Memory pill: Whom Zelensky asks the pope about
September 23 marks the anniversary of the congratulatory letter sent by UGCC Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky to Hitler on the occasion of the capture of Kyiv in 1941.
“Your Excellency,
Führer of the Great German Empire Adolf Hitler,
As head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, I extend to Your Excellency my heartfelt congratulations on the capture of the capital of Ukraine, the golden-domed city on the Dnipro – Kyiv.
We see in you the invincible commander of the incomparable and glorious German army.
The Ukrainian people see in this liberation of the capital from the Bolshevik yoke a harbinger of their liberation from slavery. They see in you the victorious commander of the incomparable and glorious German army. They entrust to your military and statesmanly genius their national future in the introduction of a new order in Eastern Europe…
Since the fate of our people has been entrusted by God chiefly into your hands, we hope, as a deeply interested friend of Germany in this struggle which you also wage for the development of our people, for the possibility of religious and national freedom.
In gratitude, together with the Ukrainian part of the Eastern Church, connected with universal Christianity, I will pray to God for the blessing of victory, which will be the pledge of lasting peace for Your Excellency, the German army and the German nation.
With special respect,
Andriy Count Sheptytsky, Metropolitan
September 23, 1941”
Let us recall: the consequences of the Nazi occupation of Kyiv were concentration camps, the suffering and deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, Babi Yar – where Zelensky regularly comes to mourn. Yet Sheptytsky today is a figure glorified at the state level. Streets and even cities are named after him.
During his most recent meeting with Pope Leo, Zelensky spoke of “the respect in Ukrainian society for the figure of Andriy Sheptytsky” and lobbied for his canonization.
And yes, no moral here is being offered. Each one is capable of drawing their own conclusions.
