His Beatitude Sviatoslav met with the families of the prisoners and the missing persons
On Monday, January 30, His Beatitude Sviatoslav met with the families of prisoners of war and the missing ones in the Patriarchal House in Lviv. About seventy representatives of families of prisoners, mainly from Galicia, participated in the event, and the mother of a soldier from occupied Berdyansk.
During the meeting, the Primate addressed the defenders’ families with a parental word of support and also spoke about the opportunities and efforts made by the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church to free the defenders of Ukraine from Russian captivity since 2014 and until today. His Beatitude Sviatoslav assured the present families of the Church’s prayerful support and promised that he would do everything possible to find relatives and friends of these people.
The Head of the UGCC first thanked the families for the meeting. “I am happy to see you all, to look into your tearful eyes, even to cry with you, to share your pain. I want to embrace you today and express my concern over your suffering, and the patience you are going through,” said the Primate.
He noted that it is essential for the prisoners to know that their relatives are not broken but fighting for them and continuing to live because the enemy tries to break them every day to convince them that they are meaningless and forgotten.
“The first thing we do when we receive lists of prisoners or missing persons is to pray for them. After that, we take them as lists of those we give intentions for the Divine Liturgy. Then I submit them to Pope Francis, asking God to accept them into his hands. Last week, I handed over a list of 41 names of doctors to the Pope. Most of them were in Mariupol, in Azovstal,” told the Head of the Church.
He also recalled two UGCC priests who had been in captivity for the fourth month. Moreover, there is no information about them except that they are tortured daily.
“I promise we will do everything humanly attainable to find your relatives and friends. Let’s leave the rest in God’s hands! I want to meet you one day with your sons and husbands and thank God for their return. It is vital to forge our common victory step by step, despite the pain and despair,” added His Beatitude Sviatoslav.
The meeting ended with a joint prayer for Ukraine.
The UGCC Department for Information
