Patriarch Lubomyr completes audiobook series with ‘The Path to God’

As the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church His Beatitude Lubomyr celebrates a decade of patriarchal ministry, he presented his third audiobook “The Path to God.” This is the final part of his trilogy of interviews, where he answers questions about the duties of a person, about vocation and talent, and where he reflects on whether state censorship is necessary. The new audiobook concludes the patriarch’s trilogy “Three Paths,” the first part of which was published in January 2009 and the second in April 2010. Like the previous books – “The Path to Oneself” and “The Path to Thy Neighbor” – the new edition is a two-hour interview. The audio format was the preferred format for His Beatitude Lubomyr. “I am glad that there are tools that allow one to share thoughts with others. Because I can not write myself, I can only record,” says the head of UGCC. The author of the foreword to the book, a well-known Ukrainian journalist and human rights activist Yevhen Sverstiuk, notes that the philosophizing in this book is deep in substance and clearly expressed. “The cult of miracles and relics and all sorts of business interests are present in our society and dulls the spirituality of the society,” he said. “But here we feel something substantial and real.” After her conversation with Patriarch Lubomyr, journalist from Dzerkala Tyzhnia Kateryna Shchotkina expressed her surprise in the depth of the patriarch’s personality. “As a journalist, I can say that Bishop Lubomyr is a very grateful interlocutor,” recognizes Shchotkina. “However, on the other hand, it is very difficult because when a journalist interviews him, he leads the conversation. And soon after I begin my conversation with His Beatitude Lubomyr I find myself agreeing with everything he says and posing the questions he wants me to ask.” His Beatitude Lubomyr speaks about the issue of modernizing the church, tolerance, fatalism and vocation, as well as how to deal with the manifestation of double standards in the church and state. He reflects on the essence of such concepts as miracles and talent, love and freedom, which sometimes get lost in everyday life: "What is love? It is to wish good to one’s neighbor and if possible to do good for him. Even if I cannot always fulfill this, I always want to do good to somebody. Freedom is being able to do good in all circumstances.” To do good and to love is the slogan of the patriarch’s trilogy. On February the First Hierarch plans to start work on a new audio project – a trilogy called “Society.”

Information Department of the UGCC
with materials from radio Svoboda