Bishop Mykola Cardinal Bychok: ‘Young People, You are the Hope of the Church.’
On Sunday, 9 February, Bishop Mykola Cardinal Bychok delivered a keynote address at the conclusion of the UNITE 2025 Youth Conference organised by the Syro-Malabar Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle in Melbourne.
The four-day conference brought together more than 600 young participants aged 18 to 30 under the Jubilee Year slogan ‘Pilgrims of Hope’. The main goal of the event was to inspire young people to deepen their faith and actively spread the Gospel in the modern world.
The conference began with an opening speech by Eparchial bishop John Panamthottathil CMI, Bishop of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church in Australia, and included speeches by a number of guest speakers, including Archbishop Peter Comensoli (Archbishop of Melbourne), who delivered the first keynote address.
On the last day of the conference, Bishop Mykola Cardinal Bychok addressed the youth, emphasising the importance of the theological virtue of hope. He emphasised that evil in the world originates in the human heart, when people choose darkness over light and hatred over love. At the same time, he noted that Christians are called to seek not just optimism, but true hope: “Our response to the darkness and destruction caused by sin — by those evils both natural and moral — is the theological virtue of hope. So, my dear young people, in this year let us cling to the hope that we have as Christians by being tied to Christ our Saviour.”
Addressing the participants, he encouraged them to be active members of the Church, to go beyond its borders to proclaim the Good News to society, and to bring hope to the world: “Announce with joy to all people and to the culture at large that through Jesus Christ they might have life in the full. Never stop in your pursuit of peace and in embodying the boundless love of God. For this is the source of our true and unshakable hope.”
Unite 2025 became an important platform for the formation of a young generation of Catholics ready to confidently live their faith, serve the Church, and proclaim the Gospel in modern society.
Press office of the Melbourne Eparchy
