it is a great

honor to be here and have an opportunity to talk with the father and head of the ukrainian greek catholic church, his beatitude svyatoslav shevchuk. greetings to all. christ was born. let's praise him. well, your holiness, you and i finally have an opportunity to talk about major christian holidays and not feel the time gap. that's right strongly, as it was before, so with the difference in calendars, dates and different readings, the majority of christians in ukraine, after all, unite now in one date, in one stream, of love, i hope, and is this our great achievement, not only ecclesiastical, perhaps even national, that we were able to reach this point, what possible steps we still need to take in this direction, well, really.

er, christmas is special this year, why? because we witness it together, together not only orthodox, catholics, greek catholics, but also and fellow protestants, together as believers in ukrainian society , but also together with the whole world, it is so important for us to feel unity, unity and solidarity among ourselves, in particular in such ... difficult circumstances of war, i can honestly say that this decision was very special , i think, both on the part of our orthodox brothers and our synod of bishops , we somehow felt that the moment had come, so theologically we call it kairos, this wave that the lord god gave us, we have been waiting for it, maybe for centuries, ee our people

our predecessors, we somehow felt that if we a year or six months sooner, it would have been too soon, uh, if six months later, it would have been too late, we did it very, very timely, and really, uh, we really wanted to feel how our people would react, our believing people in in ukraine, in particular, er, you know what the reaction was of unity, great joy, eh, of all our parishes, only one parish in ukraine asked for permission to remain on the old calendar for a while longer, and this is one of our communities in the kharkiv region, ugh, and so the whole the church perceived it as something very natural and why ours the people are grateful to the church leaders who dared to undertake this reform. therefore, thank god,

we have christmas, christmas together, christmas, which is a sign of solidarity, unity, internal ukrainian people, and therefore the unity of the whole world together with us, us with the whole world. but we cannot lose sight of the christians in ukraine who, for various reasons, i would like to emphasize, still remain faithful to the ukrainian orthodox church. the church of the moscow patriarchate, the russian orthodox church, and we must treat people with understanding, who, again, have different motives for staying, and it is not always love for the russian federation, it is still not understanding the moments of canonicity, for example, of the orthodox church of ukraine, how so quickly, tomos, it was not... not long ago, here is a century

endurance, history, it is simply difficult for some to accept new circumstances and go on the opposite side, but together with the way we are in... our country now, which is very polarized in a political, social sense, we see that two years of war are happening, this it's just hard, and people feel it, and it's very common this kind of anger is already starting to be splashed on each other somewhere more than necessary, how can we harmoniously experience and accept all these processes, wait for those... christians who are still somewhere in their thoughts? well, i may start with the first point, which you mentioned, indeed, war is a tragedy, and it marks all of us with deep trauma. perhaps, until

the end, we have not yet realized to ourselves what features of our personal life, the life of our society are marked by this. reality we all feel growing pains. the first reaction to the crimes of the russian aggressor are hatred. how to deal with these feelings. we have been thinking about it, talking about it since the very beginning of this war, but we see that these problems are deepening. and today, every village. a priest who tries to build the unity of his parish, i think, our public leaders, political figures who sense certain trends in society, sense new lines of tension that are being built, which are not related

to whether a person lives in the russian-speaking region of ukraine or ukrainian-speaking, whether it exists orthodox whether they are catholics, new lines of tension are built on the basis of personal experience of the tragedy of war, here we see it, let's say, someone stayed in place, so someone left, like an internally displaced person, then returns back and neighbors no longer understand each other. a man went to fight at the front, returns home, and his wife has a different experience of the tragedy of war, and sometimes a man and a woman do not understand each other. those who survived the occupation and

liberation sometimes feel that those people who live in a relatively peaceful, western region of ukraine, they don't hear, they don't feel that... there is a war, how in such circumstances can we still build unity, the unity of our people, how to unite in the name of a common goal, it is quite difficult question, we must give an answer to it together, but eh, from such a pastoral side, we already see one phenomenon that should make us very serious eh... eh, make you think, sometimes we are looking for, you know, such a scapegoat, on on which to hang our own pain, and sometimes we pick it up very spontaneously, yes, it can to be, well, someone standing next to whom you can just

pour out your negative emotions, it can be some, i don't know, person or institution that has not done everything that we are the eyes of it. or the way we imagined that she should do it, obviously, this is a very dangerous phenomenon, it is, on the one hand, natural, because this pain, well , it hurts us, we want to spontaneously pour it out on someone, so it is very dangerous , you know, to be tempted, to devour each other, uh, to be tempted, to project this negative energy of ours. even sometimes by force on ourselves, we should not do this, but all together we should understand that the trauma of war is a certain challenge that we have

to deal with, there are many people who are engaged in the analysis of social processes, even deep ones ... analysts, psychotherapists say that our success, our victory depends not only on the strength of our weapons, but on the ability of ukrainians to cope... with the consequences of the trauma that the war inflicts on all of us, so here is the role of the church, the role of those who is trying to be the core of the consolidation of our society, it is difficult to overestimate, because from our inner ability to endure , our future depends on these challenges, thank you to whom... it may seem strange that i am asking the head of the head of the ukrainian greek catholic church about the orthodox,

