Bishops of the Ukrainian Catholic Church In America

O my Saviour, living and unconsumed sacrifice!

As God, you offered yourself willingly to the Father,

And you raised with you the forefather of all, Adam,

Having risen from the tomb.

Ode 6, Paschal Canon

Christ is Risen! 

Beloved in Christ!

As we celebrate Christ’s Pascha again amid the horrors of a full-scale war, now in its third year, we enter ever deeper into the great mystery of sacrifice offered by the Lord Jesus for our salvation. The Son of God, becoming man, gives back to the Father that which is the most precious—his life! The essence of Pascha’s power, the only thing capable of overcoming violence, abuse, and death, is revealed to us in the voluntary self-sacrifice of Christ. This is beautifully stated in the anaphora of the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil the Great: “And when He had descended through the Cross into Hades, so that He might fill all things with Himself, He loosed the pangs of death, and rose on the third day, and paved the way for all flesh by the resurrection from the dead, for it was not possible for the Prince of life to be mastered by corruption.”

O my Saviour, living and unconsumed sacrifice!

Today, our hearts are filled with the joy of the resurrection of Christ, who emerges in radiance from the grave. The empty tomb reveals to us the fullness of life in the Lord to which we are called in the joy of God’s children. This joy is given to all who see in the wood of the cross the door to renewed life in the resurrection. Because Christ, being the living God, out of great love for us, chose to voluntarily accept suffering, crucifixion, and death, in order to resurrect fallen human nature with himself, and to give us eternal life in his resurrection. By uniting with Christ crucified on the cross, we receive the fruit of his sacrifice in the resurrection from the dead.

In proclaiming this Paschal Mystery, the Church today also directs us to our forefather Adam, whom Christ, in his resurrection, frees from the shackles of hell, and reveals to us the truth—that for humankind life after death really exists! In the person of Adam all humanity is depicted—past, present, and future. The risen Christ is the one who gives meaning to the fullness of human history, which leads from sin and the fall, slavery and bondage, to repentance, conversion, liberation, and salvation. In celebrating Christ’s Pascha, today we reach beyond the limits of our time and space, and enter into the eternity of God. In the Risen Christ, we can boldly say: “Behold, now is a favourable time, behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6:2). 

As God, you offered yourself willingly to the Father!

The resurrection of the Son of God demonstrates that his voluntary self-sacrifice is not the end but a new beginning of life for each of us. Christ’s voluntary death on the cross is terrible, real, but life-giving, because it is a “living and unconsumed sacrifice.” Indeed, we are not called to death and nothingness but to life and joy in God. Whoever sacrifices oneself not for the purpose of fulfilling one’s own ambitions, personal goals, or human intentions but gives oneself voluntarily to the Father—is already risen! In this is found the essence of every true sacrifice—to give the Creator one’s everything, that is, to return to God that which is God’s because we are the creation of his hands! That is the meaning of human life itself: we received it as a gift from God and we are called to return it to him alone! By sacrificing ourselves to the Father, we complete ourselves fully in God’s eternal love. By giving ourselves we do not lose anything, but on the contrary, we rise together with Christ! That is why we often repeat in our liturgical services: “let us commend ourselves, and one another, and our whole life to Christ our God.” In the Risen Christ, the value and purpose of every human self-sacrifice is revealed.

Today, Ukraine is a victim-sacrifice of russia’s criminal war against our people. We often ask ourselves: is our fight really worth such a high price? Over these past years for what do we sacrifice that which for us is the most precious: our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers; our cities and villages, our land and everything we possess? For what purpose do we live and die today? In response to this cry of anguish and tears of Ukraine, today the Risen Saviour comes forth from the empty tomb as a “living and unconsumed Sacrifice.” It is He, the Victor, who speaks to us today in the voice of fallen heroes: “We fell so that you may live! We sacrificed our lives as an offering to God and to you! In our sacrifice the Lord’s Pascha is proclaimed!” Our victory over the enemy is as certain and inevitable as the day that always follows the night, as the dawn of that morning when Christ was risen, changing the weeping and tears of the myrrh-bearers into the peace and joy of every person who today proclaims to the whole universe: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the tombs giving life!”

You raised with you the forefather of all, Adam, having risen from the tomb!

In his resurrection, Christ destroyed death and fear before those who carry it. The Apostle to the Nations states that it was through the fear of death that the devil held the human race in his slavery: “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb. 2:14-15). The Lord destroyed this fear once and for all, destroyed the power of the devil, the bearer of death, and that is why we call out to him today: My Saviour! 

