Shevchuk: Christ, in need and danger, 'is waiting for you' in Ukraine

PHILADELPHIA (OSV News) -- As Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its fourth year, OSV News sat down with Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, patriarchal head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church during his Feb. 15-18 Jubilee Year pastoral visit to Ukrainian Catholics in the U.S.

Major Archbishop Shevchuk shared his thoughts on justice, peace, hope and evangelization amid the war, which has been declared a genocide in two joint reports from the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

OSV News: Calls for a ceasefire in Russia's war on Ukraine are growing, but St. Paul VI reminded us in his 1972 World Day for Peace message that true peace must be based on justice. How can both justice and peace be attained in Ukraine?

Major Archbishop Shevchuk: Ukrainians are tired because of the war. So many victims, so many injured and killed each day. The city of Kyiv is under air attacks each night.

But we understand that in today's culture, the word "peace" very often means different, even opposite things. That word is very commercialized today, as is perhaps the word "love."

What does it mean to make peace today? Peace is not only the agreement between the powerful, such as politicians and presidents. Peace means respect for human life.

Peace for us in Ukraine means a possibility to survive, to be able to defend our country, our nation. Peace means human rights, human dignity.

So an authentic peace without justice -- it's just an empty word.

Justice means respect, not of the interests and the global geopolitical desires of some big countries, but respect for human dignity. If we are able to protect human rights and protect human dignity today in Ukraine, we will have a just peace.

Without that, we can have a ceasefire, or a frozen conflict, which in the near future can be easily canceled, and a new military confrontation can start at any moment.

But if we heal the very causes of that war -- if international society and Russia itself recognize that the Ukrainian nation does exist and we are a subject of international law, and if our rights will be respected -- only then we can talk about justice and an authentic peace.

OSV News: As Ukrainians experience the cross amid Russia's invasion, how can they also experience hope, especially during the Jubilee Year?

Major Archbishop Shevchuk: Each day in Ukraine, we look into the eyes of death. Each time I meet people, subconsciously I understand that it could be the very last meeting with this person, because we live in constant danger of death. Do we have hope in such circumstances?

My answer is yes, because we as Christians believe in the Resurrection. And looking into the eyes of death, we are looking into the eyes of eternity.

Our life is bigger than this earthly period of our existence. We as Christians believe in eternal life. And because of that wider perspective, we see all the events of our daily life from a very different perspective.

Hope means to be partakers of eternal life today, in this moment. So we already possess that which is the subject of our hope. We do have, right now, eternal life within us, but we will understand the fullness of that life only when Christ comes again at the very last moment of humanity's history.

So this tension between the present day and the future -- the "yes" and "not now" -- that is the period of the virtue of hope. That hope means that God is present in us.

The basic question during war is: "Where is God?" And I received an answer to that question from one young Ukrainian soldier. He told me, "God is in us. He is present in our everyday sufferings. He himself is killed each day in every slain soldier and civilian."

Christ is continuously tortured in each war prisoner, wounded in each soldier or civilian in Ukraine. Venerating the suffering and the wounds of the people of Ukraine, we are venerating the crucified Lord.

The cross, the passion of Christ for us in Ukraine, is not a cold statue on the wall, but the living flesh of my people. In that flesh we experience the presence of God. And because of his presence, we do have hope.

OSV News: What is the greatest challenge you are seeing right now among those you serve, and how is the UGCC (Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church) meeting it?

Major Archbishop Shevchuk: There are three major ways in which the church is assisting the suffering people of Ukraine.

The first is just to be present among them. Where the pain is greater, God is there. Today we are talking about pastoral care for people in grief. And grief is a process. Many psychologists were of great assistance to us explaining that grief has its own dignity.

Very often that kind of pastoral care is speechless; human words can hurt even more. But it's crucial to be with that mother who is lying on the dead body of her son; to take the hand of those kids who are crying because their father is missing in action, and they don't know if he is still alive or if they are supposed to pray for his eternal rest.

