Patriarch Sviatoslav (Shevchuk) believes that civil society cannot exist in a totalitarian system
Head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, Patriarch Sviatoslav (Shevchuk), met with representatives of the Alliance of Christian Professionals on February 8 in Kyiv, in the Church of Saint Basil the Great.
At the meeting, the Primate of the Church exchanged opinions with Christian professionals on how to implement Christian principles in society, the methods that should be used to build civil society in our country, and how to use the opportunities of the Alliance of Christian Professionals for the good of the country.
The head of the UGCC shared his vision of civil society. "Today, there is a lot of talk about civil society... In my opinion, civil society is a society of free people. It is impossible to talk about civil society in a totalitarian system," he said.
"I speak about free people," says the Head of the Church, "because only a free person can feel responsible for the society they live in. And when the freedoms of citizens begin to disappear in Ukrainian society, the voice of civil society is silenced."
"I believe freedom to be a spiritual category. When talking about civil society or our role in this society as Christians, we should view the issue of freedom from the Christian perspective," says His Beatitude Sviatoslav.
On February 9, it will be 50 years since Patriarch Yosyf (Slipy) was released from prison. Therefore, the Primate of the UGCC focused the attention of the meeting participants on the example of prisoners of conscience. "What always struck me about our dissidents is that, despite their external imprisonment, they remained free people. How did they manage that? They were Christians. Inner freedom is a consequence of faith," said the Head of the Church.
Speaking on the topic of civil society, Patriarch Sviatoslav said that at the beginning of this year, he answered a hundred questions from young people from different parts of Ukraine and the world. "There was one question among them that made me think hard. The question was: should Christians today engage in evangelism in a bad society, or would it be better for us Christians to create our own alternative society? I answered as follows: in the Gospel, Christ says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast that a housewife puts in dough and waits for it to rise. That is, yeast is of no value itself. It becomes valuable only when it begins to ferment some larger matter," said the Primate of the UGCC.
The participants of the meeting discussed the following question: what place should the Church take in the process of building civil society? "From the Orthodox point of view, there is a possibility of becoming part of the government... However, we Catholics have never considered ourselves part of the government. We have never tried to gain power or become a state Church. In all its history, our Greek Catholic Church has never been a state Church. This means that we see ourselves as part of civil society. In this way, we wish to serve every person in Ukraine looking for an oasis of human dignity," said the Head of the UGCC. This is reported by the Information Department of the UGCC.
