The delegation of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) is participating in the Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which started on September 30th and will continue until October 29th in the Vatican. The main theme of the synodal meeting of the Catholic Church is "For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, and Mission."
This was reported by the Secretariat of the Head of the UGCC in Rome.
The UGCC is represented at the Papal Synod by His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, along with bishops Bogdan Dziurakh and Teodor Martyniuk.
On Saturday, September 30th, an ecumenical prayer event called "Together" took place in front of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. The event was attended by youth from various countries and leaders from different Christian Churches. Children and teachers from the Catholic school "Holy Sophia" and the "Liberton" choir, which operates at the UGCC Pro-Cathedral in Rome, were also invited to participate. Among the choir participants are children from families displaced from Ukraine due to the war and children of the Ukrainian diaspora in Rome.
In his address, Pope Francis emphasized the importance of silence in the life of the Church, stating that "Silence in the ecclesial community creates conditions for fraternal communication in which the Holy Spirit harmonizes different points of view. To be synodal means to accept one another with the awareness that each of us has something to testify to and something to learn by coming together to listen to the 'Spirit of truth' (John 14:17) in order to understand what 'He says to the Churches' (Revelation 2:7)."
Silence on the path to ecumenical unity is also of great importance: "The unity of Christians grows in silence before the cross, like the seed that we receive as a symbol of the various gifts of the Holy Spirit that He grants to different traditions. We are tasked with sowing them, confident that only God gives growth (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:6)." The Pope called on all Christians to pray together to "learn silence anew."
After the ecumenical event, the delegates of the Papal Synod began a period of joint spiritual retreats, which are taking place at the retreat center in Sacrofano, near Rome. The working sessions of the Synod will begin on October 4th in the Vatican and conclude on October 29th with a Holy Mass celebrated by Pope Francis.
In his weekly address, His Beatitude Sviatoslav referred to the Papal Synod as a "unique event of global significance in the life of the Catholic Church."