our efforts to start a serious dialogue in order to heal the wounds of the past and give this church an opportunity to change itself did not achieve the desired success, and today society demands that these rudiments of soviet and russian imperialism ask themselves very deep questions, therefore it is natural that ukrainian society demands de-russification and decommunization, even from the orthodox environment, which, unfortunately, unfortunately, er, carries perhaps this negative, er, baggage, er, that is why it is so important, to be a ukrainian state finally, she remembered 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 they are the shrines of the entire ukrainian people, and we all should take responsibility for them. so, even when i listen, you know how our people's deputies outline their legislative intentions regarding churches. and when we hear that there is talk of banning a certain church, i am very careful about it, because our church was at one time is prohibited, and it is impossible to forbid the church. i would approach this process from the positive side: our ukrainian government should help the church to get rid of russian imperial influence, that is, de facto today it is underway... the process

of freeing its ukrainian orthodox church, yes, and the orthodox church of ukraine, from that russian baggage. interestingly, our brothers from the orthodox church of ukraine are experiencing this in their own way, having the support of the ecumenical patriarchate. well, unfortunately, unfortunately, there is a part of the religious environment. which are today the carrier of further influences of ours 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, it is not enough to simply detach 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, not only with hymns, rites, traditions, even with its theological constitution, it reflects a certain tradition of a certain society and a certain people that is why the de-russification of church life from the cultural, spiritual, canonical, even, even the liturgical side, is such a rather, rather, er, complex process. at one time, our church was under such a rather intense influence of the latin church. we had a latinization process, huh. later

restoration of our eastern identity, that is , we had and have experience in how to truly return to the sources of kyiv christianity, and we would like to share this experience with our orthodox brothers. i hope that one day we all will its own place for prayer, even in the kiev-pechersk lavra, in saint sophia and pochaivskaya. laurels, because we are not talking about property, it is not about us owning any 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, and what, er, pope francis and ukrainian society, which once again ee... let me remind you, the second year of the war

is very sensitive, and sometimes it seems that no matter who looks, no matter what anyone says, all this will with'. one very sharp, how the ukrainian greek-catholic church reacted to all informational occasions that were connected with pope francis, everything that happened in society, let's say, in political circles, in journalistic circles, i know about this, if you can you 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

we all react together and all in the same way, this is also somewhere a little on the lines of tension, which i already mentioned, we sometimes do not understand each other... how can the world 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 to us late, we constantly need to explain our pain, our needs, our vision of this unjust war, and this is something that happens... on at different levels, the diplomatic level, also the church level, eh, and that is why we had the feeling that, well, sometimes, well, the holy father apskalytsia does not fully understand us, ugh, and our church has

its own paradigm of relations with the apostolic capital, institutional relations, and it is obvious that we... in that direction were the voice of ukrainian society, we felt that our duty is to be the voice not only of the faithful catholics of ukraine, but also of the ailing ukrainian people. and here it is important to realize a few very important points, because it will save us a little emotion and help us understand better a little. how can we convey the truth about what hurts us, and how therefore, we need help and support from various international, including church, institutions. when it comes to uh, the holy

father, the pope of rome, about the apostolic capital, in the face of all the conflicts and wars in the world, uh, this... uh, the church institution, the personality of the holy father, always takes a neutral position position, tries to be above the conflict, and this causes us today disappointment, confusion, how it is possible to be neutral when a criminal kills an innocent victim. such neutrality connected with a thousand-year tradition, a certain role, a certain service of the successor of the apostle peter in the universal church, the service that

gave birth to european diplomacy. the holy father, the roman throne, even in the first millennium, was the highest... arbiter of the christian world. there is such an old phrase: roma liucuta, the cause of finita. rome has spoken, the matter is over. it was the last instance of appeal when various conflicts, disputes, misunderstandings arose, both at the church and international level. therefore, this referee for in order to remain an arbitrator, he tried to be without. outsiders, and then it was always the highest platform, a bridge for serving peace, preventing 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 in... uh, explain what this neutrality is, 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, story , maybe, development, even of this diplomatic philosophy, there are two types of neutrality, there is also diplomatic neutrality, which consists in having an opportunity to maintain relations and dialogue with both sides that are at war with each other today. and the second, the second type

of neutrality, this is moral neutrality , here the vatican, apostro, is not neutral when it comes to the moral evaluation 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 is entirely on the side of ukraine. and here is the last one the development of events, in particular in september of this year, we were at the peak of this media crisis, which was connected with certain statements of the holy father to the catholics of russia, well, it outraged not only ukrainian society, but many other european countries, i know , that even in lithuania, in poland in... they summoned the papal nuncio in order to get certain clarifications, and at the height of that

