Video-message of the Head of the UGCC on the 163rd Week of Full-Scale War, March 30, 2025
Glory to Jesus Christ!
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ!
The 163rd week of Russia’s heinous, full-scale, and bloody war against Ukraine has passed.
Once again, we count the days and nights, the weeks of this grave tragedy that the world has yet to stop. But today, we give thanks to the Lord God and the Armed Forces of Ukraine—our courageous defenders—for keeping us alive, for allowing us to keep fighting, serving, and dreaming of a better future for our country and nation.
This week was once again marked by grave crimes committed across Ukraine. Every night, Russian forces shell our cities and villages, setting our homes ablaze. People perish each night.
This week, we prayed especially for the victims in Sumy, our courageous northern city, where Russian missiles struck the city center, wounding nearly a hundred people, including children, women, and the elderly.
Each night last week, Russian forces chose a new civilian target. This week, we prayed for the victims of attacks in Kryvyi Rih and Zaporizhzhia, in Odesa and Poltava.
Heavy fighting continues along the entire front line. Despite high-level agreements on ceasefires and various efforts to halt Russia’s armed aggression, ordinary people see no signs of peace. However, we welcome the emergence of a coalition of strong-willed nations in Europe, determined to support Ukraine in its struggle.
At this meeting of determined leaders in Paris, our president made it clear: Russia has no intention of stopping its war or upholding any truce. On the contrary, it is planning new offensives, particularly in Sumy, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia.
Once again, we defy the aggressor’s plans. And today, we declare to the world: by the power of God, Ukraine stands, Ukraine fights, and Ukraine prays!
This week, on the very day of the Annunciation, preliminary agreements between the Ukrainian, American, and Russian delegations that met in Saudi Arabia were made public. In particular, these included a truce in the Black Sea and the opening of trade corridors.
We are truly grateful to all those who support Ukraine and aim to stop the murderous hand of the aggressor by any means, even diplomatic ones. We thank all those who indeed strive to sustain Ukraine in its quest for a just peace.
However, most Ukrainian citizens viewed these reports of a ceasefire with great caution. Christ said: “By their fruits you will know them” (Matthew 7:16). Therefore, ordinary people do not trust signed papers, but rather concrete deeds.
So far, we have seen no halt in Russia’s attacks on energy and civilian infrastructure. Time will tell how well any signed agreements will be implemented. We are aware of how much the aggressor despises diplomacy. It is used solely to stall negotiations, while diplomatic rhetoric serves only to justify its aggressive plans. But we are constantly praying and building the peace we want.
Hence, we hope that certain agreements will be reached and implemented. In particular, it concerns the exchange of prisoners of war, and thus the release of our children from Russian captivity.
We would like to quote Pope John Paul II once again who said that once money becomes more important or valuable than priceless human life, it will mean the end of democracy. We hope that even in these trying times, democracy, will, and respect for human life will prevail over respect for the interests or plans of the aggressors in the modern world.
This week I made a very special visit to Poland, to our Polish community. At the invitation of the Polish side, I had a chance to speak with many interesting people and visit interesting institutions in Poland.
This week we presented a Polish translation of the Catechism of our Church, Christ is Our Pascha, in Warsaw. This Catechism already is available in Russian, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, and now it is coming to German, and finally to Polish. The release of this Catechism in Polish signifies the respect of our Church for the reader who speaks Polish, provides an opportunity for the Polish bishops and the wider public to get acquainted with the identity of our Church theologically, liturgically, and spiritually, and will constitute another bridge-building stone between our peoples, churches, and states.
A unique intellectual event also took place this week. In a few days, on April 2, the whole world will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the passing of St. Pope John Paul II. The pope whom Ukrainians remember as the “pope of Ukrainian sovereignty,” the only pope in history to speak to our people in our native Ukrainian language. A pope who will always be remembered by young people as one who loved, respected, and listened to them.
The intellectual and scientific circles of Poland, particularly in Poznań, at the Adam Mickiewicz University, organized an extraordinarily in-depth international conference dedicated to the figure and teachings of Pope John Paul II. Once again, this was a wonderful opportunity to revive the Pope’s life-giving words not only in our memory but in our hearts, a Pope who had the courage to defend the dignity of human life from its natural beginning to its natural death. The Pope who said to the oligarchs of Ukraine in his time: “Take care not of your own profit and financial gain, but of the dignity of human life.” The Pope who reminded Ukrainians of the words of Volodymyr Monomakh: “Do not let the strong destroy the weak.” These words resonate so prophetically in our hearts today. Especially the words that are addressed to politicians, to those people in whose hands the fate of entire countries and entire peoples lies today.
Today we ask St. Pope John Paul II to pray for peace in Ukraine in heaven. He once knocked down the walls built by communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe. He was the Pope who knocked down walls and built relationships. Today, in the communion of saints in heaven, he is probably praying for Ukraine, for Europe, for the Ukrainian and Polish peoples, and peace in the entire world. May the prayers of the saints in heaven, and among them St. Pope John Paul II, help achieve a just, long-awaited heavenly peace in Ukraine.
God, bless Ukraine! Bless our women and men at the front! Jesus! You are being tortured, despised, and executed in the body of the Ukrainian people, but You rose from the dead, and Ukraine will rise with You! Bless our homeland with Your just, heavenly peace!
The blessing of the Lord be upon you, through His grace and love for mankind, always, now and forever, and for the ages of ages. Amen.
Glory to Jesus Christ!
