Patriarch Sviatoslav Explains Why Joint Address with Roman Catholics on Volyn Tragedy Was Not Issued

In an interview to КАІ Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk expressed hope that the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) and the Catholic Church in Poland will continue to play a leading role in the process of Ukrainian-Polish reconciliation.

The patriarch noted that at the beginning of the Lent, the UGCC bishops published an address on the “Volyn Tragedy.”

At the same time, the hierarch regretted that the Greek Catholics and Roman Catholics in Ukraine failed to issue a joint address on the tragedy.

When asked about the recognition of ethnic cleansing of Poles, the patriarch answered, “Yes and we mentioned it in our letter. We call things by their proper names. I deeply regret that no joint letter was published.”

Patriarch Sviatoslav explained that last year, in the autumn, the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church and the UGCC decided to prepare a joint address on the Volyn tragedy. They compiled the text in the beginning of the year, but it needed to be further elaborated.

“We proposed the wording, 'We forgive and ask for forgiveness.' However, Archbishop Mokrzycki did not agree and proposed the wording, 'We apologize and ask forgiveness.' The result of such a wording would be a unilateral apology from Ukrainians, while Poles also are guilty of certain things with respect to us,” said the head of UGCC.

According to him, this wording will never be accepted by the Ukrainian side.

“In addition, the wording proposed by us is not created by us but is just a quotation from a letter by Polish bishops to the German bishops in 1965. The same wording was confirmed in a joint letter from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and Polish Roman Catholic Church of 2005. The alteration proposed by Archbishop Mokrzycki is outside my competence. Last February, we had a Synod session where he submitted his request but it was not approved,” added the patriarch.