UGCC head blames Russia for tensions between Poland and Ukraine

Sviatoslav Shevchuk. Photo: UGCC press service

The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), Sviatoslav Shevchuk, expressed the view that the resurgence of “national egoism” in European countries is being driven by the Russian Federation. According to him, the Kremlin is deliberately seeking to rekindle hostility between nations that had previously overcome historical divisions through the efforts of the Catholic Church.

“Russia wants to reopen the old wounds of Europe that John Paul II sought to heal: between Germans and French, between Poles and Germans, between Ukrainians and Poles... Today it wants to divide us all once again,” Shevchuk said.

He also expressed confidence that Moscow is directly financing political forces that promote radical slogans.

“We know that today Russia finances all ultranationalist parties in Europe,” the UGCC head stressed. “Therefore, when someone tempts us with ideas of national egoism and radical nationalism, we know who paid for it.”

As a means of countering such developments, the leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholics proposed the concept of “Christian solidarity.” According to him, the legacy of Pope John Paul II should serve as a “vaccine against Moscow’s propaganda, which fuels nationalisms in the modern world.”

Earlier, the head of the UGCC expressed the view that Ukraine and Poland are divided not by the historical facts surrounding the UPA struggle itself, but by the myths that have grown up around it.

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