Vatican Secretary of State to visit Ukraine on July 21

This was reported by Vatican News.

Pope Francis wrote a letter to the cardinal, clarifying that the reason for the trip of his envoy would be the final celebrations of the all-Ukrainian pilgrimage of Catholics of the Latin rite.

In his Latin message, the Holy Father notes that the church complex, run by the "barefoot" Carmelite brothers, received the status of a national shrine in 2011. Still, the tradition of pilgrimages is centuries old. To be more precise, it dates back to the first half of the seventeenth century, when in 1630, the Kyivan voivode Janusz Tyszkiewicz, in gratitude for the liberation from the Tatars, founded a monastery there and presented it with the Our Lady of the Snows icon painted in the sixteenth century. Over time, the veneration of the miraculous image of Our Lady spread throughout the country.

Pope Francis entrusts Cardinal Parolin with a special mission: "To call on all the event's participants to continually implore Mary, Queen of Peace, to end the war in Ukraine and all of the world." The Mother of Christ exemplifies God's blessing among women and should be emulated, "for she pleases God, who opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble."

At the end of the message, the Bishop of Rome asks the Vatican hierarch to convey his apostolic blessing to the pilgrims and to express "goodwill and spiritual closeness in this extremely difficult time for the beloved people of Ukraine."

On his trip, Cardinal Parolin will be accompanied by two local priests: the Rector of the Theological Seminary of the Kyiv-Zhytomyr Diocese, Fr. Ruslan Mykhalkiv, and Secretary of the Lviv Archbishop-Metropolitan of the Latin Rite, Fr. Andriy Legovych.