Lenten Campaign 2025
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As US President Donald J. Trump continues his effort to spearhead a negotiated peace in Ukraine, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, continues to remind people that there will be no lasting peace without two essential elements: truth and justice.
Without recognizing the truth that Ukraine is a sovereign nation with its own language, culture, and identity, for example, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s agenda of “Russkiy mir,” a “Russian world,” will advance, at the expense of Ukraine and other Western nations. And by ignoring international law and the human rights of Ukrainians living in places like Crimea and the Donbas — parts of Ukraine that have been occupied by the Russian military for more than a decade — any peace agreement will be only a temporary pause in hostilities.
As the world observed the third anniversary of Russia’s major invasion of Ukraine, His Beatitude Sviatoslav was on a pastoral visit to Ukrainian Catholic communities in the United States and Canada. He celebrated Divine Liturgies at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Philadelphia and the Ukrainian National Shrine of the Holy Family in Washington, gave speeches at The Catholic University of America, the Hudson Institute, and the Institute for Peace in Washington, and paid a visit to a top official in the Trump Administration — just steps away from the Oval Office.
Aleteia spoke with him March 19, after he had returned to Ukraine.
Your Beatitude, how would you assess your recent visit to the United States and Canada? What fruit do you think it will bear?
His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk: Maybe we will see the fruits in the future, because we never know. As a sower who is sowing the seeds, he never knows how God will make those seeds grow, what kind of soil those seeds will encounter.
My feeling was that Our Lord right now is giving to his Church in Ukraine, but also to the Christians in the USA, a special role and a special vocation.
I was trying to be a voice of simple Ukrainians, the voice of the Church in Ukraine, not only Catholics, not only the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, but to speak in the name of the simple people, the civil society of Ukraine, to the heart of Americans in these new circumstances.
It was a moment in which we as the mother Church from Ukraine were able to embrace our people in the USA. Simply embrace.
The Sunday when I was celebrating the Divine Liturgy in Philadelphia according to the Byzantine calendar was a Sunday of preparation for Great Lent — the “Sunday of the Prodigal Son,” when the Word of God meditated on the embrace of the father for the son who is returning home. It was very touching because thousands of Ukrainians came to the Metropolitan Cathedral in Philadelphia for a Jubilee pilgrimage. They came with big spiritual questions, but also, the whole night, they were going to Confession. Thousands of people were confessing. Many priests were just amazed, telling me that they never experienced anything like it on American soil.
At the end of the liturgy, I offered the possibility to each one of the pilgrims to approach me and to receive a personal touch and personal blessing. I was standing for almost two and a half hours blessing people [photo above]. People with their children were standing for an hour making a line to approach with such sad expressions on their faces. But they went home with a special hope, because it was my duty to be a witness of Ukrainian hope to the Ukrainian community in the USA, but also to people of faith, Christian and people of good will in the USA. That was something deeply spiritual and transforming.
Also, I had a chance to deliver numerous speeches and interviews, including at the Institute of Peace in Washington. The whole issue was how we can unite our efforts to achieve peace in Ukraine. What does it mean — peace — in today’s circumstances? And how can we approach this very complex issue to stop the war in Ukraine?
But also, [the Ukrainian bishops of the US and I] were the first Ukrainian delegation to visit the White House after the inauguration of the new president. That was something historic as well. We were received by the newly established White House Faith Office in the Trump Administration, and we met the head of that office, Paula White-Cain. And the very place where we were received also was very symbolic. It was the Roosevelt Room, just beside the Oval Office and Cabinet Room of President Trump.
What was the conversation like?
His Beatitude Sviatoslav: We were able to talk about religious freedom in Ukraine, especially freedom in the occupied territories. We spoke about the whole process of the liberation of our two priests [Redemptorist Frs. Ivan Levytsky and Bohdan Heleta] who spent 18 months in Russian prison. But I was also a voice of the Protestant pastors who are still being held captive [His Beatitude declined to reveal their names to Aleteia]. And I had a chance to express and to intercede for them in the presence of Paula White, asking her to intercede and maybe liberate those Protestant pastors.
So I think that that visit to the USA was the right moment to be in the right place in Washington as the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.
What kind of a response did you get from Paula White-Cain during that meeting? What was her reaction to the things you were saying? And did she make any commitments?
His Beatitude Sviatoslav: Well, she was very open. I had a chance to speak about the very notion of religious freedom in Ukraine. I stressed that for Christians, Jews, and Muslims, Ukraine means freedom, while Russian occupation means persecution. And I brought a clear example about the destruction and persecution of the Christians of different denominations in the occupied territories.
