Ukraine Facing a Triple Crisis, – Bishop Gudziak

“For society, for the population one very important thing is to try and remember well its successful methodology, the methodology of a year ago, when great solidarity was expressed and the people of Ukraine really began believing that they can affect change. It becomes very difficult when we don’t believe, if we loose spirit and it’s not surprising with all of these crises if people of Ukraine are getting tired, are getting a bit anxious about the future. When will this end? How can it end? So I think the moral question and the question of moral is very important for Ukraine today,” the bishop told Hromadske International’s Nataliya Gumenyuk.

Ukrainian lawmakers and oridinary citizens alike need to start thinking about how to reconcile the war-torn country, Bishop Gudziak said. While reconciliation might seem an impossible task right now, it is not.

Bishop Gudziak spoke about reconciliation between French and Germans after World War II, as well as the Ukrainians and the Poles as examples of how enemies can mend relations. Both reconciliations once seemed impossible, but occurred in the bishop’s lifetime. The same type of reconciliation is possible in Ukraine, the bishop said.

As part of the reconcilation process, Russia and Ukraine will also have to mend their relationship.

“The first step to make is to realise that Donbas will not move to Texas, Russia will not split off with Antarctica and become a separate continent from Ukraine. We are, so to speak, condemned to seek reconciliation. It will require soul-searching, it will require an examination of conscious… . I know for a fact that Russians will have to face up to the question of this aggression, and why they supported their leader in this aggression, otherwise the reconciliation will be impossible. We need to look and find those people who can speak the truth, who can recognise the truth and find ways of communicating it to others,” the bishop said.

Bishop Guzdiak said it was frustrating to see how slowly reforms were taking place in Ukraine and mentioned that one year after the shootings on Maidan, it was saddening to think that the shooters had not been brought to justice, or even identified.

Gumenyuk asked the bishop about the international community’s role in the conflict in Ukraine. Bishop Gudziak said the West is slowly realizing the crisis in Ukraine and war on the country’s eastern border is a thread to European security as well Ukrainian sovereignty.

Bishop Borys Gudziak, Eparch of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Eparchy of Paris and the President of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine spoke with Gumenyuk in Kyiv on February 12, 2015

Source: Hromadske.tv