From His Beatitude Sviatoslav in Babyn Yar: In such a place you want to be silent and listen, and if you speak, then to God only
On September 29, 2022, a prayer commemoration of the victims of the Nazi executions of 1941 took place in Babyn Yar, in Kyiv. The Father and Head of the UGCC, His Beatitude Sviatoslav, Chief Rabbi of Ukraine, and Kyiv Moshe Reuven Asman, vicar of St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery of the OCU, Archbishop Agapit Humenyuk, took part in the interreligious prayer.
In his speech, His Beatitude Svyatoslav said: “On such a day, in such a place, at such a moment, one wants not to speak, but to remain silent. Be silent and listen. Listen to what the Ukrainian land will tell us, what the land of Babyn Yar is talking about today when we remember the 81 st anniversary of the great tragedy that happened here. Today, this is what the words engraved on the memorial tell us: ‘The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me.’ Therefore, I invite all of you to be silent and listen to the voice of blood that calls from this earth to the Creator, the voice of the blood of our brothers and sisters of the Jewish people — we must let this voice into our hearts today embrace all the innocent victims.”
“Today,” continued the Primate, “the voice of blood from the Ukrainian land rises to the heavens: the voice of the blood of those innocently killed by the Russian occupier — children, women, elderly people, the voice of the blood of the sons and daughters of the Ukrainian people, who today protect Ukraine from the new misanthropic, essentially Nazi, ideologies that continue to kill. And if we speak, then only to God, listening to the voice of the Ukrainian land and the voice of the blood of our innocently murdered brothers, fathers, and sisters.”
Thus, the Head of the UGCC called on those present to pray for the souls of the innocently killed: God of the spirits and all flesh, You overcame death, destroyed the devil, and gave life to Your world. You, Lord, rest the souls of Your innocently murdered servants in a bright, blooming, calm, and from where all pain, sadness, and sighing have fled. And all sins committed by them in word or deed or thought, as a good and man-loving God, forgive. Because no man would live and not sin, You are the only one without sin. Therefore, your truth is eternal. And Your word is the truth. For You are the resurrection, the life, and the repose of Your departed servants, Christ our God, and to You we send glory, with Your beginningless Father, and with Your Most Holy, sound, and life-creating Spirit, now, and always, and forever and ever. Amen. Eternal memory to them!”
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