On the occasion of Easter, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with representatives of the episcopate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy congratulated everyone on Easter and thanked them for their prayers and concrete actions to support Ukrainians.
"Everyday we live, fight, win and lose. Therefore, I would like to congratulate you on the day that Ukrainians are waiting for and which contains a very warm moment. Unfortunately, there are not many such moments in life. Easter is celebrated in different ways, but it is celebrated at the front, in the cities, along the borders," the President noted.
Primate of the OCU Epiphanius emphasized that the occupier can be defeated only in unity, when everyone works in their place and contributes to the common cause.
"We want a just peace to prevail in Ukraine, but this is possible only when we defeat the enemy. We, as churches, do not only pray. Our sacred duty is indeed to pray, to provide spiritual support. But we are also engaged in social service," he added.
Head of the UGCC Sviatoslav noted that churches have been supporting the military since 2014, even before the law on chaplaincy was passed. He also emphasized that the Ukrainian church has historically been destroyed where Russian colonizers seized our lands.
"Today, the UGCC has been officially liquidated in the occupied territories, our priests are imprisoned, and there are terrible persecutions, much worse than in Stalin's time, because the tools of control over people are much more effective now," he emphasized.
The participants also discussed the specifics of promoting the Ukrainian Peace Formula among representatives of the religious community, expanding the work of chaplains, and methods of combating narratives promoted by Russian propaganda.