Ukraine: “The people are seeking God”

2015/8/18 20:28:09

<Photo: Bishop Stanislav Szyrokoradiuk with staff and orphans at an orphanage in Kyiv supported by the Church

 


By Eva-Maria Kolmann for ACN* News, Aug 17, 2015

 

When the massive statue of Lenin in Kharkiv was to be demolished, it was feared that it would topple over and its weight would break through the ground, beneath which ran the underground railway. But when the statue was broken up into many pieces, the truth was revealed it was hollow inside, as hollow as the promises of communism. The place where the monument used to stand is now covered by tarpaulins on which an icon of the Mother of God is depicted.

 

Nevertheless, Lubomyr Cardinal Husar, the 82-year-old former head of the Greek-Catholic Church, complains that many people are still influenced by the Soviet period. “The older people began their lives in the Soviet era, and it is not easy to bring them to a different way of thinking. The Soviet mentality is still present in politics and economic life,” he told a delegation from the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) which recently visited Eastern Ukraine. It is therefore necessary, he said, to thoroughly study the Soviet period in order to use it as the basis “to make clear to the young people what they should not do. But one must also ask the question whether we have the right model before us, because Western Europe is also no ideal model. One must be very careful. There is much that is good, but also a moral liberalism.”

 

It is a challenge to find the true path from the past into the future. Many people in Ukraine feel an inner emptiness. They are in search of God. Bishops, priests and members of religious orders unanimously report that the longing for God is becoming ever greater and that the people seek true catechism and pastoral care.

 

Often, the first contact with the Church is made through practical love of neighbour. The poverty in the country, which was already great, has been made more severe by the crisis in the East; more and more people are dependent on soup kitchens, clothing banks or other forms of practical assistance. Added to these are the families that have fled from the districts affected by fighting. With help from ACN, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Kharkiv-Zaporizhia, Stanislav Szyrokoradiuk, has set up a social centre offering a variety of assistance such as clothing banks, outpatient care, advice centres, and pastoral care.

 

For complete text, link below:

http://members4.boardhost.com/acnaus/msg/1439780595.html

 

 

*Note: Aid to the Church in Need is an international Catholic charity dependent on the Holy See, providing pastoral relief to needy and oppressed churches.

 

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