“We are positive about the Pope's visit to Ukraine,” - Metropolitan Epifaniy

This was announced by the head of the OCU Epifaniy during his stay in the Ivano-Frankivsk region.

"We are positive, because why should we resist when Christians should, on the contrary, unite in love, meet, communicate, and not be at enmity," the first hierarch said.

The Primate of the OCU also recalled that when Pope John Paul II visited Ukraine, only the Moscow Patriarchate opposed his visit, and the Ukrainian Church met him.

"Now we also live in such realities when the enemy is countering, because we are in a state of hybrid war and this is not only a war in the east of Ukraine but also an internal information struggle, when the enemy is trying to counteract everything that is useful for Ukraine," Metropolitan Epifaniy emphasized.

In 2020, President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the Vatican for the first time and, while at the audience, invited the Pope to visit Ukraine.

Subsequently, on March 25, Prime Minister Denis Shmygal during a visit to the Vatican conveyed Zelensky's invitation to Pope Francis to pay a visit to Ukraine on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Independence.