conflict, all the bishops of our church from ukraine and the whole world gathered in rome for their annual synod , i'm afraid to imagine how it all is looked from its, you know, such a secular position, it was, it was somehow so, you know, very providential, because when we er... made the decision to convene the synod of bishops this year precisely in rome, we had no idea what moment it would happen , a moment in the building of relations between ukraine and the apostolic capital, er, for me, as the head of the church , it was simply salvation, because always the one who criticizes and complains the most was, was me, as a person, and maybe... someone had the impression that, well, simply, that's the only one

personality is always dissatisfied with something. you have that reputation, don't you? and here, here, the whole synod arrived. and even at the moment when the papal synod on synodality, i.e., on a new way of building relationships in the church, to move away from some such shenanigans, was to begin in just a few weeks. administrative method, 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 moved it an hour earlier. we de facto came to the pope for a meeting, when none of the institutions of the vatican did not work. seven. an hour in the morning, instead of one hour, we had the opportunity to communicate for two hours, and i, as

the head of the church, was really very pleased, because i only presented our synod to the pope and gave each of the bishops the opportunity to stand up and speak, and our bishops spoke in ukrainian, english, portuguese, spanish in various languages. it is interesting that the pope himself corrected himself, to a certain extent, made us understand that those statements of his were unsuccessful, and in the end, listening to the voice of the bishops about the pain of ukraine, he himself added, he says, there must be another thing that hurts you, you must be doubting whose side the pope is on. i want to declare to you today that the pope is with you. that is, you see, this moral

neutrality was absolutely clarified. these , perhaps, doubts and pain, ours, was, a little, a little, i would say, suppressed, but i say to him, father, very good, thank you, and now in front of us, let's demonstrate all this. is very interesting, but our voice is important. and he changes, changes the world's understanding of what is happening in ukraine, as shevchenko said, so that the whole world heard what was happening in ukraine, for which she died, for which the cossacks became famous all over the world. problems with the joints limit movement, it is

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unreal? heavy bags, not for me. for a sore back, from back pain, try dolgit cream. long-acting cream relieves pain, reduces swelling and improves joint mobility. with the cream dolgit, whatever you want, i will lift. dolgit - the only yellow cream for joint and back pain. and what is actually happening? i know several cases when ukrainian greek-catholic priests, for example in berdyansk, became victims of the russian occupation on the same level as clergymen, in particular , protestant churches, only clergymen of

the moscow patriarchate felt comfortable there, but now it is not about them. we understand that religious... activists are another target for the enemy, maybe it seems so to me, but when we talk about them targeting medics to not save our soldiers from the battlefield, when they target journalists to did not cover the real ones events on the battlefield, when they target emergency personnel so that they do not put out fires after their shelling, they also target our ukrainian religious figures, so that... they do not receive spiritual support when they need it so much, and the ukrainian greek - the catholic church, as we understand , is now fighting, at least for a few priests known only to me, now , how widespread is this phenomenon, how precisely ukrainian greek catholics

are being hunted by the occupiers in various currently, possibly occupied territories, you see, it has always been so. in history, as soon as the russian empire conquered and destroyed a separate part of ukraine, the first people they tried to eliminate were the structures of our church, why? because our church has never been a state church, but a state and a nation-building one, er , by the way, you know, the russian propagandists agreed to that, that the very idea of ​​ukraine's independence was called: political unionism, it was so interesting for me to hear that, that is, they are panickingly afraid of our the church, which is naturally the soul of the ukrainian people, which formed the modern face of the ukrainian nation, by the way, this year we remembered the memory of our holy martyr josaphat kuntsevich, and this

celebration in rome gained a very wide international attention. one such significance and level: the lithuanian state at the state level celebrated this anniversary, we somehow understood together with our brothers and sisters from lithuania that jehoshaphat with his figure formed the face of four modern nations, ukrainians, lithuanians, belarusians and poles, i.e. all those peoples, who lived on the territory of the former commonwealth, and it is obvious that every time, once upon a time... the moscow state destroyed this the identity of the europeans who lived in this territory were the first to try to destroy our church, and this is still happening today. in the occupied territories, our priests made a conscious choice to stay with their people, er, and yet they endure and wander

around russian prisons. at the moment, there is not a single catholic priest in the occupied territories of donbass, zaporizhzhia, er, the left-bank kherson region. some were simply deported, like our priests from melitopol, and some were arrested, and their fate is not fully known to us, you mentioned our two priests from bredyansk, two monks, redemptorists, father ivan levytsky, father bohdan geleta, we still had information about them when they were held in our berdyansk, this... was information from those of their fellow prisoners who were later released and from whom we learned, perhaps, whether they, or whether they are still alive. later, what we know today,