about their relationship to the orthodox church of ukraine and about all these transitions, but i would i really wanted that in our consciousness and in our ukrainian realities, the christian churches were really really brotherly to each other and that we could openly talk about the processes in... in them to share our experience, especially since the ukrainian greek-catholic church, it very, very modern, and i am very grateful to you for this work that is carried out every day, the understanding that the world does not stand still, and you are also ready to develop together with the world, this is incredible, this is just what people asked to convey, to be honest, but still returning to the processes of 2023, we saw the work of the verkhovna rada. in an attempt to root out the russian agency in ukraine, which

is very often covered by religion, and we have taken the first steps in this direction, we will see how it will be in practice, because we understand that the processes it's not easy there, we have certain actions regarding the great christian shrine, the kiev-pechersk lavra, and we hope that very soon every ukrainian will feel... will have a sincere desire to come there and not feel the russian spirit, i'm sorry, but i'm interested in the question pochaiv lavra, for example, we understand the experience of this shrine and the ukrainian greek-catholic church, a certain historical duration, but how do you consider all these processes and do you hope that they will affect not only kyiv, but... also the saint in the west, i think we are witnessing a lot

interesting processes, thank you very much for the compliment about modernity, i think that we should not be afraid of renewal, because the church is a living organism, it is not some ossified institution that simply clings to the stereotypes of the past, such a church will always be doomed to certain crises, if the church feels itself. the leader of public opinion, the mother and teacher of her people, the soul of this people who are fighting for their freedom, she will always be modern, the eternal will always be modernized, enter, be embodied in our present, but we have a very interesting historical moment that we cannot lose, the process of decommunization is taking place in ukraine. and de-russification in various aspects of our life, i think the

same process of decommunization and de-russification should go through the religious environment of ukraine. we must be sincere, we must be frank that the russian orthodox church was and, unfortunately, remains a tool today. the enslavement of peoples, a tool not only of russification, but also of planting certain stereotypes or archetypes of social behavior, which were created in communist times, we know that even the name of the russian orthodox church was given to that church by stalin, who tried to use it... as a tool not for religious, but for atheistic enslavement,

not only of his own citizens, but also of influence on the international arena. this church was an instrument of the destruction of the ukrainian greek-catholic church, and all our efforts to start a serious dialogue in order to heal the wounds of the past and give... an opportunity for this church to change itself, did not achieve the desired success, and today society puts requirement in front of these vestiges of soviet and russian imperialism, to ask ourselves very deep questions, therefore it is natural that ukrainian society demands de-russification and decommunization, even from the orthodox environment, which, unfortunately, unfortunately

, carries this negative baggage. that is why it is so important that the ukrainian state finally remembers that both the kyiv-pechersk lavra and the pochaiv lavra are state property, that they are monuments, spiritual shrines that do not belong to any particular denomination, but that they are shrines of the entire ukrainian people, and we must all take responsibility for them. so, uh, even when i listen to, you know, how our people's deputies outline their legislative intentions regarding churches, and when we hear that there is talk of banning some church, i am very careful about it, because our church was banned at the time and it is impossible to ban the church, i would

approach this process from the positive side, our ukrainian government... should help the church get rid of russian imperial influence, that is, de facto today there is a process of liberating the ukrainian orthodox church, ugh, and the orthodox church of ukraine from that russian baggage. interestingly, our brothers from the orthodox church of ukraine experience it in their own way, they have. or the support of the universal patriarchy, well, unfortunately, unfortunately, there is a part of the religious environment that is today the carrier of further influences of our northern neighbor, and today they too must go through this process of de-russification and decommunization, it is not easy, it is a painful

process, because you see , not enough. simply to disconnect legally or canonically from some center of influence, which today is in the state of the aggressor, because this type of disconnection has many other aspects, the church is the heart of a certain cultural environment, here church life is not only songs, rites, traditions . even by its theological constitution, it reflects a certain tradition of a certain society and a certain people, that is why its de-russification of church life from the cultural, spiritual, canonical, even, even liturgical side, this is such a rather, rather er-er complex process, our

the church at one time was... under such a rather intense influence of the latin church, we had a process of latinization, later restoration of our eastern identity, that is, we had experience and have experience in how to really return to the sources of kyiv christianity, and we would like to share this experience with pleasure with our orthodox brothers, i hope that one day all of us... will have our own place for prayer even in the kyiv-pechersk lavra, in st. sophia, and in the pochaiv lavra, because we are not talking about property, it is not about about us owning some property, no, it is about a certain spiritual space, a space of unity, a space of brotherhood, a space

of real communication with god and with our brothers and sisters. well, pope francis and ukrainian society, which , let me remind you, is very sensitive in the second year of the war, and sometimes it seems that no matter who looks, no matter what anyone says, all this will be perceived, well, very sharply. how did the ukrainian greek catholic church react to everything? informational occasions that were associated with pope francis, everything that happened in society, let's say, in political circles, in journalistic circles, i know about that. if you can share how it was and if anything has changed maybe? obviously, our church is a part of ukrainian

