UGCC Explains Why Accusations of Proselytism Are Groundless

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) is primarily concerned about the pastoral care of its faithful, who for various reasons live in all regions of the country, and is not engaged in proselytism, as is wrongly stated by representatives of other churches, Fr. Dr. Ihor Shaban, head of the UGCC Commission for Promoting Christian Unity, said in a comment to the Information Department of the UGCC.

The priest said that today in Ukraine, after so many years of communism, Ukrainians can be divided into the following groups:

- Christians who consciously belong to a particular church, who openly profess their faith;

- Christians who consider themselves as belonging to the Church of Christ in general, but are not practicing and rarely attend church. We can say that they are still searching;

- People who for various reasons do not belong to any church.

“To each of these groups, according to the teachings of Jesus Christ ‘go and make disciples of all the nations,’ all churches need to preach the Good News, preach the Gospel, teach the Christian life, in other words, carry out a ‘new evangelization.’ Each church is responsible for the evangelization of its faithful, of those who consciously belong to a particular church and openly profess their faith and bear witness,” said Fr. Shaban.

“And if a person finds God in the church, regardless of the denomination, we all rejoice in this result, because for the Lord every soul is important and must be saved,” he added.

Recalling the recent comment of Archbishop Mitrofan (Yurchuk) of Luhansk and Alchevsk, chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), Greek Catholics are engaged in proselytism in central and eastern Ukraine, Fr. Shaban said that we pay too much attention the denomination and not enough to the average person who really needs this evangelization, who needs our good Christian example.

“I am pleased that talk about the alleged conflicts between our churches in Galicia is a thing of the past. I hope that today's groundless accusations will not last too long, because for us, Christians, it is important to have good, brotherly, and true Christian relations,” concluded Fr. Dr. Ihor Shaban.