The Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine is “expecting” a Papal visit according to the church’s head.
In a recent statement, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, said: “Just as [the Pope] recently visited Iraq, just as he will be going to visit different countries in the world in spite of the difficulties presented by Covid, so Ukraine is expecting the Holy Father to visit.
“I recall how one old woman recently approached me to say, ‘When the Holy Father comes and touches Ukrainian soil, then the war will come to an end.’”
The statement follows the visit of Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal to the Vatican in March, where, according to the Archbishop, he invited Pope Francis to pay a visit.
The Archbishop said: “It was also a good sign that the relationship between the state of Ukraine and the Holy See would offer a means not only of preventing any form of escalation in the conflict in Ukraine, but also of learning how to foster dialogue and reconciliation.”
The invitation occurs against a background of mounting tensions on the Ukrainian border, with more than 80,000 Russian troops still massed along the Russian side of the border, following large scale troop exercises, which provoked NATO to make similar gestures and prompted the recent visit of the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to Ukraine.
The conflict in Ukraine has raged on ever since a government perceived as hostile to Russia took power, and since that time Putin’s regime has seized Crimea and funded an ongoing insurgency in the eastern regions of Ukraine where many Russian speakers still live.
Should Pope Francis take up the invitation to visit Ukraine, he will be stepping into not only an ethno-religious minefield, but treading in the troubled footsteps of a previous Pope.
In one of the last trips of his life, in 2001, St John Paul II visited Ukraine, but much of the Orthodox hierarchy found excuses to leave the country rather than meet the Pope. The Russian Orthodox Church harbours perhaps unique resentment towards the Catholic Church stemming from the military incursions of Catholic powers in the early modern era, and a long-burning hostility towards Catholic “proselytisers”, especially the Jesuits, whose activities within the Russian Empire were regarded by many in the Russian Orthodox Church as subverting their society both politically and religiously.
The situation in Ukraine is very different now, and highly complex. Three different denominations predominate; the Russian Orthodox Church, generally loyal to Moscow, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, rooted in Ukrainian identity but historically suspicious towards Catholics, and the Eastern Rite Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, in communion with Rome. Since the last Papal visit relations between the Ukrainians and the Catholics have improved considerably, partly due to the general improvement in ecumenism, but in large measure due to rising hostility between Ukraine and Moscow.
In 2018 the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was granted autocephaly by the Ecumenical Patriarch, driving a decisive wedge between them and the Russian Orthodox. If the previous Papal visit drew ire from Moscow, a trip now would be seen as an extreme provocation by both the Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church.
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