ROME — Ukrainian Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk drew comparisons Sunday between Ukraine’s sufferings and those of Jesus Christ during his passion.
“Ukraine is being crucified in front of the whole world,” Archbishop Shevchuk said during a taped video message. “And, in fact, every time a rocket hits a peaceful city, there is the feeling that yet another nail is driven into the body of Ukraine. We are being crucified.”
“Ukraine is going through its Golgotha. It is a time of great pain,” the archbishop said in reference to the hill where Jesus was killed. He explained that Ukrainian Christians will only find meaning in their current agony by contemplating Christ’s cross.
On this, the Third Sunday of Great Lent, “the Church of Christ raises the Precious and Life-Creating Cross of the Lord before the eyes of the people of God,” he said. “Thus, we call this Sunday the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross.”
“Perhaps today, as we gaze upon our Saviour crucified upon the Cross, we find some answers to these questions. Answers which are given by the Christian faith in the crucified God,” he added.
Shevchuk insisted that Ukraine’s sufferings and sorrows can become redemptive and life-giving if united with those of Christ.
“Today Christ is being crucified once again together with Ukraine. And by uniting the suffering and torment we are experiencing today in Ukraine with the suffering of the crucified Christ, we find the key to understanding,” he said.
The cross of the Lord is called the Precious and Life-Creating Tree, he observed, and so, “today, on the earth where the hell of death and war is taking place, the Lord God desires to plant the life-giving, life-creating, paradisaical tree of life of the Life-Creating Cross of the Lord.”
“And we believe that by suffering in the body of Ukraine, Christ reveals to us this source of life,” he added. “And everyone who believes, who unites his sufferings with the sufferings of the crucified Saviour, changes them. Then our suffering turns into the birth pangs of a new life.”
The archbishop declared that already some kind of new life is being born in Ukraine. And thus, “the Cross of the Lord on which Christ poured out blood and water for the world from His life-giving side, the source of eternal life, pulsates among us even today.”
“Through Ukraine a new world will emerge,” he insisted. “A world where there will be no more evil. A world where evil will be defeated. A world where a person will feel dignity and human life will be respected.”
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