In his Easter Epistle, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, said ““The Power of Christ’s Resurrection today is our hope in the church, social, and personal life.»
Despite threats of division and the taking over of churches, he said, Christ is nontheless with us. The strength of weapons, he added, dissipates before the glory of the Resurrected Christ.
“Our pains He perceives as if He personally were wounded. It was He who was defiled by the attack on youth at the Maidan. It was He who was made indigent when the goods of the people were ransacked by the corrupt regime. It was He who was imprisoned and wrongly sentenced, forced to stand naked on the snow and tortured during kidnappings. It is He – the first victim of the Heavenly Hundred”.
“We have no more certain nor stronger assistance – neither in international diplomacy, nor in the force of the armed efforts nor in personal agreements, willing for thirty pieces of silver, to put a price for the Priceless One. In His Resurrection, Christ through the strength of the Holy Spirit, makes one nation from those who once opposed each other”.
Archbishop Sviatoslav added that the sign of Christ’s resurrection, in which he raises us from the grave, should renew our attitude towards all people.
“Let us love and embrace everyone next to us, in our village, town, city, region, and on all of Earth. Let us learn to respect and love the one who is different from us: thinks differently, follows other traditions or speaks a different language – this is that, which bears testimony to the glory of the Resurrection!”
