Pope has accepted invitation to Ukraine, says archbishop

Major Archbishop Shevchuk said a papal visit would turn the attention of the world’s Christians to Ukraine as it continues to suffer Russian attacks.

The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk said Pope Francis had accepted an invitation to visit Ukraine.

Shevchuk said his Church had been assured that its invitation had been accepted, though without details about the timing of the possible visit.

“There is no set time [for the visit] yet, but Pope Francis sometimes likes to make surprises,” he said in an interview with Radio Liberty.  “He may announce his visit literally a month before deciding to go to Ukraine.” 

Shevchuk said a papal visit would turn the attention of the world’s Christians to Ukraine as it continues to suffer Russian attacks. Last week, Russia fired 80 missiles and 280 aerial bombs against targets in Ukraine.

While Ukrainian leaders have voiced enthusiasm for a visit from the Pope, hopes have increasingly turned to the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term as US President to advance peace prospects. The Pope has repeatedly appealed for negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv, most recently in his Urbi et Orbi Christmas address, but Shevchuk has denied that the Vatican has a role in mediation between the warring parties.

Russian airstrike damages Kyiv Catholic church

The end game in Ukraine

In another interview before Christmas with the RBC-Ukraine agency, Shevchuk said that the Vatican had not requested any official mediation role in the war, but a role in the humanitarian sphere as part of the “peace formula that falls within the Church’s competence”.  

“Mediation is a diplomatic mechanism that requires specific preconditions,” he said. “The first is the consent of both parties to involve a mediator and their request for it. The second is the willingness of the parties to implement the recommendations proposed by the mediation. At present, none of these conditions have been met.”

Discussing the wider religious situation in Ukraine, he said there was no prospect of talks on the unification of the Ukrainian Catholic Church and the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). “Orthodoxy in Ukraine faces different challenges and priorities,” he said, noting the continued uncertainty about the future of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), historically bound to Moscow, and its conflict with the OCU.

Shevchuk said UOC affiliated clergy had allegedly received funding from pro-Russian oligarchs in Germany to create parallel communities and religious centres among the Russian-speaking Ukrainian diaspora, to influence state policy from abroad. 

The OCU, like Shevchuk’s Church and the Ukrainian state, marked Christmas on 25 December, but the UOC had retained the Julian calendar and will celebrate the feast on 7 January.

Stay updated — add us as a preferred news source on Google: