“I recently received a letter from the Chinese parish of the UGCC. It was written by the Chinese of origin who are faithful of our Church,” said the Father and Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church His Beatitude Sviatoslav at a meeting with the youth during the annual national pilgrimage to Zarvanytsia.
“Having gone all the way to baptism, they decided to become Christians in accordance with our church tradition. They were attracted by our eastern Kyiv spirituality,” added the Primate, answering the question of how to convert an atheist to God.
His Beatitude Sviatoslav noted that today the UGCC has two wings. “Some of our believers are Greek Catholics from their birth. These are representatives of traditional Christianity, which has its own weight, because it gives us our roots. And the second wing is the Greek Catholics who have become the sons and daughters of our Church because of choice. This is not a tradition. This is a conscious and voluntary decision,” said the Head of the Church.
According to him, now there are many Greek Catholics of choice, in particular in the East and Center of Ukraine.
“In my opinion, in order for a non-believer today to become a Christian, she must at least once meet a true Christian in her life,” said His Beatitude Sviatoslav.
In the UGCC, he said, there is a whole evangelistic program, that is, an attempt to speak the Word of the Gospel to those who are not yet baptized. “However, we see that only an intellectual message is not enough. The division between Christians is also an obstacle to preaching the Gospel to nonbelievers. In order to truly show the way to God to the person seeking Him, we ourselves need to go along that way. We need to know the road,” reiterated the Primate.
He expressed his regret that we often do not think of those who do not believe in God. We do not pray for them, and they need someone who would help them in their search.
The UGCC Department for Information