(Asia News) The Major Archbishop of Kiev, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, invites Russian Orthodox to recognize their complicity in the persecution of Catholics in the USSR. For the Moscow Patriarchate the Uniate situation is the biggest obstacle to the meeting between Kirill and Pope.
Catholicism.org note: The Ukrainian Catholic Church, numbering some ten million souls worldwide, is headed by the Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Galicia (currently, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk). While the papacy has never recognized the title “Patriarch” for the Ukrainian Major Archbishop, many of the Ukrainian faithful use that title for their spiritual Father, as well as the corresponding honorific “His Beatitude.” Ukrainian Catholics are, needless to say, in union with the Pope.
His Beatitude’s remarks on the complicity of the Russian Orthodox Church are not very “ecumenical,” and are a frank statement of a painful truth of the Stalinist era. A comparatively young man considering his position (he turns 42 this May 5), Archbishop Shevchuk shows himself to be a real man, something our Ukrainian Greek Catholic brethren need in their spiritual Father.
