In the name of Christ our Peace
The pastoral collaboration between the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church of Our Lady of Zhyrovyci and Holy Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus and the Roman Catholic parish of Santa Maria ai Monti develops in a context of authentic ecclesial communion. We are located in the same square in Rome’s historic Monti district.
Although they belong to different liturgical traditions — the Byzantine rite for the Ukrainian community and the Roman rite for the Latin Church — both recognise the same faith and obedience to the Pope, Bishop of Rome. The Ukrainian church is both a place of worship for the Ukrainian community and a visible sign of the encounter between East and West. The collaboration between the two parishes is expressed concretely and above all in prayer, shared liturgical celebrations, especially on solemn occasions such as Palm Sunday, Easter, Pentecost or moments of prayer for peace, charitable initiatives in favour of the most needy — in particular the Ukrainian refugees — and in participation in common pastoral projects with the Diocese of Rome. This fraternal dialogue between the two rites demonstrates the richness and variety of the Catholic Church of Rome, capable of expressing value in diversity as an expression of its universality. As already mentioned, the poor are most frequently the common ground on which our collaboration takes place.
We often ask ourselves, who are the poor today? First of all, they are those who are always with us: “The poor you will always have with you” (Mt 26:11). They are men and women, with names and surnames, and they represent exactly what the Word of God is, a double-edged sword that penetrates the civil and Christian conscience of each one of us; they are the perennial scandal of a modern society that has built its “camping ground”, surrounded it with impenetrable walls and cynically, secretly and mercilessly left behind a pile of discarded stones. They are, for example, those people here in our neighbourhood whom we helped together during the months of the pandemic, when unexpected poverty emerged.
We would like to highlight what we would call a historical difference; yesterday, the poor were those, even entire populations, who were born and lived on the outskirts of the world, in countries always at war, and where even nature seemed to have no mercy. People were born poor, and very often they died poor. Today, in many cases, people become poor; in our urbanised world, even here in Rome’s historic centre. The loneliness of large megacities makes the elderly poor, and increasingly fragile family ties can suddenly make a spouse poor. In a city where the Church of Rome has historically distinguished itself for its charity and where countless “social” saints have lived, the presence of the poor is an even more intolerable scandal. There is a growing discomfort. The so-called homeless people, classified as “living in extreme poverty”, are there for all to see. We also see domestic homelessness, people who own their own homes but are totally alone, often with psychiatric problems.
And then there is the war in Ukraine, the dramatic consequences of which are reaching the heart of our parishes. It feels like watching a film when we pray for “our boys at the front” or when we collect blankets for soldiers for the winter. Yet it is a sad reality; every Thursday for the past three years, hundreds of Ukrainian women have been coming to Santa Maria ai Monti to ask for help, food, clothing, medicine and money to send to Ukraine. But first and foremost, they ask for peace.
The geopolitical interpretation that we give to the current war is not exactly the same as one might imagine; the perspectives are different and, naturally, the direct and indirect consequences are different, but our prayer for peace and our commitment to it remain unique.
We believe that Christ our Peace will “will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore”, as Isaiah says and as is written on the front of the UN building. For centuries, everyone has claimed to wage war to defend good and justice. In reality, war serves to safeguard specific interests. Peace is our vocation, an aspiration that dwells in everyone’s heart and must inspire every political action. We believe that in the complex and pluralistic world in which we live, reconciliation cannot be built unless we start from a common point: the condemnation and rejection of all types of war.
Don Kostiuk Liubornyr, Parish priest of the Cathedral of Santi Sergio e Bacco
Monsignor Francesco Pesce, Parish priest of Santa Maria in Monti (Rome)and Ecclesiastical Counsellor of the CAPPF Rome Chapter