Cardinal meets Metropolitan

(UOC) - On Wednesday, February 6 His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr received Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino at his request.

Cardinal Martino heads the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, and is now concluding his visit to Ukraine, the aim of which was to present the Ukrainian translation of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Roman-Catholic Church.

In the course of the visit which took place at the residence of Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Cardinal Martino told His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr about the work on Compendium, which was finished in 2004, and noted that the Ukrainian language was the 36th language this book had been translated into. "We believe that this Compendium can be a platform for the dialogue not only for Christians of different confessions, but for all the people of good will, who share our doctrine of value and dignity of the human personality, since man is created in the image and likeness of God", he said.

In his turn His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr emphasized that "the Ukrainian Orthodox Church also has a basic document on the social issues - the Basis of the Social Concept of the UOC. It is composed with consideration of the culture, mentality and traditions of the Ukrainian nation and reflects the role of the Orthodox Church in the Ukrainian society. We are sure that while formulating concepts of such a kind taking into account the local specificity is required." Awareness of local culture is certainly important, but does not invalidate this sort of effort. The Bill of Rights has been exported to numerous countries as an outline for democratic rights with varying amounts of rewriting.

Cardinal Martino also told of the activity of the Pontifical Council of Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People. The representative of the Roman-Catholic Church stated that at present the departments of the Pontifical Council are elaborating the most effective forms of the pastoral care of the migrants and the Catholic part is ready to cooperate with the Orthodox Church in this domain.

In response His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr noted: "For the past 15 years from 5 to 7 million of our compatriots left Ukraine in pursuit of a better life. The majority of them lives and works in the countries of Catholic tradition - Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Our Church works on providing pastoral care for our Orthodox compatriots. One of the problems our priests face abroad is the absence of place for performing the divine services. We are grateful to the Catholic priests who help us, affording their churches for performing the Orthodox divine services." This of course also happens in the US. I know Latin priests that have provided facilities for Oriental and Eastern Orthodox and our mission in Austin is actually in a Maronite parish.

Cardinal Martino assured the Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church that the Catholic part was ready to give support to the priests of our Church in Europe in resolving the problem of the place for performing the divine services for the Orthodox diaspora. To confirm it he stated that in autumn of the last year Archbishop of Naples Cardinal Crescenzio Seppe granted the premises of the Catholic temple to the Orthodox parish of the Russian Orthodox Church, mostly consisting of Ukrainians. "Certainly, a part of Ukrainians, having worked for some time in the West, will come back home, but many of them will stay, since they've managed to get married and have born children, and have found some good job. And we are to help them keep their traditions, their faith", stressed Cardinal.

In conclusion of the meeting His Beatitude Metropolitan Volodymyr granted Cardinal Martino a gild anniversary cross and a book "Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Chronicles. Year of life. 2006" published by the editorial office of the Internet site "Orthodoxy in Ukraine".

In his turn, Cardinal handed His Beatitude an issue of the Ukrainian version of the "Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church" and the medal dedicated to the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI.
In remembrance of today's meeting all the guests received CDs with Christmas carols and the commemoration medals dedicated to 15 years of Metropolitan Volodymyr's tenure of the Kyiv Throne.

In the meeting of Metropolitan Volodymyr with Cardinal Martino also took part Rector of the Kyiv Theological Academy and Seminary Bishop Anthony of Boryspil, Secretary to the Primate of the UOC Bishop Alexander of Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyi, the staff members of the Department for External Church Relations priest Mykolay Danylevych and priest Valeriy Kravets.

After the event the guests also visited the temple dedicated to St. Nicholas the Wonderworker at the Metropolitan Apartments.

The guests were suggested a tour of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, in the course of which they visited the Kyiv Theological Academy accompanied by its Rector Bishop of Boryspil Anthony.

During the visit to the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Cardinal Martino was accompanied by Apostolic Nuntio in Ukraine Bishop Ivan Yurkovych and the staff members of the Nunciature.