Patriarchal Council of Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Held in Brazil

In the Brazilian city of Prudentopolis, on 31 August-4 September, the 5th session of the Patriarchal Council of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is held. According to church law, a council is an assembly of all the bishops, representatives of the clergy, monks, nuns and laymen of the church and is convened every five years.

The previous Patriarchal Council of the UGCC was dedicated to the youth in the church of the third millennium. This year, the theme of the session is consecrated life and its motto is a passage from the Gospel of Matthew: “You are the light of the world, you are the salt of the earth.” (Mt. 5, 13-14).

According to Patriarch Sviatoslav (Shevchuk), the goal of this session is to ponder on the present monastic life of UGCC and on what it should be like and what the church today expects of religious persons.

According to radiovaticana.org, representatives of all the eparchies and exarchates of the UGCC headed by their local hierarchs, superiors, delegates from monastic communities, orders and associations of laymen together with the faithful of Prudentopolis on 31 August met the head of UGCC, Patriarch Sviatoslav.

The session of the council began with a prayer in the Church of St. Yosafat and it was officially opened in the Monastery of Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate.

Bishop Bohdan (Dziurakh), the Secretary of the Synod of Bishops of the UGCC, read out the Decree on the opening of the session. Patriarch Sviatoslav (Shevchuk) addressed the participants stressing that the council is a god opportunity to exchange experience and concentrate on the vocation to religious life as well as to thank all those fathers, monks and nuns who relentlessly worked for the development of the UGCC in Brazil during the last century.

Bishop Volodymyr Kovbych, the Eparch of Curitiba  called the council an excellent opportunity to get to know the Brazilian land and its dynamic Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.