Russian officials and armed forces are persecuting Catholics and other Christians throughout the occupied territories, according to Mykhaylo Bubniy, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church’s (UGCC) Bishop of Odesa. He spoke about the persecutions at the 79th General Assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), held in Vatican City from May 20 to 23.
He bore the testimony of the UGCC, which, he emphasized, stands alongside a people crushed by mourning, destruction and missile attacks. “Especially in the areas along the front line, each of the parishes has turned into a humanitarian center for displaced people,” he said.
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A fifth of Ukraine has been occupied by the Kremlin, but the nation “is fighting, for the third consecutive year, at great cost and at the cost of thousands of its citizens fallen on the battlefield or killed innocently,” the Ukrainian bishop explained before all the Italian bishops gathered in Rome.
He described the climate of oppression for the faithful who resist Russification in the four regions occupied by the invading army: “The first action that was taken in the territories that came under Russian control was to ban any Ukrainian symbol and the use of the language. But all Ukrainian denominations were also banned, and the activities of Caritas Ukraine and the Knights of Columbus were even prohibited.”
According to Bishop Bubniy, “What happened with the invasion of Crimea in 2014 has been repeated; today two of the six churches of the Odesa Exarchate have been annexed, while the other four have been closed.” He added: “Two of our priests, clerics of the Redemptorist Congregation, who served in the city of Berdyansk, now occupied, have been prisoners in Russia for almost two years.”
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Ukraine is a country that resists to uphold “its right to exist as a sovereign state, while protecting democratic values and principles in Eastern Europe,” the Bishop said.
He underscored the “harmful consequences of the so-called ‘Russian world’ doctrine, which has been experienced firsthand by those who have come to the country, such as Cardinal Matteo Zuppi,” the president of the CEI, who was sent by the Vatican on a peace mission to Kyiv, Moscow, Washington and Beijing.
Bubniy invited all present to “continue to support Ukraine, to tell the truth about the war, to stand courageously in defense of those who suffer and who are denied the right to existence.” He also thanked Italy and the Italian episcopate. In fact, the Italian dioceses are once again welcoming children from Ukraine.
Cardinal Zuppi announced that between July and August “seven of our local Churches have given their availability, together with lay groups, to host 700 minors.” These are solidarity holidays in Italy, an experience promoted with Caritas Spes and Caritas Ukraine and with MEAN, the European Nonviolent Action Movement.
The Greek Catholic Bishop of Odesa concluded: “Ukraine is accused of not wanting to sit at the negotiating table. But this is a blatant lie, it is the propaganda of the Russian enemy who started this brutal war. Who can stop the war now? Russia certainly. Does it want to stop it? Absolutely not! On the contrary, it seeks to exploit the atmosphere of European and global pacifism to disarm Europe itself, and then do as it did to Ukraine.”
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