Video-message of His Beatitude Sviatoslav. June 5rd. 102th day of the war

Today is Sunday 5 June 2022 and Ukraine is already experiencing the 102nd day of this great war that Russia has brought to the lands of Ukraine which Russian troops are sharpening in the body of the Ukrainian people.

Fierce fighting is taking place again in the Luhansk region, which is becoming the epicentre of a great confrontation. The enemy has concentrated all its greatest forces in storming the heroic cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. But it is not successful, and our defenders of Ukraine, our army, bravely defends the homeland. Similarly, the entire front line from north to south is on fire. The enemy continues to fire at the Mykolayiv, Odesa, Sumy, and Chernihiv regions. Great battles are being fought in the Kharkiv region. This morning the enemy fired a rocket strike, once again, at our Kyiv, our capital, the capital of our homeland.

But Ukraine is standing. Ukraine is fighting. Looking at God's wisdom, God's plan for our people, our people of God, Ukraine finds in itself the inner strength to fight evil and defend its native land, its native people.

Today, this Sunday, we in Ukraine, according to the Julian calendar, commemorate the memory of the Fathers of the First Council of Nicaea. And we are going through the third day of the "Decade of Mission," waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit, of the Third Person of God, to all of us. In today's Gospel reading, we listen to the high priestly prayer of Jesus Christ, which He, our high priest, addressed to the Father at the Mystical Supper, praying for His disciples. In this prayer, Christ first reveals to His disciples that He and the Father are one. The Son says to the Father, "Father, all things are mine, and thine are mine.” Praying for His disciples, He asks for unity between them, saying: "Father, I pray for them, for those whom You have given me, that they may be one, as we are one." Here, this high priestly prayer—this special Word of God addressed to us—shows that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Unity, the Spirit of Communion, the Spirit who gives and creates unity among people. It is the Holy Spirit who transforms closed human hearts. It transforms some other kind of gathering of people, team, or society into a community. It makes them become one thing in common. It makes them a Church that has "one heart and one soul," as we read about the first Christian community in Jerusalem.

In this way the Holy Spirit heals and seeks human relationships. We know that in particular modern culture with its extreme individualism often separates humans from humans, brings them loneliness. And the Holy Spirit overcomes that loneliness and introduces the believer into the community. For we say that to be a Christian is to be a member of the community, to be a member of the Church, as a unity created by the Holy Spirit.

We often hear the words "I am yours", or "you are mine," in our lives. It is this feeling of experiencing belonging to another, to another person that reveals to us the secret of our own person, our existence, our identity.

And in particular—when in times of war we lose so much of what is ours. Sometimes, millions of people lose their homes, all that they have gained during their lives, lose their loved ones—at this time the Holy Spirit reveals to us the meaning of the ministry of Christ's Church. Sometimes people realize themselves as Ukrainians, Christians, members of the Church of Christ only when they find themselves abroad or share the fate of an emigrant or refugee. So then it is important for a person to find their own, to find their own.

I was very impressed by the phrase of a woman, a refugee from Donbass, who told me that in a foreign place, she first seeks her Church, then she will find her own. And then she will find everything she needs in order to escape, to survive, to find herself in those tragic circumstances of war. It is the Holy Spirit who makes us grieve for one another. The Apostle Paul says, "If one member suffers, so does the whole body."
And today I want to thank very much all those people of good will who experience the grief, pain, and suffering of Ukraine as their own, because it is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. I want to thank all those who help Ukraine as if grief, misfortune, and war had come to their own home, to their own land. 

Today, I would like to thank once again the Congregation for the Oriental Churches and its Prefect, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, who is in Romania in these days to visit Ukrainian refugees. He crossed the border into Ukraine to show universal Christian solidarity with the victims of the war.

And the words about "their own" are fulfilled today in the destiny of the Ukrainian people, for whom the Church of Christ is theirs. And our Church has accepted as its own motto for pastoral ministry the following words: “Your Church is always and everywhere with you.”

O God, bless Ukraine! O God, be One with us, for Your Church is Your Body, and You are the Head of this Body! You are suffering today through the suffering of Your people. O God, bless the children of Ukraine, wherever they may be today! O God, bless Ukraine with Your peace and send down upon us the grace of Your Holy Spirit! 

May the blessing of the Lord be upon you through His grace and love of humankind, always, now and ever, and for ages of ages. Amen. 

Glory to Jesus Christ!