"War for human dignity is being waged in Ukraine," - Head of the UGCC on the seventeenth day of the war
"What can we, as Christians, oppose to such neglect of people during the war in Ukraine?” the head of the Church asks and answers: “First and foremost, we must do deeds of charity and do everything to show respect for human dignity.”
"Today we pray for our Ukrainian army, which protects and asserts this dignity. We pray for the civilian population of Ukraine, for our refugees, for those who were left in cold, surrounded cities and villages without water, without food, without heat. We remember them and want to help them," the head of the UGCC said.
He added that today Ukraine is fighting for humanitarian corridors, for saving a person, respecting his dignity, regardless of the language one speaks, what people or what church they belong to.
His Beatitude Sviatoslav drew attention to the fact that Ukraine now faces a great challenge – the inability to bury the dead, which is one of the forms of disregard for human dignity.
The Russian aggressor, who broke into Ukrainian soil, the Primate noted, does not respect the bodies of his own victims and does not consider it necessary to pay tribute to those who died in Ukraine. Although our volunteers, our good people, want to hand over the bodies of the Russian victims, no one wants to accept them in order to bury them with dignity.
"We know that burying the deceased is one of the types of mercy for the body of one's neighbor. It is with pain that we contemplate how thousands of people are buried in huge mass graves without names in the surrounded cities, for example in Mariupol, without prayer, without Christian honor, without Christian funerals. In Mariupol alone, according to official data, almost one and a half thousand civilians were killed these days, who were buried in joint, mass graves," the hierarch said.
Therefore, the head of the UGCC stressed the importance of showing respect for the bodies of the murdered compatriots and once again called on the priests of the UGCC in Ukraine and around the world today, March 12, to hold funeral services for those who were killed on the lands of Ukraine as a result of this inhumane, terrible war.
