(Information Resource of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, April 21, 2014)
“This Easter I wish to invite you to make a very concrete change. Let everyone today ask himself: ‘Do I give bribes and take them?’ For everyone who takes bribes has on his hands the blood of the Heavenly Hundred [i.e. the pro-European demonstrators who were killed on Independence Square], just as those who shouted ‘Crucify him’ had the blood of Jesus on their hands.”
With this proposal the Head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shewchuk, addressed all people in an interview with “Channel 5” Television that was broadcast on April 20, 2014, the Solemnity of the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ. He said this in response to the question of how to celebrate Easter in such a way that the celebration will have positive consequences.
The Head of the Church recalled that one of the main goals of the “revolution of dignity that is taking place in Ukraine, is the healing of the country from corruption”. He mentioned that people propose doing this only at the level of the upper echelons of government. Instead, the truth is that the mid- and low-level bureacracies are more corrupt.
“Corruption at that [lower] level is what corrodes our country most,” the Head of the UGCC explained. He emphasized: “If on the one hand we celebrate Easter today, but on the other hand destroy our country through bribery, then there is no sense to that celebration.”
“I would like everyone who will celebrate Easter this year to fight corruption, both on the personal and on the societal level,” His Beatitude Sviatoslav added in his Easter interview on “Channel 5”.
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