ROME — Ukrainian Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk has denounced Russian war crimes, especially soldiers’ sexual violence against children.
“Today, our cruel enemy is truly hunting down people in Ukraine,” Archbishop Shevchuk said in a video message Wednesday, noting that “in the occupied territories, hundreds of thousands of people suffer from various forms of violence every day.
“But most of all there was sexual violence,” he lamented. “In the occupied territories, we are receiving news that children are also falling victim to this crime against humanity.”
“We are together, together we resist evil,” he said.
Wednesday marked the sixty-third day of “nationwide confrontation against Russian aggression in Ukraine,” the archbishop observed, speaking from Kropyvnytskyi in the south of Ukraine, where he hosts many displaced persons “fleeing from Russian bombs, from the war.”
“During the last night and the last day, heavy, brutal fighting took place in the east and south of Ukraine,” he reported. “Kharkiv was bombed with missiles and rockets. In the Odesa region, two rockets were fired at a bridge (junction) bridge connecting the two parts of the Odesa region on the Dnister estuary.”
“But Ukraine is standing! Ukraine is fighting! Because Ukraine prays and helps each other,” he declared.
In Wednesday’s address, Shevchuk reflected on Christ’s second beatitude: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
“Those who believe in Christ weep not because they suffer some kind of hardships, but they weep because there is still evil in the world,” he asserted. “Because that power of the victory of the Risen Christ is yet to be fully manifested in this world through the lives of Christians.”
“We weep, waiting for the fullness of the Kingdom of Heaven to come among us. But this power, the power of the victory over evil, is really given to us by faith in the Risen Savior,” he added.
“And even when it is difficult for us today, even when we cry, we cry with hope, because we feel that the Risen Christ is leading us to victory,” he said.
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