The Synod of Bishops of UGCC studied the question of migration

“According to research conducted during 2008-2009 by researchers at the assistance of International charitable fund Caritas Ukraine, since independence, the search for a ‘better life’ outside of the country drove out nearly 5 million Ukrainians. Other sources say 7 million. Among the latter is information from the State Institute of Statistics. According to the information published by the institute in the last three years about 1.5 million people were driven out from Ukraine. From this number, over 60% consists of residents from the western regions of Ukraine,” such information was stated by Bishop Joseph (Milyan), the head of the Pastoral and Missionary Department of the UGCC. The report was given on the second day of work of the Synod of Bishops of the UGCC. As was reported earlier, the main theme of the synod was migration. “When we consider that the Greek Catholics in the western regions of Ukraine (especially Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, and Lviv) make the majority, and that there are over 5 million Ukrainian Greek Catholics in the world, we can safely say that 1/3 of all faithful of the UGCC lives in emigration,” the speaker continued. “However statistics alone do not mean too much when we don’t realize that real people represent those numbers, their bodies and souls, that those people occupy a certain status in the society and are the children of Christ’s Church and need its support,” said Bishop Joseph, speaking about importance of migration for the church. In the opinion of the head of the Pastoral and Missionary Department, an difficult task stands before the church in its spiritually social ministry. “On the one hand, the church has to help its people contest all displays of social injustice, which are caused by the mass departure of people, and on the other hand, it must remind those who search for a piece of bread on a foreign land, Christ’s appeal: “Search for the first Kingdom of God and his justice... And everything will come together,’” he explained. Bishop Joseph also stated that the phenomenon of migration “induces us to build a lively church, a church where the basis is made of the people, scattered across the entire world, but identified as successors of Kyivan Christianity.” In fact, until now, “all the ministry  was concentrated on the people who came to church. It is a positive challenge for UGCC because Ukrainian migration allows and induces us to prove ourselves not only as a church of own law (sui iuris), but also as the Eastern Catholic Church which confidently steps in the direction of patriarchy,” concluded the head of the department.

Information Department of the UGCC