President Yuschenko speaks on Greek Catholics in Ukraine

Kiev, June 2, (Interfax) – Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko highly appreciates Uniates role in state life and in the country’s integration in the European community.

The Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church "certainly plays an important role as a powerful basis of our national identity and bearer of our inseparable connection with Europe," Yuschenko said on Monday at a meeting with students and seminarians of the St. Josaphat Ukrainian Papal Collegium in the Vatican.

Referring to the Ukrainian Papal Collegium, the President said, "it was the only center that nourished the Greek-Catholic Church banned by the Communists during many years of trials for Ukraine and our people and gave Ukrainians a chance to receive spiritual education and work for our people, bringing them the words of faith."

At the forefront of nationalism in early 1990s, activists of the Greek-Orthodox Church used force to seize some hundreds of Orthodox churches in western Ukraine, beating parishioners and priests. No criminal case has been initiated. The Union of Brest (and Uzhhorod) remains one of the main problems in the dialogue between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church.

And also the below. The immediate answer Moscow will have to this is that Pope Benedict would need to be invited to Ukraine as it falls under the Moscow patriarchate's territory. As a recent example Patriarch Kirill received the invitation of Patriarch Theophilus III to visit Jerusalem as an initial step in the process of coordinating a visit.

Kiev, June 2, (Interfax) - Ukrainian President Viktor Yuschenko invited Pope Benedict XVI of Rome to make an official visit to Ukraine during their meeting.

"Such kind of visits are always emblematic and work for many future years," Yuschenko.s press-service has cited him as saying after the talks.

The previous Pontific visited Ukraine in 2001 with the invitation of then acting Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. The Pope.s visit to Ukraine was not coordinated with the Moscow Patriarchate and caused protests of Russian Orthodox clergy and parishioners as Ukraine belongs to its canonical territory.