According to Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the UGCC does not adhere to the same religion as the Pope. Catholic Sun image
A Communiqué signed by S. Shevchuk was published by the UGCC on its official website and discusses how Greek Catholics feel about the Vatican’s “Fiducia Supplicans” Declaration of Dicastery regarding the acceptance of LGBT people.
According to the document’s wording, the Declaration “has no legal force for the believers of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church” and reportedly only applies to Roman Catholics and not to Eastern Catholic churches.
The UGCC reportedly has a unique “philosophical, canonical, and spiritual heritage,” according to the Uniate leadership, which also emphasized that the “meanings of the concept of ‘blessing’ in the latter and the Latin Church are different.”
Shevchuk was reassured that a UGCC priest or bishop’s blessing is always “a religious sign that cannot be separated from the rest of the articles of faith and reduced only to the conditions and requirements of private piety.”
According to Greek ritual traditions, the word “blessing” refers to approval, permission, or even a command regarding specific deeds, prayers, and ascetic practices, particularly specific types of fasting and prayer. Shevchuk asserted that since a clergyman’s blessing always has an evangelical and catholic component, it cannot in any way be in conflict with Catholic Church doctrine regarding the family as an enduring, unbreakable, and fruitful union of love.
