Eastern Catholic bishops of Europe expressed their solidarity with the people of Ukraine

The participants of the meeting of the Eastern Catholic bishops of Europe demonstrated their solidarity with the people of Ukraine, above all the Greek Catholics. They exhorted them to pursue the path of dialogue and unity between the country’s Christian churches which a particular attitude of misinformation – especially at the international level – aims to undermine.

"At this dramatic moment in the country’s history, all the churches are committed to supporting the difficult path of the rebuilding of social cohesion first of all through a path of conversion, the only weapon in the face of those who think of corruption as the only controlling principle of society", said bishops.

Faced with the greatest humanitarian disaster since the fall of the totalitarian regime, His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halyč, thanked his confrères for the prayers and spiritual closeness of the sister churches, and recalled the generosity of the various national Caritas organisations, calling for a renewed solidarity of the international community.

The annual meeting of the Eastern Catholic hierarchs of Europe took place this year in Prague (Czech Republic) at the invitation of  Mgr Ladislav Hučko, Apostolic Exarch for Byzantine Rite Catholics resident in the Czech Republic.

More than 40 Eastern Catholic bishops in Europe met to examine in depth the relationships of friendship and unity among the continent’s Eastern Catholic episcopate, through the exchange of information about the life of the respective churches at the national level and about the sensitive relations between Church and civil society and with the other Christian churches. The meeting was also an opportunity to prepare for the Synod of Bishops on the family next October. It was precisely the family, its sacramental nature and the challenges laid before it by a rapidly-changing society, which was the object of reflection and examination.

The 2016 meeting will take in Fatima (Portugal) in October.