(OSV News) ─ Each year, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops takes up its annual Collection for the Catholic Church in Central and Eastern Europe, which supports the Church in the countries that emerged from the former Soviet bloc, where brutal communist repression sought to eradicate the faith.
Ahead of the USCCB collection ─ typically held on Ash Wednesday (Feb. 18) in most dioceses, and which can be supported online anytime at igivecatholic.org/story/USCCB-CCEE -- OSV News spoke with Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, father and head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, to discuss the impact of the USCCB's appeal in Ukraine.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
OSV News: The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) was formally "liquidated" by the Soviet regime in 1946, and only emerged from the underground ─ where it continued in secret ─ in 1989. Since that reemergence, how has this USCCB collection helped Ukraine recover from communist suppression after so many decades?
Major Archbishop Shevchuk: Authentically, this collection helped in the resurrection of the martyred and crucified Church in Ukraine.
I'm a child of the underground Church; I was a seminarian in the underground Church. Because of this worldwide solidarity, because of this specific act of mercy, you helped us not only to come forth from the catacombs, but to rebuild our very presence in Ukrainian society.
And you not only helped to restore our churches, our parish communities and our episcopal sees. From this collection, you contributed to the formation of clergy, laity and consecrated persons.
I can speak as a former rector of the Holy Spirit Seminary -- and today as a bishop in Kyiv to whose care is entrusted the most dear Kyiv Three Holy Hierarchs Seminary of the UGCC. Because of that generosity, we are able to provide to our suffering people an adequate pastoral care.
We have to be well-trained in order to be able to be good pastors. That was a problem in the Soviet Union ─ even in the Russian Orthodox Church, priests were trained only to celebrate liturgically, not to take care of the people. That is a big difference.
But in the underground Church, we didn't have any holy places or beautiful cathedrals. Yet, we were taking care of the human person.
In my childhood impressions, I understood early on that Church means community. Church means people. And to serve in the Church means to take care of those who are entrusted into your care.
Right now (amid Russia's war on Ukraine, which began in 2014 and accelerated in 2022), that kind of pastoral care is crucial for a wounded people and a traumatized society.
But as we were coming back in the 1990s, because of the ability to provide training to the underground priests, nuns and monks, we were able to serve as a means of the transformation of society, from the colonial post-Soviet society ─ where everybody was afraid of each other -- to authentic democracy.
Only the Church can teach the people how to be free. And freedom is not only the mere absence of external coercion or persecution. Freedom is a quality of soul; it's a virtue. The Church showed how to liberate the people of Ukraine from the phobias of Soviet times ─ how to be authentic, in a free society and democracy. We were like a seed of the civil society in Ukraine.
As a small example, in our parishes in those times (of rebuilding), we promoted a phenomenal volunteer movement. In the Soviet Union, there were no volunteers, because free initiative was punished and destroyed, and every kind of activity was paid for.
But when the war erupted (with Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022), we were facing an explosion of volunteer movements. So the Church was a mother who gave birth to those volunteer movements.
And now, volunteerism has become a strength of Ukrainian society, as it withstands this full-scale invasion.
So thank you so much for being such a part of the resurrection of the Church after the Soviet persecutions. And thank you very much for continuing to have those collections. Your constant interest and charity is so important.
And we so appreciate that support, which comes even from those dioceses that face severe economic difficulties and even bankruptcy. Even in those places, the annual collection is taken up today.
Thank you very much from those whom you help to be free, to be actors in the transformation of our society, to be able to build a future.
OSV News: What you've just said underscores key points of Catholic social teaching, with its core emphasis on God-given human dignity. Would you say that the collection is a way of living out that teaching?
Major Archbishop Shevchuk: Absolutely. It's a way of endorsing that teaching not only theoretically, but of incarnating those principles into the concrete society.
The social teaching of the Church is a rule of authentic freedom and responsibility.
In a totalitarian society, when taking the initiative incurs punishment, only government or those at the top of the society can make a decision, and you have to obey without thinking.
That is not only against the social teaching of the Church, but against the very notion of God in the holy Bible. Our heavenly Father is a God of liberty.
The people of Israel had their first experience of God through their liberation from slavery. Very often people ask me, "What would you like to tell (Russian President) Mr. (Vladimir) Putin, if one day you meet him?"
And I repeatedly say, "I'll tell him those words of Moses, chanted by the American slaves: 'Let my people go.'" (Exodus 5:1)
OSV News: Along the lines of human dignity and freedom, the collection also would seem to encourage self-sufficiency, while at the same time affirming the bonds of solidarity. Talk about those concurrent dynamics.
Major Archbishop Shevchuk: Christ gives us a command to share your gifts (Matthew 10:8). We are a Church of communion. And St. Paul says, "When one member of the body suffers, the whole body suffers" (1 Corinthians 12:26).
Americans are rich with the Christian experience of helping to recreate the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine. And we in that Church are not only recipients of some humanitarian aid ─ no, we are members of the same body of Christ. We too have much to share also with you ─ how to protect yourself from the challenges of your society in today's everyday life, how not to lose your freedom. What Ukraine is telling you today is that freedom is not free.
So yes, we are receiving your solidarity through this collection, but we are giving to you much that cannot be calculated in terms of money, of economic efficiency. We are participating in the work of the Holy Spirit, who creates us the same and makes us one Church of Christ -- who unites not only all people who live today in this world, but also the saints in heaven and the souls in purgatory. We call that the communion of saints, which is part of our Christian identity.
If I am interested only in my own affairs, if I isolate myself from the community, in that very moment of isolation, I start to live in hell. Because hell is the extreme isolation of the human person in front of the eternal, immeasurable love of God.
St. Paul was the first one to undertake a collection in the ancient Church. He was preaching through Greece, from Macedonia to Athens, announcing the collection as a means to help the saints in Jerusalem. It's a very famous fact. But he was underlining that that kind of collection has nothing to do with only money or material means. That is a deeply religious act.
Why? Because the more you give, more you will receive from God. And I can testify to that myself. When my hands are empty because I gave everything to those who are in need, even more, in some way, God will refill my resources.
And the more you express your thanks to God and to your benefactors, your heart will increase.
Very often, we are not capable of accepting the fullness of God's grace, although God wants to give us all heaven's goods. But the more you give, the more you express your gratitude, more space for God's mercy you prepare in your heart.
That is why the Eucharist, the most important moment of the life of the Christian community, is an action of grace. "Eucharist" means "thanksgiving" (in Greek).
So, we thank God for all the benefits we have received. And because of those benefits we have received from God, we are able to assist to help others.
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Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X @GinaJesseReina.
