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Governance and Leadership for a Vital Europe!

Over the past century, and particularly from World War II onwards, Christian social thinking (CST) has left its mark on European societies. Its characteristic institutions and arrangements, such as the social market economy (combining free enterprise and market price formation with a compensatory social security net); the Rhineland model with the institutionalized social dialogue between capital, labour and state; and a public sphere with ample room for civil society and the private initiatives of organized citizens; those institutions and arrangements are concrete implementations of CST, which should serve the purpose of approximating us to the Christian social ideal of a solidary and vital society made up by free, creative and responsible persons.

V Social Days of UGCC

On November 1, in Zhytomyr, the 5^th Social Days of UGCC will be launched. The theme of this year’s event is «Human dignity and civil society as Christian value in Ukraine». The events will last for the whole month of November in Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Kharkiv, Odesa, Lugansk, Kirovohrad, Stryj and Donetsk.

The program of the events is ecumenical and interreligious. The participants will have opportunities to discuss the issues and problems of communication of various levels and forms and to learn to communicate effectively. The objective of the events is also to let persons struggling to break through into the information space have the floor: the days will include a traditional Action of Solidarity including visits to prisons, orphanages, nursing, and needy families.

Information: The Social Days of UGCC is an open platform uniting believers of the UGCC, other churches, and communities, and all people of good will. It is the first attempt in the post-Soviet space to engage representatives of religious and non-governmental organizations in a public discussion at the local and national levels.

For the detailed information ask to apply: +38 032 243 78 92; +38 066 929 00 97; e-mail: jpc@ugcc.org.ua

Working draft program

Official Meeting Between Ukrainian Greek Catholic and Orthodox Heads

The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Patriarch Sviatoslav (Shevchuk), and the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP), Metropolitan Volodymyr (Sabodan), held an official meeting on August 23, 2011, at the residence of Metropolitan Volodymyr in the Kyiv Cave Monastery.

Patriarch Sviatoslav greeted Metropolitan Volodymyr on the occasion of his 45th anniversary of ministry as a bishop and the confering of the name of the Hero of Ukraine on him in July 2011. In addition, he thanked the head of the UOC-MP for greeting him on his enthronement and for the presence of a representative of the UOC-MP, Bishop Ilarii, at the enthronement ceremony.

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Head of UGCC Calls Christians to Look for Opportunities to Pray Together

Within the framework of the Week of Prayers For Unity of Christians, on 23 January, in the Church of St. Basil the Great (Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC)), representatives of the main denominations of Ukraine jointly prayed for the unity of Christians. The head of UGCC, Patriarch Lubomyr prayed together with the Apostolic Nuncio in Ukraine, Ivan Jurkovic, bishops and priests of UGCC and RCC in Ukraine, Dominican Fathers and teachers of Catholic higher education institutions of Ukraine, clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Pastors of the Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith of Ukraine (Pentecostals) and the German Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ukraine. Assistant Bishop of the Kyivan Archeparchy of UGCC, Bishop Yosyf (Milian) led the prayer.

In his address to the participants, Patriarch Lubomyr stressed the importance of the joint meeting and prayer: «Unfortunately, we still are not able to break bread together as we are not grown up enough for that but, perhaps, in future this can also happen. However, before it happens we must jointly or separately pray for unity. It is a difficult proposal. If we realize it, it seems to me that our communities will undergo serious changes.»

Christmas greeting of his Beatitude Lubomyr (Husar)

Dearly Beloved in Christ!

Today – on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers – the Gospel told us about the genealogy of Jesus Christ from Abraham to the birth of our Savior. Listening to this detailed list of generations, it may be understand that the coming of Christ to the people was prepared in advance, that his appearance on the earth was planned by our Heavenly Father. Moreover, not only the birth, but also the entire life of Jesus Christ has been foreseen by the prophets. An example of this we find again in the holy Gospel: when the three wise men from the East stayed with Herod in order to find out where the new King was born, he called the scribes, who without a doubt say that the Messiah is to come to the world in Bethlehem in Judea, «because thus was said by the prophet» (Mt 2:5).

