Ukraine movement a ‘Maidan of dignity’, says bishop
(Vatican Radio) The protests in an increasing number of public squares across Ukraine
are more about a growing people’s movement than plain political expression, says a
Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishop.
While the media is reporting that the ongoing
protests are motivated by the Ukrainian government’s refusal to sign an agreement
that would have steered Ukraine towards Europe, Bishop Borys Gudziak says the story
“has a much broader context and a much deeper quality.”
The Maidan movement
is a reaction against the general atmosphere of fear and intimidation in Ukraine and
against wanton corruption in the country, he said. It is a movement of principle and
dignity, with spiritual expression.
“The people are morally exhausted,” he
told Vatican Radio. “So… what began as a Euro-Maidan movement…is really now a Maidan
of dignity, a Maidan of citizens recognizing something that is rather transcendental
and that is fundamentally spiritual— that every person is created in dignity in the
image and likeness of God.”
Listen to the full interview with Bishop
Borys Gudziak:
Bishop
Gudziak heads the Ukrainian Greek Catholic eparchy of France, Belgium and Luxembourg.
He also serves as president of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv.
“After
20-odd years of independence, Ukraine is maybe halfway on the pilgrimage from the
land of captivity to the promised land,” he said, as many aspects of the former totalitarian
regime are only slowly being pushed aside. “Dropping the cloak of slavery is not easy.”
Protest
leaders include many from the Ukrainian middle class; about two-thirds of protesters
have university degrees, he said.
The clergy from the Ukrainian Greek Catholic
Church, the various Orthodox churches, the Roman Catholic Church and Protestant communities,
as well as Jewish and Muslim clerics, have joined protesters seeking to minister
to their spiritual needs.
“Basically, the churches have come to where the
people have asked them to be,” said the bishop.
The religious presence in
the main Independence Square in Kiev is obvious. Acting in accord, the churches hold
ecumenical prayer on Sundays at noon. And throughout the night, when fear of violence
is greatest, prayer is led from the main stage on the hour every hour, said the bishop.
Religious services are held and “ecclesial tents” are set up in the square, where
people can pray quietly before an icon, access the sacrament of confession and spiritual
guidance.
“The Church, following the basic insight expressed by Pope Francis,
is trying to make sure that the pastors have the smell of the sheep,” he stated.
In early January, the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture sent a letter to the Major
Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk,
stating that the Church’s involvement in the protest could lead to a revocation of
its legal status.
“That is a very serious threat expressed to a Church that
for much of the 20th century, by the powers that be, was outlawed,” Bishop
Gudziak said .
From 1945 to 1989, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was
the biggest illegal Church in the world and the biggest body of resistance in the
Soviet Union, he stated. It did not collaborate with the regime; as a result, by 1945,
all of its bishops were imprisoned.
“Because of its free and dignified stance
in the Soviet times, it emerged into the period of Ukrainian independence with unique
moral authority,” he explained. Today, the Church exerts a very big influence on issues
of freedom, dignity, justice, and equality before the law.
“The Church speaks
about these principles because they are the principles of our Saviour,” Bishop Gudziak
said.
He commented on how numerous protesters are being beaten and harassed
and how many students of the Ukrainian Catholic University have been intimidated by
calls from the police and the secret service.
“One must realize that in a
country where so many people were killed, so many people were sent to Siberia, so
many people were spied on, a call from the secret service to the students' personal
cell phone is a very invasive action that creates great trepidation and insecurity,”
he said.
“The fear in Ukraine is only skin deep,” he continued, “and you scratch
the surface and it pops out. Because the system killed systematically, people are
afraid of the system. This movement of the Maidan is actually a response to this fear.”
The
bishop called for prayers for peace and for conversion in Ukraine. He also urged people
to become informed about the “real-life story” that is developing there, to understand
the importance of Ukraine in Europe’s geopolitics. He called for people to express
their solidarity with the Ukrainian protesters by writing letters and appealing to
political leaders.
“This experience of the 20th century, in which
people of faith and other people of good will stood up to the greatest human challenge,
the challenge of totalitarianism, this school of faith has much to offer to western
Europe and to the broader international and ecclesial community,” he said.
“I
think Ukraine and the Church in Ukraine has a great responsibility to share this story,”
he concluded. “Today, this Church is growing and I am convinced that it has a vocation
to help the universal Church in ways that are still unknown.”