A book on the ecumenical mission of the Eastern Catholic Churches has been released by the Vatican Publishing House

The Second Vatican Council identified a "special task" for the Eastern Catholic Churches in promoting Christian unity. In order to understand the "special task" of these Churches today, on September 12-14, 2019, Rome also held a Meeting of Hierarchs of the Eastern Catholic Churches and representatives of the Holy See. The meeting was organized by the Council of Bishops' Conferences of Europe and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in cooperation with the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.

The academic heritage of this meeting was the publication of a collection of reports of the participants. In addition to experts in ecumenism, Cardinals Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Holy See, Angelo Bagnasco, President of the Council of Bishops' Conferences of Europe, Leonardo Sandri, Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Unity of Christianity, and His Beatitude Sviatoslav, Head and Father of the UGCC, have contributed to this edition. The publication ends with the words of the Holy Father Francis, in which he reminded the participants of the Meeting of an important principle of the ecumenical mission of the Eastern Catholic Churches: “Christian unity is not monotony. Uniformity destroys unity. And Christian truth is not monotonous, but symphonic, otherwise it would not come from the Holy Spirit.”

It should be added that the publication was issued on the initiative of the Head of the UGCC in cooperation with the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and belongs to a series of publications of this dicastery "Ut unum sint" ("Let all be one") on the topic of theological understanding of unity among Christians. The book is being prepared for publication in the Ukrainian language.

The Secretariat of the Head of the UGCC in Rome