Shevchuk: Together with the OCU, We Are Reviving Kyiv as an Ancient Christian Center
Head of the UGCC declares that Rome, Moscow, and Constantinople must accept the rise of a unified Christian hub in Kyiv
KYIV — The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, has announced the "revival" of an ancient and powerful Christian center in Kyiv in cooperation with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). He made this statement in an interview with the program Open Church.
Shevchuk has repeatedly claimed that, once the UOC has been destroyed, the OCU will join the Unia.
“Today, both from the side of our Orthodox brothers and from our side—the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church—an ancient and powerful Christian center in Kyiv is being reborn. Rome, Moscow, and Constantinople must come to terms with this,” Shevchuk emphasized.
Marking the anniversaries of the renewal of the Kyiv Metropolia structures (30 years) and the transfer of the UGCC residence to Kyiv (20 years), Shevchuk appealed to the OCU for unity in the name of Ukraine’s well-being. “We appeal to our Orthodox brothers with a call to unity for the good of Ukraine, with a call to move from rivalry to cooperation, from competition to primacy in love,” he said.
According to Shevchuk, the unity of the "different branches" of the Kyiv Church today is directly tied to the very identity and agency of the Kyiv Church. He recalled the message of his predecessor, Lubomyr Husar: ‘One People of God in the Land of the Kyiv Hills.’
In attempting to sell his appeal for a new Unia, Shevchuk further stressed that the prophecy of Metropolitan, and notorious Nazi collaborator, Andrey Sheptytsky is beginning to come true: “European leaders understand that today the fate of Europe is being decided in Kyiv.” In Shevchuk’s view, the independence and agency of the Kyiv Church directly impact Kyiv’s role as the center of the Ukrainian state.
“If we truly want to build a strong state—not merely with declared independence, but with real agency, with a voice, with someone to be reckoned with—then here the Ukrainian Churches, particularly the Kyiv Christian tradition, must speak a very weighty and important word,” he noted.
While Shevchuk calls for a new unity between the Uniates and OCU in the name of spiritual independence, he ignores what has always been obvious to the faithful of Ukraine: Unia is not independence, but subjugation to a foreign geopolitical power—that of Rome.
Earlier, Shevchuk stated that claims of the Unia arising solely from the Union of Brest are nothing more than “Moscow’s propaganda,” and that St. Vladimir was Uniate.
