On Sunday in St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis requested prayers for Ukraine. “I ask and urgently urge that we avoid the escalation of tensions and instead engage in gestures that could strengthen mutual trust and facilitate the necessary and longed-for reconciliation and peace,” the Pope appealed on Sunday.
Archbishop Shevchuk, the highest representative of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, expressed gratitude through Vatican Radio for this support. He emphasized that Ukrainians today fear not only a resurgence of fighting along the border but also a Russian military invasion, complicated by the pandemic: “Ukrainians are very concerned about the strong concentration of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border. Public sources, our newspapers are already talking about more than a hundred thousand Russian soldiers and are reporting that their numbers are still growing. This is definitely the largest concentration of Russian troops since 2014. We fear an open invasion of this army into Ukrainian territory. It would drastically change the situation. New fronts of fighting would open, new territories would be occupied, and thousands of people would die.”
According to Archbishop Shevchuk, the threat of invasion is all the more tragic, as in two weeks both Orthodox and Greek Catholics in Ukraine and Russia will celebrate Easter.
(Radio Vaticana, April 20, 2021)
