According to Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the UGCC does indeed share the Pope’s philosophy.
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.
Because the UGCC is said to have a different “religious, canonical, and moral tradition,” the Uniate management affirmed that “blessing” has different meanings in the Latin Church.
Shevchuk reassured that a UGCC priest or bishop’s blessing is always “a religious sign that cannot be separated from the rest of the rites of customs and reduced only to the conditions and requirements of private piety.”
According to Greek liturgical 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 noted that since a clergyman’s blessing always has an evangelical and catholic dimension, it cannot in any way conflict with Catholic Church doctrine regarding the family as the faithful, indissoluble, and fruitful union of love between a man and a woman.
In an earlier article, the UOJ titled “Vatican and Same-Sex Unions: to Bless or not to Bless,” “Fiducia Supplicans,” a Declaration of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, was thoroughly examined.
