This speech by His Excellency Bishop Ivan Prashko was delivered in Ukrainian and Italian during the celebrations of the Holy Year on July 13, 1975. Bishop Prashko spoke in the Vatican Audience Hall, in the presence of Patriarch Josyf, the Ukrainian bishops, priests and religious, twelve Roman Catholic cardinals, several ambassadors, statesmen, and approximately 5,000 pilgrims — predominantly Ukrainians.
Your Beatitude, Our Blessed Patriarch, Eminentissimi Princippi, Your Excellencies, Very Reverend Monsignari, Reverend Fathers, Sisters, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Pilgrims — Dearly Beloved in Christ!
Herr Gerpreter, an eminent church historian, states in the final section of his study that the history of the Church is primarily a history of persecutions. The Church has been persecuted for different reasons, in ifferent times.
In re-examing the history of our Church for the past 200 years, we see an almost unbroken chain of persecutions perpetuated by the Moscow in every possible way only because our Church wants to be loyal to all the teachings of Christ; she wants to be in union with the Rock of Peter, she wants to serve her nation loyally, and to retain her identity and her spirituality.
The heaviest and most total persecution has fallen on our generation or rather on two generations. It was planned as if by the forces of hell itself and carried out by the Communist government and the Muscovite Patriarch with the intent to cause the total destruction of our Church. This persecution began 30 years ago and has continued unabated to this very day.
Today we commemorate two dates: first — the year 1945, the night of April 10-11. Our entire hierarchy, the more prominent clergy, and 1,000 faithful of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, from the diocese of Kiev-Halych were arrested that night for the sake of Christ.
This year 1945 can be called a Holy Year, not because sanctity was manifested by posters and proclamations, which can be seen everywhere today, but rather because true holiness itself testified to the truth of Christ’s teaching: «You will be mine in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria — to the ends of the earth.» These testimonials were paid for in the form of arrests, sentencing, exiles to Siberia, Kolyma and Kazakstan and very often by death. Ukraine and the countries of exile were covered with glorious, though often nameless monuments of the martyrs for Christ.
The world and the makers of its history did not see this. Or if they did see it, they remained silent, because hypocrisy and false brotherhood had taken control of the people’s minds.
Only Pope Pius XII protested in an encyclical against this coercion, and called for prayers for the suffering brethren, assuring the persecuted, that their chains and suffering spoke more loudly of the evangelical thruths than anything they could do while being free. These were indeed prophetic words. This suffering was not in vain. It all goes into an invisible depository, from which unending blessings flow for our Church and for our people. The suffering and blood of our martyrs give birth to new confessors of the faith and that is why today we can speak of a living Church in Ukraine. In the words of Tertulian (of the second century): the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians. Surely, because of the suffering of our brothers, we have an unprecedented growth of our Church in exile; because of their suffering we still stand strong!
The first date, Aprill 0-11, 1945, was the beginning of the persecution of our Church and a time filled with heroic deeds of the children of the Kiev-Halych diocese.
The second date is today, or rather all of 1975 — a Jubilee Holy Year. We read in the Holy Gospel how God, through Moses commanded that every 50th year be proclaimed a Jubilee Year: that there be complete rest for the world and its people.that the prisoners be freed, and that everyone return to his own home. However, His Holiness Pope Paul VI proclaimed an even more special objection for this Holy Year: that it be a reconciliation with God, with the Church, and with our neighbors. How beautiful would this all be, if only it could be accomplished…
Let us take a look at what has changed since 1945, and what has remained unchanged. Thirty years have passed. That is a long time. But in the case of persecution, only the facade has been changed — the reality remains the same: the same sufferings, the way of the cross, the same persecutors, even more refined ways of persecution and attempts to infiltrate our Church in exile; the same veil of silence, with which the world tries to cover up the suffering and sanctity of the children of the Particular («Pomisna») Ukrainian Catholic Church.
Our Church will not benefit from the proclaimed blessings of this Holy Year: the return of freedom and justice is not for Her. All those beautiful slogans often remain spiritless testimonials of a baptized but unChristian world.
His Beatitude our Primate and Father, our Patriarch, has also remained unchanged. He continues to bear witness in these extremely harsh times to the millions of our holy brethren, who profess Christ and His true Holiness. This Head and Father of our Church, our Patriarch, ties these two dates into one whole and serves as a guardian of the faith of God’s people, as a Confessor of the Faith, a prisoner, a martyr — silent and silenced.
But there is one big difference; in 1945, they arrested you as the Metropolitan of Galicia, the guardian of the Kievan Diocese, Exarch of Ukraine. But with your arrival in Rome and under your leadership, at the Synod, we accepted irreversibly the principle of Patriarchal Leadership for our Church, and in this Holy Year of 1975, we saw for the first time in our history, next to your signature the title «Patriarch of Kiev-Halych.» This no one can erase, no one can ever retract! This is what is most needed for the preservation, development and growth of our Church. And for this, we are all most grateful to you. We realize that on this road there are still many obstacles, not all easily overcome. But the Lord God is merciful, and in our favor stands the deeds of our martyrs and the strength of the miraculous icon of Our Lady of Zhyrovytsia.
One more marked difference: in 1945, strangers came for you, or maybe even your own people, «with swords, whips and ropes» as if for a criminal, but today — we come to you from all over the world with love, and we also wish to be the messengers of the millions of our brethren, whose arms and legs are chained and whose lips are silenced.
Under your leadership we, the bishops of our Particular Church, together with our priests and faithful organized this massive pilgrimage and with you, we visit our Holy Places. Yesterday, devoutly and majestically, we visited St. Peter’s Basilica and celebrated a Holy Liturgy on his tomb: 120 priests, almost 200 monks and nuns, about 5,000 pilgrims and a beautiful choir. In the spirit of mutual forgiveness and tolerance we rush to our own Holy Sites: to the St. Sophia’s Cathedral, to the miraculous icon of Our Lady Zhyrovytsia, which for us are evidence of the sanctity of our Church. In our homeland, the churches are destroyed or deserted, and the roads to them are closed to us.
But here, where not one has yet closed our lips, where we can freely practice our faith, raise today the curtain of silence at the tombs of St. Peter, St. Paul and hundreds of martyrs, who lie in the catacombs and profess loyalty to the heir of St. Peter, His Holiness Pope Paul VI, loyalty to our ancestral Church and Her Patriarch Josyf, and unite in suffering with out persecuted brethren.
Strange things are happening today: in our homeland, under the atheistic Communist regime, it is forbidden to pray for the Holy Universal Supreme Pontiff, the Pope of Rome, but our people still pray for him, even though often they have to pay for it dearly. How unjust and ironic, when here — in freedom — is as if it were forbidden to pray «for our blessed Father Josyf, Patriarch of Kiev-Halych and of all Rus’.» But we shall pray for him. We shall pray for him so that we do not betray Christ and His Holy Church, so that we do not betray our persecuted Church, so that we do not betray our brethren who are suffering for the sake of Christ.
Your Beatitude, Our Patriarch! It is my privilege to express to you our devotion and gratitude for all your suffering for Christ’s sake and for the Union of our Church with the See of Peter. We know only little of your suffering, because your are silent; we also realize that you are but one of the Confessors of the Faith — and they number in the thousands. There are martyrs and they also number in the thousands. But the Almighty Merciful Lord selected you to be the proof of His Divine Providence. Accept our gratitude, respect, loyalty, our true filial love and the assurances of our prayers. Many Years, Your Beatitude — Our Patriarch.