society, and we all react in the same way, yes, you are sure, because there were very sharp reactions when, when something hurts us, when something is not clear to us, we spontaneously react with all our minds and... the same , it also falls a little on the line of tension that i have already mentioned, we sometimes do not understand how the world can evaluate what is happening in ukraine in a different way, we sometimes say that various international institutions do not fully understand us, because they react late, sometimes help comes late, we always need it. to explain our pain, our needs, our vision of this unjust war, and this is something that happens at different levels, the diplomatic

level, also the church level, and that is why we had the feeling that sometimes, well, the holy father, and the pilgrimage capital is not he understands us to the end, yes, and our church has... has its own the paradigm of relations with the apostolic capital, institutional relations, and it is obvious that in that direction we were the voice of ukrainian society, we felt that it was our duty to be the voice not only of faithful catholics of ukraine, but also of the ailing ukrainian people, and here it is important to realize sprat. very important moments, because it will save us a little emotions and help us better understand how to communicate the truth about

what hurts us, how we need help and support from various international, including church institutions when it comes to the e-e of the holy father, the pope of rome, about the apostolic one. the capital, er, in the face of any conflicts and wars in the world, er, this, er, church institution, the personality of the father, always takes a neutral position, tries to be above the conflict, and this causes us today disappointment, misunderstanding , how, like that? just as one can be neutral when a criminal kills an innocent victim. such

neutrality is connected with a thousand-year tradition, a certain role, a certain service of the successor of the apostle peter in the universal to the church, the service that gave birth. european diplomacy, the holy father, the roman throne, even in the first millennium, was the highest arbiter of christendom. there is such a phrase, the ancient roma liucuta, causa finita, rome has spoken, the matter is finished. it was the last instance of appeal when various conflicts, disputes, and misunderstandings arose, both on the church and interstate level. equal, so this arbitrator, in order to remain an arbitrator, he tried to be impartial, and

then he was always the highest platform, a bridge to serve peace, to prevent conflicts, and indeed, well , that conflict, that unjust war that we are experiencing today, put this type of institution in crisis and caused us very deep questions, we asked ourselves, well, explain, what is this neutrality, what is this - the diplomatic mission of the holy father today, and in such a dialogue we understood, it was a very interesting, i would say, a story, perhaps of development. even this diplomatic philosophy, there are two types of neutrality, there is also diplomatic neutrality, which is based on

in order to have... the opportunity to maintain relations and dialogue with both sides that are fighting each other today, and the second, the second type of neutrality, this is moral neutrality, here the vatican, the apostle, is not neutral when it comes to the moral assessment of this tragedy , when it comes to... who should be helped and who should be saved? here we feel that the holy father and the apostolic capital are completely on the side of ukraine. and here is the latest development of events, in particular in september of this year. we were at the height of this copper crisis, which was associated with certain statements of the holy father, addressed

to the catholics of russia. well, it is. this outraged not only ukrainian society, but many other european countries. i know that even in lithuania, in poland, the papal nuncio was called in order to get certain clarifications. well, at the height of that conflict, all the bishops of our church from ukraine and the whole world came to rome for their annual synod. i dread to imagine what it all looked like. it was, it was somehow so, you know, very providential, because when we decided to convene a synod bishops this year in rome, we had no idea what kind of moment it would happen, a moment in the building of relations between ukraine and the apostolic capital, for me, as

the head of the church, it was simply salvation. ugh , because the one who criticizes and complains the most was always me as a person, and maybe someone had the impression that, well, it's just that one person is always dissatisfied with something. you have that reputation, don't you? and here, here, a whole synot arrived. and even at the moment when literally in a few weeks he had to begin papal synod on synodality , i.e. on a new way of building relationships in the church, to move away from such a command-administrative way, more collegial, joint, and we asked for an audience with the pope, it is very interesting that the pope assigned us an audience for one hour, and then postponed it for an hour. rather, we,

de facto, came to the pope for a meeting, when none of the vatican institutions were still working, at 7 o'clock in the morning, instead of one hour, we had the opportunity to communicate for two hours, while i the head of the church, was really very pleased, because i just presented our synod to the pope, and gave each of the bishops an opportunity to stand up and speak, uh... our bishops spoke in ukrainian, english, portuguese, spanish in different languages, it is interesting that the pope corrected himself , uh, to a certain extent, uh, let us understand that those statements of his were unsuccessful, and at the end, listening to the voice of the bishops about the pain of ukraine,

he himself added, says: there must be one more thing bothering you, you must be doubting whose side the pope is on, and today i want you to declare that the pope is with you, that is, you see, this moral neutrality was completely clarified, these possible doubts and pain of ours, er, was, a little. a little, i would say , inhibited, but i say to him, father, very nice, thank you, and now before us, let 's demonstrate, a difficult task, to return home and convince our people of this, our , our, our people, so you see, the dynamics are very interesting, but our voice is important and it...