And her response was very positive. She stated that probably it is only the beginning of our relationship. She is interested, together with her staff, to be in touch with Metropolitan Boris Gudziak of Philadelphia, with our bishops in the USA, with our Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, and to receive more information and be well informed and well advised on how to proceed, specifically in the case of religious freedom in Ukraine.
A lot has changed since the January 20 inauguration of President Trump in regards to the US government’s stance on Ukraine. How do you see these developments, and what do you see emerging from Trump’s approach, including his opening to Russia in an attempt to bring peace to Ukraine?
His Beatitude Sviatoslav: Let me share with you some considerations. First of all, I have to confess that we very often do not understand those actions [of the Trump Administration], maybe because of different interpretations. And maybe we don’t know exactly what is going on behind closed doors. Maybe it is not the right time to interpret those gestures and those moves of the Trump Administration.
But the second consideration is that it is very positive that the Trump Administration speaks about ending the war in Ukraine, because we are longing for peace in Ukraine. We have been [dealing with war] for more than 11 years [since the Russian-backed separatist revolt in Eastern Ukraine]. And maybe, finally, it is possible to stop the aggressor. So any kind of efforts on the international level are welcomed.
But there is a third concern. There is a big fear and doubt that it is possible to find a quick and simple solution for some difficult issues, especially to stop the process which has gone on for many years. Let me explain why there is some sort of concern and even scepticism among simple Ukrainians. First, because there is a big lack of trust toward Russian actions. Many Ukrainians would say that Russia will not be sincere with the American efforts, even with a new approach.
Any time Russia has shown their will to negotiate or to use the diplomatic way to stop the war in Ukraine, those agreements have not been observed. Instead, very soon they were completely broken.
We all remember in 2014, [according to the Kremlin], it was a provocation to speak about the Russian military invasion and annexation of Crimea. Anyone who talked about this was an enemy of Russia. But [Russia] did exactly the opposite. In a very few months, they occupied Crimea.
In January 2022, the whole world was talking about the obvious preparation of the full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine. But the ambassador of Russia to the Holy See was assuring the Holy Father that any talk about Russian aggressive plans is a lie. “Russia never starts wars. Russia is the most peaceful country in the world.” But in a few weeks, they started a full-scale invasion. Not even the diplomatic corps of Russia itself was informed of the decision to invade.
And now, on the same day the media reported that President Putin gave an order to stop the attacks on Ukrainian civil infrastructures for 30 days, because of the phone call of President Trump, Ukraine was heavily attacked by Russian drones and rockets. And they were attacking exactly the vital energy infrastructure of Ukraine. So what happened was exactly the opposite of what Russia was declaring.
So there’s a big mistrust. But hopefully, something will be moving forward.
But to achieve a sustainable and authentic peace in Ukraine — not only a ceasefire, a frozen conflict, we have to speak about justice and truth. Without justice and truth, there is no peace.
How do you feel about the attitude, which seems prevalent in the Trump administration — it was first expressed by the U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, that it’s unrealistic to expect Ukraine to recover the 20% or so of the country that Russia now occupies?
His Beatitude Sviatoslav: Ukrainian state representatives or diplomats or even generals might give you different arguments, but let me comment as a bishop who cares for the people. I have to say that Ukraine and Ukrainian officials and people are realistic. But how do we perceive those realistic approaches?
First of all, we should not be focused on territorial negotiations. Why? Because that is a part of the Russian propaganda — that Ukraine is not a state, not a nation, not an ethnic group with its own language, history, and Church, but Ukraine is simply land. And it is part of Russian propaganda to talk about the occupied territories in Ukraine which they would include in their state territory.
But Ukraine is a people. We care for people. My question is, how can we negotiate the life and death of those people who right now are left in the occupied territories, even if there is some sort of objective presence of the Russian troops on Ukrainian territory? Who will protect the human rights of the people left in those territories — especially of children — and the human rights of believers? How can we as a Church care for the people left on those territories?
My proposal was — and I said this to Paula White — to bring back to the table the whole issue of human rights, not only territories or minerals in Ukrainian soil.