Today Ukrainians sense that in the third full-scale year of a ten-year war, which, in fact, has been going on for centuries, the time has come to destroy once and for all, in Europe and the world, the realm of deathly fear, carried by the insatiable Russian slavemaster and colonizer, to destroy the rule of those who for centuries kept in this slavery to fear our people and other enslaved nations. Today in Ukraine, the one who rains death onto the field of life is losing power. The power of Christ’s Pascha put an end to the power of the devil, the author of slavery, insolence, falsehood, and violence. Indeed, in Christ we voluntarily give ourselves to the Father as a living and life-giving sacrifice. Today in the Paschal Victory the pascha of Ukraine is fulfilled. Today, Christ rises in our struggle against evil, in our efforts, in the flesh and blood of our people, in order to raise up humanity of the third millennium and give hope to the world – for in Ukraine, Christ is Risen!

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ! On this radiant day, one of victory of life over death, good over evil, truth over falsehood, I urge you to abide in the faith, hope, and love that the Risen Lord brings us. In the joy of the Resurrection, I greet our military heroes, sons and daughters of Ukraine, who defend us at the frontlines, are ready to sacrifice everything out of love for their land and their people. We believe in your God-given strength, we revere your resistance to evil, over which we shall inevitably prevail.

I greet all those who have suffered from the war—physically, materially, morally. Let today’s feast above all feasts, and festival of festivals, be for you a balm in your suffering. In a special way, I embrace with my paternal love the families of the fallen, expressing my personal gratitude and the gratitude of all God’s people to you, as you bear in the depths of your heart the indescribable pain of losing your son or daughter, brother or sister, husband or wife, father or mother. I embrace the wounded. You carry the seeds of resurrection together with Christ, for He too carried the wounds of the crucifixion on His hands and feet. May the joy of Pascha pave the way to your physical and moral healing. Тo the families of our prisoners and those missing in action, who are celebrating Easter today in tears, I express my compassion, support and prayerful closeness. To all those who have been deprived of their homes by the war and expelled from their hometowns or villages, to all internally displaced persons, and to all those who found temporary sanctuary outside their homeland, I wish you spiritual comfort and confidence, that where the Risen Lord is, there we are always at home.

I embrace all children, adults and the elderly, men and women—and my wish for you is that in sharing the Easter basket, you may experience profound joy, God’s mercy and blessings. I embrace with a fatherly love all the volunteers and workers involved in works of charity, our clergy, religious, and faithful in Ukraine and throughout the world, and I sincerely wish you all a blessed Easter feast, a tasty sharing of our traditional blessed egg, and a Paschal joy that is full of light.

The grace of our Risen Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all!

Christ is risen! Truly, He is risen!

† SVIATOSLAV

Given in Kyiv

at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ,

on the Feastday of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos

March 25, 2024 A.D.

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Вих. ВА 24/207 ENG

“THE GOSPEL IS THE POWER OF GOD TO SALVATION

FOR EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES” (Rm 1:16)

Pastoral Letter of the Synod of Bishops

of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church 2024

To the Clergy, Religious and Lay Faithful of the UGCC

While they were talking and discussing together,

Jesus himself drew near and went with them (Lk 24:15).

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ!

We, the bishops of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church from Ukraine and various

parts of the world, have gathered at the feet of the miraculous icon of the Mother of God in

Zarvanytsya from July 2 to 12 for the annual Synod. For the first time since the beginning

of the full-scale invasion, all the bishops of our Church came to Zarvanytsya, to be

together with their faithful, to share their pain and trepidations. Every day we offered up

prayers for a just peace and an end to a war that was criminally and insidiously initiated

by Russia against our people and a free Ukraine. In the days when our Synod was held,

Russian brutality crossed another line: in order to break our will to resist, the enemy

attacked the most vulnerable – sick children from all across the country being treated in

the central children's hospital in Kyiv. But despite this shameful plan, we witnessed

solidarity and kindness—thousands of people sifted through the ruins of destroyed

buildings, sheltered the injured, and within a few hours collected funds for the

reconstruction of the hospital. In this tragedy, we saw all a person is capable of—the most

terrible and the most magnificent. We saw that at the core of our will to resist there is

humanity and empathy.

Despite the terrible context, we sought answers—on how to preach the Gospel of

Christ in this time of trials and suffering, on how to evangelize, how to be messengers of

hope for our neighbors and the outside world. This was the main topic of our Synod.

