For persecuted Christians, hope is ‘our weapon, our shield,’ major archbishop says

NEW YORK (OSV News) — Amid persecution, Christians must “be a sign of hope,” said the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.

“Hope is our weapon, hope is our shield,” said Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych in a homily he gave at a March 10 Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

The liturgy, at which New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan presided, was offered in supplication for the persecuted church, and in thanksgiving for Aid to the Church in Need.

Founded in 1947 as a Catholic aid organization for war refugees and recognized as a pontifical foundation since 2011, the nonprofit ACN provides pastoral and humanitarian assistance to the persecuted church in more than 145 countries, working under the guidance of the pope.

Also on hand for the Mass were ACN executive president Regina Lynch; Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations; and members of the permanent synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which had just concluded its first delegation visit to the U.S. since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Addressing the full church, Cardinal Dolan expressed his profound gratitude for the work of ACN, which Lynch — speaking to OSV News during a March 8 interview — said is even more vital than when the organization was established.

“The persecutors have changed, but … in this century, we still have persecution,” said Lynch, noting that “the work is never done.”

More than 360 million of the world’s estimated 2.6 billion Christians — or one in seven Christians globally — currently experience “high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith,” according to Open Doors U.S., an advocacy group that provides Bibles and support to persecuted Christians in more than 70 countries.

One in five Christians in Africa and two in five in Asia experience persecution, said Open Doors, noting that over the last three decades, the number of countries where Christians suffer high and extreme levels of persecution has almost doubled to 76.

Direct forms of persecution include attacks on life and property, assassinations, imprisonment, torture, restricted access to churches and Bibles, forced conversions, and violence against women. Indirect attacks take the form of educational and employment discrimination, legal restrictions and denial of rights, according to the nonprofit International Christian Concern.

In Ukraine, Russian occupying forces have destroyed at least an estimated 500 religious sites, while arresting, torturing and killing clergy — including two disappeared Redemptorist priests, Father Ivan Levitsky and Father Bohdan Geleta, who remain unaccounted for. In one region, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has been banned by Russian occupation officials, who also have outlawed the Knights of Columbus and Caritas, the official humanitarian arm of the worldwide Catholic Church.

Amid Russia’s atrocities — which continue attacks begun in 2014, and which have been declared a genocide in two joint reports from the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights — “Christ is our hope,” said Major Archbishop Shevchuk.

“His words and love are our hope. His death and resurrection are our hope,” said the archbishop.

He stressed that hope is not a mere human sentiment, but rather “a theological virtue (that) means placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit.”

The major archbishop pointed to the spectrum of human sufferings for which hope in Christ is the only lasting remedy: “a refugee migrant looking for safe haven, the homeless and unemployed … someone whose life is degraded by obstinate racism, the starving in Africa, Christians in China, women in Afghanistan, families suffering division or a mental or mortal disease of a loved one, a society torn asunder by a polarizing public discourse.”

In Ukraine, now facing the 11th year of Russian attacks, “hope is what the hearts of my people long for,” said the major archbishop. “It sustains soldiers in foxholes defending the freedom of fellow citizens and the God-given dignity of family members, POWs and civilians under occupation, grieving mothers and fathers, young widows, orphans, and traumatized children who bravely endure daily air raid sirens while in school.”

On behalf of them, Major Archbishop Shevchuk thanked “Catholics in the U.S. and worldwide … Cardinal Dolan and Aid to the Church in Need.”

ACN “has demonstrated singular generosity to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church for three generations,” said the major archbishop. “Many of our bishops and most of our priests were supported by scholarships from your donors.”

He commended Cardinal Dolan, who traveled to Ukraine in the spring of 2022, for being “the first U.S. bishop to visit Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion.”

“You so much wanted to be with the suffering people of Ukraine,” said Major Archbishop Shevchuk, who urged those present to “do everything in your power … to invoke God’s power to intercede for the people of Ukraine, for peace and justice.”

“Be people of hope, keeping in your minds and hearts the ultimate hope and promise — we will not perish; we will have eternal life,” he said.

At the end of the liturgy, the major archbishop presented both the cardinal and Lynch with framed fragments of an Iranian drone that had targeted the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection and the archbishop’s residence in Kyiv.

He also gave the cardinal and Lynch Ukrainian Easter eggs, decorated in traditional pysanky style.

“Today, this is the (Patriarchal) Cathedral of the Resurrection,” said Cardinal Dolan.

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