In Lviv a guidebook for chaplaincy in prisons will be presented

Saturday, 22 December 2012, 17:53

On December 26, 2012 at 2 PM , at Lviv Holy Spirit Spiritual Seminary (35 Khutorivka St., Lviv) there will be a presentation of the book Serving Prisoners. This publication of the UGCC Patriarchal Curia Department of Pastoral Services in Penal Structures is a product of many years of cooperation with the Penitentiary Department. The book provides professional directives for pastorship in penitentiary structures and will be useful for seminarians, priests and volunteers in this field.

Journalists, chaplains, seminarians, lecturers as well as representatives of the Christian Interconfessional Mission of the prison services of the Penitentiary Department of Ukraine are invited.

UGCC Penitentiary Chaplaincy

Excerpt from the book:

“Jean Vanier, a noted Canadian activist, a Christian philosopher, psychologist, writer, founder of the international community L’Arche also spent time in serving prisons. Based on his experience of visiting prisoners, he voiced his deep conviction that the sufferers of crime are both the victims as well as the criminals themselves: “Serving is above normal human strength: to a communicate with a criminal and not to judge him is difficult. All the more difficult is to forgive. However, it is exactly there, where the logic of the relation of the strong and the weak gets exasperated, that Divine Logos begins. Love and justice meet at the Golgotha Cross, shine at us from the wounds of Christ. Kind forgiveness and rebirth for people, are there, forever evident, during Christ’s Stations of the Cross. Through them Christ continually enlivens us, freeing us from natural inabilities and limitations.”