Our people continues its pilgrimage to full freedom from enslavement by the empire

of evil which, first in the form of tsarist and communist Russia, and now in the form of

Putin's criminal regime, denied and continues to deny the very right of Ukrainians to exist

and to build their own existence in the light of Divine truth and Divine law. We do not

forget and do not let the world forget that Russian occupation brings death and crimes

against humanity. What we have is recurring genocide. What we have are recurrent

prohibitions of our Church which nonetheless rises again and again with its people.

In the suffering of Ukrainians, the earthly journey of our Savior is revealed once

again, a Savior whom enemies hated without cause (cf. Jn 15:25), betrayed out of envy (cf.

Mk 15:10), tortured with fierce malice (cf. Jn 19:3) and mercilessly killed on the cross (Mk

Page 2 of 4

Вих. ВА 24/207 ENG

10:34). Foretelling his passion, Jesus Christ gave his disciples an infallible promise of

resurrection: “The Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the scribes,

and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles. And they will

mock him and spit on him, and flog him and kill him. And after three days he will rise”

(Mk 10:33-34). When the apostles heard these words, they hardly realized what they

would have to go through, and perhaps they thought more about the promise of the

Kingdom than about the Teacher’s death. Thus, on the day of Good Friday, it seemed to

each of them that it was already the end. Even after initial reports of the Resurrection, the

two disciples on the road to Emmaus are distressed, they are assailed by numerous doubts

and questions.

In the terrible conditions of war, within Ukrainian society there are also many doubts

and questions which we, pastors, cannot ignore, even though we do not have an

exhaustive answer to them. Often the prayer of our people resembles the cry of the

psalmist who experiences loneliness and injustice.

We must discover for ourselves the presence of Christ in our pilgrimage as the two

disciples from Emmaus experienced (cf. Lk 24:13-23). Confused and tired, they allowed

their hearts to be enlightened and warmed by the word of God that came from the mouth

of the Risen One, and then they recognized Him in the breaking of bread. In the same way,

we, as a Church and a people, are called to be enlightened by God’s word of hope, truth,

and life, and to strengthen ourselves with heavenly food - the most holy Body and Blood

of our Savior. In them, the Lord gives us the pledge of victory and eternal life over which

death no longer has any power because we carry within us the deposit of resurrection

according to Christ’s infallible promise: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has

eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (Jn 6:54).

Beloved in Christ, let us be strengthened by the Word of God, for in it is the Spirit

and life (cf. Jn 6:63), the source and pledge of our hope! When we hear sirens, when

streams of disheartening news come at us from everywhere, when despondency, fear, and

hopelessness surround us, let us take the Holy Scriptures in our hands, pour out our

sorrows and pain before God, and together look for light and the necessary strength. After

all, St. Paul assures us, and the thousand-year experience of our people and our

unyielding martyr-Church confirms that “the Gospel is the power of God to salvation for

everyone who believes” (Rm 1:16).

The power of God, like the life-giving breath of the risen Savior, revives us every

time the Church proclaims the Gospel of Christ to each person today. This proclamation

(kerygma) vividly makes the Lord’s action present in our daily reality. This living word of

the Good News about Christ’s Resurrection, God's love for us, the forgiveness of sins, and

the communion of eternal life conveys to everyone who believes the very Source of our

hope and the power of Christian perseverance. It [this proclamation] informs us not of

past works of God, but of the fact that He acts in relation to each of us personally this very

day by the power and action of the Holy Spirit. When the enemy sows death and wants to

imprison us in his kingdom of hopelessness and despair, the Church of Christ in its

proclamation brings to each person who believes life and resurrection, hope of salvation,

and leads them to communion of the Holy Mysteries. That is why spreading this Word of

the Gospel into all dimensions of our personal and social life, so that its power might

permeate contemporary culture, and its light transfigure the way of human thinking and

acting (evangelization), and transmitting the faith to all who have not yet come to know

Christ, is the core mission of all His disciples – our contemporaries. It is about us,

especially those who are called to serve the Word of God, that St. Paul the Apostle speaks:

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“For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon

me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16).

We call on all the faithful of our Church to read God’s Word daily and meditate on it

in parish bible apostolate communities. Let our families be the first place where the

treasure of faith is passed on to new generations of Christians, where praying together and

the reading of the Holy Scriptures are practiced, and where different generations

strengthen one another through a witness of faith and through patient and faithful love.

However, let us remember that God’s Word always leads to the partaking of the Holy

Mysteries and is fulfilled in the Liturgy of Christ’s Church in the same way that the hearts

of the disciples burned on the way to Emmaus, when Jesus spoke to them on the way, but

they could only recognize Him in the breaking of bread—in partaking of His life and

resurrection in the Mystery of the Eucharist (Lk 24:35).

