Ukraine did not die 90 years ago. Freedom sprouted from the seeds hidden in the palms of our brothers and sisters, states the Appeal of the Synod of Bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine on the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor.
“No evil can destroy this harvest. It is protected by our people. It is protected by humanity. The Lord protects it. May the memory of the innocent victims of the Holodomor Genocide be eternal,” the text reads.
The bishops note that 90 years ago, Ukraine was murdered in cold blood on the direct orders and deliberate plan of the totalitarian communist regime led by Stalin, which aimed to destroy our people.
“The genocide of Ukrainians by the totalitarian regime of the time was not an accidental deviation from Moscow’s historical tradition,” the Address reads. “The insatiable Russian imperialism is the main wrongdoer of the Holodomor and the same enemy of humanity as nazism, racism, fascism, and any other manifestation of hatred for human rights and national, cultural, and religious separateness.”
The bishops assert that the method of killing by starvation was a deliberate choice: “To subdue a nation of millions, bayonets and tanks are not sufficient. Establishing long-term domination requires weapons of mass destruction that can sow fear among generations.”
The Holodomor of the Ukrainian people, they emphasize, is one of the greatest human catastrophes in the history of human civilization. In a letter to Ukrainians, Pope John Paul II wrote about the Holodomor and how this wound affected the foundations of all humanity.
The empire was unable to kill Ukraine 90 years ago, the Synodal Fathers note, but the descendants of the murderers were determined to complete what their predecessors had not attained: “Continuing its unchanging imperial strategy, Russia has once again defiantly challenged Ukraine and the world. Ninety years ago, the world silently and cynically watched the murder of millions of Ukrainians. Soon after, international helplessness provoked another sinister totalitarian regime, whose aggression led to a planetary explosion and the deaths of tens of millions of people around the world.”
Back then, 90 years ago, the bishops emphasized, except for a few journalists, only the Ukrainian Church was not silent. Owing to the righteous Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky and the bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the world community learned the truth about the famine in Great Ukraine.
“Similarly, today, our Church stands united with the majority of Ukrainian religious communities in the AUCCRO in calling on the world to support Ukraine in its confrontation with the same enemy,” the members of the Synod of Bishops believe.
“As in those evil times,” the bishops call, “in the name of the millions of victims of the Holodomor and their memory, we call on our faithful and all people of goodwill to solidarity and mutual assistance in confronting the fierce enemy. We ask for a more active dissemination of the truth about the war in Ukraine around the world so that the enemy’s propaganda falsity does not find a place in the hearts of people.”
The UGCC Department for Information
