Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church issued a message on the Year of Mercy

Corruption that permeates almost all spheres of our national life, injustice in the courts, dishonesty at work, alcoholism and drug addiction, adultery and immorality, murder of the unborn, predatory attitude towards nature - unfortunately, this is not an exhaustive list of the national diseases that weaken the vitality of our nation, causing irreparable damage to present and future generations.

The list of social ills of modern Ukraine was given by the patriarch in his message on the occasion of the Year of God's mercy. Therefore, the patriarch stressed that “the call to repentance concerns not just every Christian, but every person.” “It is no less relevant for communities and entire nations. As a nation, we also need communal purification and conversion to God,” the patriarch says.

According to UGCC Primate, conversion means a radical renunciation of sin in its various figures and a sincere desire to correct the wrong that was done. “Protection of life from conception to natural death, respect of marriage as an indissoluble union of man and woman, protection and promotion of family values, respect for the dignity of each and every person, establishing justice in the judicial system, nurturing spirituality and culture of the people, concern for the God-given environment – are the tasks facing the Ukrainian society, which legitimately elected state authorities of different levels have to set for themselves,” says the author of the message.

Patriarch Sviatoslav believes that our people fulfill their vocation and their mission in building our common European home, to which we belong historically and spiritually, and not when we try at any expense to please the powerful of this world, but when we actually choose the word of God as the source of our power and inspiration. Therefore he says in his message, “If a thesis or initiative is contrary to God and the natural law and gospel doctrine, it cannot claim the name of “value,” it should rather be considered an element of ideology, which eventually will inevitably lead to humiliation of the rights of man, denial of the deepest truths about himself and will become the new slavery and enslavement.”

In conclusion, the patriarch says: “The Lord will not grudge mercy for us and for the entire European continent, if we really give up abominations and crimes, if we try to learn His law, the desire of his heart and arrange according to them our personal, familial and social life.” This information was reported by the UGCC Information Department