Ukraine’s leading prelates, in interviews, stress prayer, forgiveness

July 20, 2026

Ukraine’s leading prelates emphasized prayer and forgiveness in separate interviews with Vatican News, the news agency of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication.

“Our only hope is prayer,” said Archbishop Mieczysław Mokrzycki of Lviv, the head of the nation’s leading Latin-rite diocese since 2008. “People come to church, they pray. Every day after Mass we chant prayers of supplication and hold prayer gatherings to ask for God’s mercy and for peace in our country.”

Archbishop Mokrzycki added:

I believe we must never become indifferent to the suffering of other countries, including the Holy Land. Above all, we must show our unity as Christian brothers and sisters and always remember one another. We ask people to support us through prayer and through humanitarian assistance, which remains urgently needed here in Ukraine.

Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church since 2011, also emphasized the importance of forgiveness.

“These months in Ukraine mark the 25th anniversary of the historic visit of St John Paul II,” he said. “As an integral part of his Petrine ministry for Europe, he saw himself as being at the service of reconciliation among the peoples of the continent.”

Reflecting on St. John Paul II, the Major Archbishop said:

He himself said that it was his duty to help heal the historical memory of Europe’s peoples, especially when it came to the wounds of the Second World War, which remain so deep in our hearts even today. To those old wounds have now been added the wounds of this blasphemous war that we are living through in Ukraine.

But what medicine did Pope Wojtyła leave us? He told us that the balm capable of healing historical memory is forgiveness—both given and received. We are all sinners. We all know that we have offended our neighbor. Neighboring peoples often carry painful memories of one another because of the past. But we must not become prisoners of that past. We cannot rewrite history. But through forgiveness, we can build a better future. That is why the gift of forgiveness—both offered and received—is the medicine that heals the historical memory of Europe’s peoples.

 

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Further information:

• Archbishop of Lviv, Ukraine: "People are tired, our hope is in God" (Vatican News, 7/18/26)
• Shevchuk: Forgiveness and reconciliation can heal the historical memory of Europe's peoples (Vatican News, 7/18/26)