Dearly Beloved in Christ, I bring your attention to this because as we think over the events of our daily lives, we tend to think that they occur by chance. We often think that everything could be different. Sometimes it seems that everything around is unchecked, that the Lord God forgot about the world. However, our faith is based on God's Revelation, which gives us an opposite response: everything that happens in our personal and public life, except sin, corresponds to God's plan. Proof of this we find in the life of Jesus Christ, from the promise of the Messiah to our first parents in the paradise until His glorious resurrection. Thus arises the next question: why does the Lord God allow circumstances that are unpleasant for us or even cause us great suffering? Jesus Christ in the Gospel from Luke answers this when he speaks about the further history and the development of various tragic events that have to happen in the future. His words are: «This will give you an opportunity to witness» (Luke 21:13). If there were no hunger, there would be no one to feed; if there were no thirst, there would be no one’s thirst to quench; if there were no strangers, there would be no one to receive; if there were no patients or prisoners, there would be no one to visit. If there were no Christmas, there would not be Good Friday and Easter. Thus everything that happens around us, even the most tragic, is God's plan for us which gives us the opportunity to witness for Christ and seek truth, justice, and good.

Greek Catholics ask for VAT reimbursement for construction of Patriarchal Cathedral in Kyiv

The government owes the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) about 5 million UAH from value added tax (VAT) paid by the UGCC during the construction of the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Kyiv, Bishop Joseph (Milian), auxiliary bishop of the Archeparchy of Kyiv UGCC told the Information Department of UGCC.

According to Bishop Joseph, the funds would significantly help complete the construction of the church, which has been going on for eight years. «We do not claim any privileges, but would be grateful if we, as a conscientious taxpayer, were returned the paid VAT because it is provided by law,» said the bishop.

«We have submitted the relevant documents and hoped for the reimbursement of the funds,» said the bishop. «However, we recently found out that only 500 thousand UAH of VAT has to be returned, and 400 thousand were reimbursed in bonds.»

Background information

Representatives of Ukrainian Churches Participate in International Conference on Migration

On 15 September, the Center of Science and Culture of the Theological Department of the Opole University in the village of Kamin Silezki (Poland), an International Conference «Migration in the Central and eastern Europe: problems of reconciliation and co-existence of cultures» was launched. The conference is organized by an international group «Reconciliation as an objective of the Churches of Ukraine, Belarus, Poland and Germany,» which includes representatives of the Christian denominations of the four countries.

In addition to the representatives of the Christian denominations, the forum is attended by representatives of the Polish National Bureau of the Supreme Commissar of UN on matters of refugees, the Department of Migration Policy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Poland, various social and humanitarian organizations dealing with problems of migrants in Europe. In addition to plenary sessions, it is planned to hold a seminar «Attitude of Churches to the problem of migration.» The participants of the conference plan to pay special attention to the problems of adaptation and integration of migrants into the new cultural environment, coexistence of cultures in the context of active migration in Europe, preservation of the cultural and confessional identity of migrants, specificities of the pastoral ministry for migrants and refugees.

WORLD ECOLOGICAL DAY "THE DAY OF CREATION" TO BE CELEBRATED IN UKRAINE

The Day of Creator – Church’s ecological mission

Rev. Dr Ihor Shaban 

Text prepareing for the 14^th International Congress Renovabis: Being responsible for the Creation — Ecological Challenges in Central and Eastern Europe 

Discovering of the beauty of nature and objecting to degradation of ecosystem, but also ecological initiatives on local level are very important. In this case in the world and in Ukraine particularly the requirement to protect the environment by Christians and demonstrate understanding the nature as gift of God for a human been is very important. In our time Christians also need to realize that protect the climate is the ethics and spiritual necessitates.

A safeguard of environment is one of the most important questions of modern life that is slowly opened by Church. As it was declared yesterday, during the opening session, The Day of Creations was the idea of the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople. Since that time different churches and countries started to use this idea for the ecological events on its own.

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“Paint the Planet”. For the first time drawing ecological picture will unite the pilgrims of Kyiv region

In September 12^th, on Sunday at 12:00 near cathedral of Vyshgorod Virgin Mary, Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church will have a symbolic art-action «Paint the Planet» that will conclude the pilgrimage of Kyiv Archeparchy to Vyshgorod. By plan of organizers, Greek-catholic and all persons interested in ecology will be able to draw the large map of Earth, as gratitude to God for the creation world and gift of life.

Action «Paint the Planet» is one of the actions within the framework of celebration of annual Ecological Day of Creations in Ukraine. The Day of Creations is the answer of Christian churches of Europe to ecological problems in the world. The organizers of action underline that the main idea is to give thank to God for its life on a planet Earth and to come into notice to the ecological problems.

«God create man, and assigned him to take care of nature that surrounds us, about animals which inhabit a planet. But to take care does not mean the power to destroy all around, as it repeatedly happened in history of humanity. Modern ecological problems are not limited to the individual regions or countries. In today’s world it has global measuring, for example contamination of water or change of climate, caused by disafforestation or incidents in atomic establishments» – marks the head of the Ecumenical Patriarchal Commission Rev. dr Ihor Shaban.

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