In accordance to the Decisions of the Forty-Sixth Session of the Synod of Bishops of Kyiv-Halych Major Archbishopric of UGCC of September 13-14, 2009, a Program of Counteracting Abortions was ratified in Ukraine.
In accordance to the Decisions of the Forty-Sixth Session of the Synod of Bishops of Kyiv-Halych Major Archbishopric of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), which took place on September 13-14, 2009, in Lviv-Briukhovychi, a Program of Counteracting Abortions was ratified in Ukraine. It was also decided for the realization of this program to create a Coordinating Council. UGCC web site posted this story on 23 February.
Among the events foreseen by the program, there is the introduction in the Church the Remembrance Day of Aborted Children. This day is celebrated annually on the second Saturday of the Great Lent. This year the day set on February 27.
With the blessing of Patriarch Lubomyr, the Commission of the UGCC in matters of pastoral health care prepared the appeal, which the head of the Church entrusts to the pastors to read on Sunday, February 28, 2010, and to add during the Divine Liturgy two additional petitions to “ektenia Suguba.”
“Today we all more frequently become witnesses to modern culture, in particular through the practice of abortion, growing into a culture of death. There is a dramatic change of the worldview of people, the staling of their conscience, and it affects the moral state of the whole society and its values…
We remind that the Church does not stop teaching: God forbids depriving a life of an unborn child! This sin is a heavy sin of murder of man, regardless of a state’s law and earthly consideration! First of all, we need to obey God, not man!” stresses the Circulation of the Commission of the UGCC in matters of pastoral health care, the text of which in Ukrainian can be read at this reference: www.ugcc.org.ua/1096.0.html.