Second, I would like to recall a recent joint appeal of the leaders of the civil society of Ukraine — intellectuals, representatives of different NGOs, different churches and religious organizations. That appeal was made before the peace negotiations that President Trump started. The appeal was titled “Do not appease evil.” And the core idea of this appeal was that Russia is not fighting in order to reconquer new territories in Ukraine. The issue of territories is not a goal of the Russian war against Ukraine. What is Russia fighting for in Ukraine? For the possibility to influence Western societies and Western countries, to have the possibility to rewrite the world order, to make a revision of international law. Russia is fighting for the possibility to interfere in the internal affairs of the USA, Canada, and European countries, to interfere in your elections, in your economic system, in your media. The whole issue is the possibility of interference and manipulation of the Western world. That is the whole proposal of the Russian war.
The issue is that some sort of deal would give Russia the possibility to poison human hearts and minds in different parts of the world. Would you agree to Russia corrupting your political system, corrupting European, Canadian, and American thinking? That is a global issue and a most fundamental one. Already, we are witnessing how Russian propaganda is poisoning some decision-making processes, even in the USA. How many officials in the new administration endorse some cliche of Russian propaganda? And I have to say that this kind of cliche about the situation in Ukraine, the whole causes of the war, repeatedly used by officials of the US, cause more wounds in Ukrainian hearts than Russian bombs.
So to think that any deal appeasing the aggressor is a way to achieve a stable and sustainable peace in Ukraine is an illusion. It is why, as part of the civil society of Ukraine, we as a Church speak about two conditions for the authentic peace agreement: truth and justice. They are not abstract ideas. No, they are two wings which will provide a balance to find an authentic path for peace, a balance to proceed even in negotiations, because the alternative to military conflict is negotiation. To negotiate, to dialogue, is good. But we have to have those two wings which will give us a balance in this path. When we are talking about truth, remember who the aggressor is and who is the victim. We cannot put Ukraine and Russia — aggressor and victim — on the same level and put pressure on the victim in the same way we put pressure on the aggressor. That is something fundamental. Without that distinction, any kind of statement will be baseless. And when we are talking about justice in this vision, justice means support and protection of the victim and restraint of the aggressor.
So in order to achieve a simple ceasefire, Russia simply should stop killing Ukrainians. When Russia stops using military power, the war will end. If Ukraine stops defending itself, Ukraine will end. It’s very simple. Without those two basic notions about truth and justice, we cannot talk about authentic peace. I hope that the efforts of President Trump will succeed, but our advice is to be truthful and to foster justice.
Do you feel like Ukrainians are losing hope at this point, because the military has not been able to get Russia out of Ukraine, and the new U.S. president has drastically cut military aid? Where do Ukrainians find hope today?
His Beatitude Sviatoslav: For Ukraine, to defend ourselves, to fight for our independence means to survive. We have no choice. We have to protect ourselves, with or without foreign help. It doesn’t matter — American, European, NATO — we have to protect our homeland and our lives.
People in Ukraine are not without hope. I am a witness in that we do have hope, because our hope is in God and in our own resilience.
Let me give three examples when Ukrainian hope surprised many people in the world.
The first is when Ukrainians voted for their independence [from the Soviet Union] in 1991. Even when the president of the USA was telling us to stay with Russia, “don’t split from Moscow,” Ukrainians voted for independence — not because Ukrainian politicians and leaders, who at that time mostly were communist, were supporting freedom, democracy or the Western way of the future of Ukraine. No, it was the will of the simple people of Ukraine, which declared to the world, “Never again we will be slaves in the Russian domain. Ukraine will never again be simply a colony of Russia.”
The second example was in 2013, when the Maidan in Kyiv erupted. Ukrainians were dying in the central square of the capital of Ukraine for European values, declaring that our national project is the return to the family of European nations, not because in Europe somebody was waiting for us, not because somebody was assuring that we will be received in the European Union. No, that happened afterwards, when Europeans suddenly discovered how, when the foundations of the European Union had already been forgotten, Ukrainians were dying for those values.
And a third example. When the full-scale invasion was happening, everybody, including the US government, was giving us three days — maybe three weeks. But we have already withstood three years, not because before the invasion the US assured Ukrainians that they would give us weapons. No! Even the Biden Administration was thinking that Ukrainians would fail, that we would [end up fighting the Russians as] small partisan units riding through Ukrainian territory, and we would be given only weapons for the partisan groups.
But when Ukrainians showed that we are able not only to stop the Russian aggressor, but that Ukrainians are able to prevail, to overcome, to be more resilient then the aggressor, only then did we receive as a sign of recognition and respect the military assistance from the USA.
The sovereignty of Ukraine, our independence, our freedom is not subject to negotiations. And that has already been declared as a red line for those agreements and deals for the future peace agreements, which hopefully will be signed in the future.
So pray for us. And come and visit us in Ukraine, and you will see our hope.
And today we celebrate...