That kind of pastoral care is the everyday life of each of our priests, our nuns, our monks, our bishops.

Secondly, 30% of Ukrainians are in urgent humanitarian need. Many politicians mostly talk about military assistance to Ukraine. Yet we have to feed those people. We have to provide them with shelter and medicine. Mother church is doing that.

So my appeal to all good people of goodwill is: Do not get weary of Ukraine. Because Christ is hungry and thirsty and homeless in the flesh of the Ukrainian people today. Christ is waiting for you on Ukrainian soil.

And the third (task) is maybe the most difficult. Millions of Ukrainians are asking difficult questions today. Young people are constantly asking, "Why is this happening to us? Should we give up, or should we continue to fight for human dignity in Ukraine?"

Nobody can answer those questions from political (or) economic perspectives. Only the church will help answer those existential questions. The Word of God is authentic, attractive, trustworthy.

So a specific mission of the church is the proclamation of the Good News, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The service of preaching the Word of God is something that nobody can offer to the people of Ukraine. To show God's presence among us -- that is a mission of the bishop, pastors and consecrated persons. And each day, many people are turning their ears toward the voice of the church in Ukraine. We are evangelizing the Ukrainian people amidst the war.

OSV News: So this evangelization is battle-tested, literally.

Major Archbishop Shevchuk: Absolutely.

OSV News: How are Ukrainian youth holding up as the full-scale invasion enters its fourth year?

Major Archbishop Shevchuk: I'm very proud of Ukrainian youth; I'm just amazed by their beauty, strength, courage. They are the best youth in the world, because the heaviest duty, that of defending Ukraine and fulfilling the works of charity and solidarity, are right now on their shoulders. They are deciding today the future of Ukraine.

They are more often attending funerals than weddings. Our youth are maturing very fast, but in their 20s, they are capable of undertaking deep and mature decisions that maybe people in their 40s and 50s in many countries are not able to do.

One 23-year-old soldier on the frontline wrote me a letter: "Your Beatitude, I am ... proud to be here, because I know that that is the center of the world." I was really amazed. That youth is capable of sacrificial love, not only for their nation ... but they are able, in the midst of the war, to create very mature families, to give birth to new life, because they know the price of human life. And when I meet these people, I am evangelized by them.

Recently, we had an online meeting of Ukrainian youth with Pope Francis. Towards the end of this meeting they asked the Holy Father, "What is the mission of the Ukrainian youth today?"

And Pope Francis replied, "You should be the patriots of your country. ... And then you will find a way to fulfill your mission in your life." I remained speechless. I was deeply impressed.

OSV News: What is the condition of Ukrainian Greek Catholics in occupied territories, with Russian forces banning the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and other faith communities there?

Major Archbishop Shevchuk: There is no religious freedom there. Our church was officially suppressed and banned on those territories. Catholics, both Roman and Greek, cannot fulfill their religious duties or obligations. The only church which is allowed by the Russian occupiers is the Russian Orthodox Church, which became a part of the oppressive regime which Russia is constructing in those territories. So in the temporarily occupied territories, there is great terror, persecution and oppression.

Very often in political and diplomatic channels we see pressure on Ukraine to give up ... all those territories. But I always encourage politicians not to think about the territories, but about people who live there. Because as a pastor, I'm worrying about the protection of their dignity and life in those occupied territories.

So we pray for those people. Very often they can participate in religious life only if they have access to the internet and online participation in Divine Liturgy, rediscovering spiritual Communion. It gives them a possibility to remain faithful to Christ and to their church in those circumstances.

OSV News: It's like the Soviet times all over again, when the UGCC's visible structures were liquidated and the church was driven underground?

Major Archbishop Shevchuk: Even worse. Because with today's technology, those people are overcontrolled (through surveillance). And to be a Christian in underground conditions is almost impossible. So my concern is how we will protect their dignity and their human rights in those territories.