www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Pope Benedict Urges Support of Greek-Catholic Church in Ukraine

VATICAN CITY, JUNE 23, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI appealed for help for the Eastern-rite Catholics of Ukraine, in order to promote reconciliation with the country's Christians, most of whom are Orthodox.

The Pope made his appeal today when receiving the participants in the general assembly of the Assembly of Organizations for Aid to the Eastern Churches (ROACO).

ROACO comprises the U.S.-based Catholic Near East Welfare Association and the Pontifical Mission for Palestine, as well as agencies that collect aid in Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Austria.

"During these days you have examined in particular the situation of the Greek-Catholic Church in Ukraine," the Holy Father said when addressing the participants, among whom was Cardinal Ignace Moussa I Daoud, prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, and Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, archbishop major of Lviv.

The rest of the article can be found here:
http://www.zenit.org/english/

I think the Holy Father views the UGCC as the great bridge between west and east.

I was able to find the full article, but had to search a bit, since jw's link only takes one to the Zenit summary page (not his fault, this is a site that doesn't display the actual url address in one's browser). Here's the link to the article itself:

Pope Urges Support of Greek-Catholic Church in Ukraine [zenit.org]

Many years,

Neil

In the Ukraine at the moment are 3 main Orthodox churches. The Russian Orthodox's Ukrainian church,The Ukrainian Orthodox church Kievien Patriarchate,the Autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox church. The Catholic church has friendly relations with the 2 Local Orthodox churches.The Russian one is the biggest and represents Russian interests in the Ukraine.

The Popes support for the Ukrainian Rite church is important.There are those in the curia that might be tempted to sacrifice the interests of the Ukrainian Rite . For good relations with the hostile Russian Orthodox.Which would be a major mistake !!!

God uphold, defend, deliver and preserve the Ukrainian Catholic Byzantine Church from all who would seek her harm.
Stephanos I

Dear Friends,

Very nice of His Holiness to say so!

He was a friend of Patriarch Josef Slipyj (Slipyj was himself trained by German Jesuits and spoke German, as well as a number of other languages, fluently).

Metropolitan Vladimir Sabodan, to be fair, is a very highly educated Churchman who is no fool.

The bishops of the other two Ukrainian Orthodox Churches were taught theology by him, in most cases, and they do actually esteem him.

If world Orthodoxy would agree to a Kyivan Patriarchate, Met. Vladimir would make an excellent leader of that Church.

The issue of canonicity is also what keeps the issue of unity in a single autocephalous Ukrainian Orthodox Church with a Kyivan Patriarchate that is free fo Moscow from becoming realized.

There are priests and even some bishops in the UOC-MP who supported the Orange Revolution, as we know, and who would like a canonical, autocephalous resolution to the current problems there.

Pope Benedict, to his great credit, has an understanding of the situation there that is very thorough - and he has always been on record as being in support of those "Uniates"

Alex (expressing Uniate bias but what can he do?)

Agreed.