UGCC Head on the Maidan urged every Ukrainian this year to read two books: the Scripture and the Kobzar

Tens of thousands of people came to the Maidan for the Shevchenko Commemoration.   Members of the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations also participated in the celebration.  

The Father and the Head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, His Beatitude Sviatoslav (Shevchuk) in his address to Ukrainians said that Taras Shevchenko would like today to celebrate his jubilee with us on the Maidan.

“I asked myself: Where would Taras Hryhorovych today most like to celebrate his jubilee?  I answer this question: here, together with us, on the Maidan.  I ask myself:  what does he want to say to us?  I think that we should listen to his words to us, because it is not for naught that our people have considered Taras the great prophet of the Ukrainian nation.  And a prophet is one who is the voice of God to his people.  Thus, he said about his task:”

“I will glorify

These small mute slaves!

I will place the Word near them

As their guard…”

The assembled greeted these words with applause.  UGCC Primate added that today throughout the Maidan there are many words being said, but the word of Taras is special, about which the poet says:

“So what, it would seem are words…

Words are a voice – nothing else.

Yet the heart beats – enlivens,

When it hears them! … Know ye,

From God are both this voice and these words,

Wandering among the people!”

 “The prophetic word of Taras enlivens us and we hear right now how our heart beats, but together with that, let us pray to the Lord, because He is our hope. 

Today, I want to say to you:  “Don’t be afraid!”  These words were said by my great predecessor, His Beatitude Lubomyr, at the beginning of Maidan, and I want to repeat it once more, because our hope is in the Lord, who speaks to us here in the Maidan flames, whose presence can be felt by everyone who comes to this holy place.”

Having quoted poems by Shevchenko, the Head of the Church urged every Ukrainian this year to take the Scripture in one hand and the Kobzar by Taras in the other.  “And read these two books this year.   You will hear the prophetic Word of God, geared towards the Ukrainian heart, which will enliven it and will grant it new strength,” contends UGCC Primate.  

His Beatitude Sviatoslav also asked what today Maidan wants to tell to their Taras.  “I remember the faces of youth: young women and men, with whom this Maidan started, who were the first ones to shed their blood here, and later gave up their life as members of the Heavenly Hundred.  We say that the Maidan is the voice of Ukraine, the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian heart,” stated he and these words were once again acclaimed by applause. 

His Beatitude Sviatoslav believes that today we should all together turn to Taras in his own words, which he said in his time, in the renowned poem to Osnov’yanenko:

“Sing to them, my dove,

About Sich, the graves,

When which one they dug,

Who was buried.

About the past, about that miracle,

Which happened and passed…

That, unwillingly,

The whole world will have to hear,

What happened in Ukraine,

For what it died,

Why the glory of Cossacks

Spread throughout the world!”

The Hierarch urged all to ask themselves, what kind of Ukraine should be ours.  “I think that the voice of the people and the voice of Shevchenko are absolutely in tune.  It should be God’s blessed land.  When we look at this moment which we are experiencing right now, again there are no better speakers than Shevchenko on the topic of aggression and the destruction of a country:”

 “Robbed, as an orphan

Over the Dnipro she cries;

It’s tough and hard to be an orphan

Yet, no one sees…

Only the enemy, who laughs…

Laugh, you hostile one!

But not too much, everything withers-

Glory will not die:

Will not die, but will tell

What happened in the world,

Who was right; who was wrong,

And whose children we are.

Our thought, our song,

Will not die, will not perish…

There, folks, is our glory,

Ukraine’s glory!

Without gold, without gems,

Without sly talk,

But loud and truthful

As the Word of God…”

“As the Word of God” -- again the Head of the Church recited the poem of the prophet.

“The prophetic words of Taras enliven us and we hear right now how our heart beats,” noted the preacher.  Simultaneously, he asked that we, together with Taras, pray to the Lord, because he is our hope.  “Especially let us pray to the Mother of God, the one in whose intercession we, together with you, were blessed once long ago by the great Prince of Ukraine, Yaroslav the Great.  In her motherly heart, today is Ukraine.”

In concluding, UGCC Head urged Ukrainians not to be afraid.  “Today, I want to say to you:  “Don’t be afraid!”  These words were said by my great predecessor, His Beatitude Lubomyr, at the beginning of the Maidan, and I want to repeat them once more, because our hope is in the Lord, who spoke here to us through the Maidan flames, whose presence everyone feels who comes to this holy place,” appealed His Beatitude Sviatoslav.

Today, before the beginning of the Shevchenko commemoration on the Maidan, UGCC Head together with members of the Government of Ukraine, diplomats, AUCCRO, and community leaders

placed flowers at the monument to the Bard of Ukraine.

 Department of Information  UGCC