they were moved from there somewhere and their trail was unfortunately lost. to this day, we don't know anything about them, but we wonder why, why, the occupation authorities decided on them... arrest, because at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, residents of berdyansk prayed together in front of the inscription: "i love berdyansk", it was a joint prayer for the city they love. at first they tolerated it, they looked at it so carefully, then maybe it changed, so the person. in the occupation authorities, even this type of prayer began to be considered an unauthorized protest, and for the love of berdyansk,

apparently, for their people, those priests, er, were deprived of their freedom, arrested. obviously , we turn to and have turned to various international and diplomatic institutions missions, with a request to help us save them. their fate is still unknown, this is how our community in luhansk, our community in donetsk and in the vicinity of donetsk was also destroyed, and recently certain orders of the occupation authorities in zaporizhzhia were made public, which clearly issued an order to liquidate our church, confiscate our property and prohibit . the activities of not only our religious institutions, but also humanitarian missions, such as the knights of columbus, caritas, which have

always been dedicated to saving human, human life. what is the conclusion, everyone is afraid everything that reminds of ukraine, everything that constitutes the identity of the ukrainian people, everything that is a manifestation of its individuality. is an expression of his true face, everything that can give hope, hope to people that one day the ukrainian state will be able to restore its sovereignty in those occupied territories, that is, you see, it shows how much the ukrainian greek catholic church is for them is considered a threat to the spread of russian. mira, and as one of our still underground bishops once said, where there is a greek-catholic church, there is ukraine,

it is obvious that here we are talking first of all about religious identity, which has always been a creative nation, and we need it so that the church does not lose its role even in modern circumstances. i know that pope francis knows for sure about these, at least two priests. and i know for a fact that the vatican is still in contact with the russian orthodox church, in particular their patriarch, patriarch kirill, who literally believes that if a russian goes to ukraine to kill, then he is cleansed of any other sins, this is almost a verbatim quote from him, but less so. can we hope? on the practical manifestation of this diplomacy, the very important religious diplomacy that we are talking about, which is very often kept, despite the fact that morally, as you said, pope francis is on our side. this diplomacy has two wings.

public diplomacy and non-public diplomacy, or is it the non-public wing that can sometimes be, you know, a little stronger and more effective, that's why it's important about all things, let me not talk now, everything secret will become clear sooner or later, but on the occasion of living in rome our synod, then my participation in the papal one at the synod, indeed, our delegation had the opportunity to work a lot with various institutions of the apostolic capital, including the state secretariat, this is the core of vatican diplomacy, by the way, the holy father very favorably accepted several deep, important initiatives of ours, creation of certain mechanisms, that is, how to

monitor the situation. in russia, er, to protect ourselves from russian propaganda and so on, that is, our work, i see, was very, very interesting and very successful, but specific the manifestation of this was the participation of the apostolic capital in those international forums that our state organizes in order not only to clarify our form. peace, but to enlist the support, you know, not only of world powers and states, but also of various international institutions. and so we were very pleased that the vatican implemented the peace formula. obviously, in those parts, where it is the church institution or

the church... matia considers herself competent, and there are several very interesting points that are already working in favor of the ukrainian people and of our state. first of all, this is a humanitarian issue, secondly, it is the issue of the release of our recruiters, in particular, in particular, the finding and return home of ukrainian children kidnapped by the russian federation. we already have certain glimmers of hope, and the first successes, i think that only we are at the beginning of a very difficult path. likewise , the apostolic capital is very actively working to unblock the export corridors of ukrainian grain, because the vatican is part of this international institution,

called fao, that is, which... fights with hunger in the world, and here those mechanisms of the presence of activity are really very, very useful for ukraine and i think they will be on our side in the future, and there is one more very interesting and important part, this is the issue of ecology, oh, thank you for mentioning it, few people think about it, today we know that pope francis has a special sensitivity to it. together with the ecumenical patriarch, by the way, patriarch bartholomew is sometimes called the green patriarch, he, he has been the initiator of various initiatives for the protection of the environment and the development of christian morality for decades, protection of the environment, here we also cooperate very actively, we constantly inform about this trauma, which is received not only by the society,

the people of ukraine, but also... connected with the zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, and the blackmail that russia , you know, is doing, that is, with the help, that is, of this power plant, which is actually held hostage by this criminal, not to mention the environmental damage to the black sea, and many others types of wounds for the environment, which goes beyond the boundaries of only ukrainian territory, thus, this peace formula offered by our state to the world, naturally, it is not just a formula, it is 10 disasters brought to our land by the occupier, 10 tragedies, each of which needs its own resolution.