The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church met with Pope Leo XIV, briefing the Pope on the situation in Ukraine as Russia’s full-scale invasion reaches the four-year mark. Source: OSV News.
Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk spoke with Pope Leo at the Apostolic Palace on February 12, the second personal audience the prelate has had since meeting with the Pope days after his election, said the UGCC press office after the meeting.
Major Archbishop Shevchuk thanked Pope Leo for the “solidarity and support” he has shown to Ukraine.
That support has included diplomatic efforts by the Vatican to end the conflict and to secure the return of prisoners of war. Major Archbishop Shevchuk provided Pope Leo with lists of prisoners and missing persons whose names he had received from families.
Under both Pope Leo and the late Pope Francis, the Vatican has also worked for the return of thousands of Ukrainian children who have been deported by Russia, forcibly stripped of their Ukrainian identity and placed for adoption in Russian families, with many children militarised.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and child commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for the deportations, which began in 2014 and which violate international law.
Major Archbishop Shevchuk thanked Pope Leo for the Vatican’s “important mission in saving human lives, in which the Holy See has been systematically involved since the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine,” the UGCC press office said.
Pope Leo and Major Archbishop Shevchuk also discussed the UGCC’s pastoral ministry amid Russia’s ongoing attacks, which continue assaults launched in 2014, and which have been declared a genocide in two joint reports from the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.
FULL STORY
Head of Ukrainian Catholic Church meets with Pope Leo, calls Ukraine ‘wounded but alive’ (By Gina Christian, OSV News)