The consequences of Russian shelling are obvious, in particular in the form of

Ukrainians being killed or maimed. However, there are wounds on the body of our people

that we hear less about in the daily news. We speak of the burden that has fallen on

Ukrainian families who bury their dead, care for the wounded, search for the missing, and

share the post-traumatic syndrome of veterans. Statistics of divorces, of broken families, of

family members scattered around the world—all represent threats to our society.

Therefore, we continue striving to give special pastoral attention to our families. We call

on the parish clergy and the entire community of the faithful to care for families who have

lost loved ones, and for everyone who is suffering near us, who feels alone or abandoned.

Here it is appropriate to recall the words of Pope Benedict XVI who emphasized: “The

Church is God's family in the world. In this family no one ought to go without the

necessities of life… The parable of the Good Samaritan remains as a standard which

imposes universal love towards the needy whom we encounter ‘by chance’ (cf. Lk 10:31),

whoever they may be. Without in any way detracting from this commandment of

universal love, the Church also has a specific responsibility: within the ecclesial family no

member should suffer through being in need” (Encyclical Deus caritas est, 25).

Having deep wounds, which the war has already inflicted on us and inflicts each day

on our soul and body, “let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that

we may receive mercy and find grace for help in time of need” (cf. Heb 4:16). In particular,

let us often approach the Sacrament of Confession and not hesitate to bring all our

wounds, ailments, and diseases to the merciful Lord – the Physician of souls and bodies –

in the Sacrament of Anointing. It is in these Sacraments, which the Church calls the

Sacraments of healing, that our Savior and Lord wants to embrace us with his merciful

love and pour out the healing balm of his grace on our aching souls and hearts. Let us

allow Him to do it! Let us allow Him to heal us daily, overcoming the effects of war with

the power of God’s love, and restoring us to new hope and new life.

This new life is the life of the crucified and risen Christ in us, which reveals itself to

the world in our acts of merciful and compassionate love. Therefore, in the midst of all the

trials and sufferings of our days, let us not give up, but let us continue to do good to

everyone, and above all to “those who are of the household of faith” (cf. Gal 6:10), to our

suffering brothers and sisters in our native lands, in Ukraine. We repeat the call from our

pastoral letter of last year, which should remain a guide for us in our daily decisions and

actions: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good!” (Rm 12:21). If each of

us does at least one concrete good deed every day, we will steadily step by step bring

closer the victory of God’s truth.

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We want to express our deep gratitude to all those who by their very being are

already showing to the world the life of the risen Lord in our people: our defenders,

volunteers, doctors and chaplains, who are united with Christ in love and self-sacrifice,

and provide an example of the highest love, which lays down its life for its friends (cf. Jn

15:13).

We hasten with words of Christian comfort to all those who are mourning their dead

or searching for those missing without trace, and we assure them of our prayerful

closeness. We pray for the wounded and traumatized, for the liberation of those in

captivity and forcibly deported, for all those under temporary occupation, and for our

brothers and sisters scattered across the globe.

We thank our brothers and sisters in faith and all people of good will throughout the

world who remember us, who support us, and who pray with us and for us, being

confirmed together with us in Paschal faith and hope. Upon all we invoke God’s

boundless mercy, God’s strength, and the intercession of our Heavenly Mother – the Most

Holy Theotokos.

Remembering the great gift of Baptism for our people, we strive to renew our

promises of fidelity to Christ, and, at the same time, to strengthen our Paschal faith and

hope. As his disciples, as children of the resurrection, we firmly believe that our “third

day” will certainly come—the day of resurrection, the day of victory of truth and love over

sin, hatred and hell, that the bright dawn of our Ukrainian Easter will come!

Invigorated by this faith and Christian hope, we are already now, in the midst of

trials and suffering, proclaiming the good news of salvation to the whole world in the

words of the Apostle of the Nations: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;

perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not

destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also

be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for

Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh” (2 Cor 4:8-

11).

May the Divine Spirit continue to guide and revive us, may he make us instruments

of God’s love and God’s peace, and heralds of hope and life! May the Most Holy

Theotokos, and the saints and righteous of the Ukrainian land intercede for us on this

path!

May the blessing of the Almighty God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

descend upon our people and abide with us all forever!

On behalf of the Synod of Bishops

Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church

† SVIATOSLAV

Given in Kyiv,

at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ,

on the day of Saint Volodymyr, named Basil in Holy Baptism,

Grand Prince of Kyiv, Equal-to-the-Apostles,

On the 15th day of July in the 2024th year of our Lord

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We instruct parish clergy to read this Pastoral Letter to the faithful after every Divine

Liturgy on Sunday, August 4 of this year.