ROME — Ukrainian Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk praised Ukrainian youth Sunday for their “heroic love” in defending their homeland.
“Last night our towns and villages were on fire again,” declared Archbishop Shevchuk in a video message, noting that the Ukrainian people “are already experiencing 53 days of nationwide struggle, opposition to Russian armed aggression against our state.”
“Our Kharkiv was shaking,” the archbishop said. “Donbas and the South of Ukraine are firmly defending themselves. Our special prayers go to heroic Mariupol, which is being attacked from the sea, from the land, and from the sky.”
The prelate also stated that the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations has issued its own appeal for a ceasefire during the holy days of Easter, as well as for an urgent humanitarian corridor to save the people of Mariupol.
“Let us pray that the mighty of this world, those who take up arms today to kill our people, have at least some sense of the sanctity of these Easter days,” he said.
Young people feel a “living relationship between man with God,” the archbishop declared. “And a living, real relationship is above various mental schemes, ideologies, or certain stereotypes of communication, or even life between people.”
Young people have a special role as “the engine of human history,” he said.
“Today, the entire burden of the war has fallen on the shoulders of Ukrainian youth,” he observed. “We live in tragic times, but are generating heroes, the newest heroes of our time.”
“Today Ukrainian youth, our girls and boys, give examples of heroic love,” he added. “Love for their homeland. Heroic love for their loved ones. And it is this love that makes them invincible.”
Today, Ukrainian youth “amaze the world,” he said, “because the power of a living relationship with God and neighbor, the power of these Christian values, today shines on the face of young Ukrainian men and women around the world.”
It is the young people of Ukraine “who will show what Ukraine is and will be because it is being built, desired, and loved by Ukrainian youth,” he said.
The archbishop also offered special prayers for Ukrainian youth in the “occupied territories” and for those “forced to leave their homeland and are scattered around the world and over various continents.”
“Today let us gather together around Christ, around His presence among us. Let us feel this life-giving breath of the Savior with whom He comes to us today,” he said.