His Beatitude Sviatoslav thanks Cardinal Parolin for writing foreword to his book “Tell Me the Truth”
On May 31, a presentation of the Ukrainian-language edition of His Beatitude Sviatoslav’s book “Tell Me the Truth. Dialogues on the Meaning of Life”. The Head of the UGCC expressed gratitude to Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Holy See (Vatican), for the foreword to the book.
His Beatitude Sviatoslav mentioned that Cardinal Parolin is the head of Vatican diplomacy, expressed his willingness to write a foreword for the Ukrainian-language edition long before Russia’s full-scale invasion had taken place. Even back then he had already discovered truth about Ukraine. Furthermore, I want to assure you that he puts in a lot of efforts to achieve a just peace in our country”.
The Head of the Church also hopes that this book, in many aspects, will play a decisive role. At the same time, Vatican diplomacy will try to help Ukraine in this terrible ordeal on our way to victory and fight for dignity, freedom, and independence.
In his foreword, Cardinal Parolin emphasized that the book, a dialogue between His Beatitude Sviatoslav and a professor of the Pontifical Lateran University, “is precious for this particular cultural environment in the West. We can say that the way His Beatitude Sviatoslav offered to explain the basics of the Christian and Catholic faith plays the same role as the Poor Man (the story about St. Francis, who in the vision of one monk, among many trodden footsteps, sought the footsteps of Jesus and followed them — ed.) on a heavily tramped road: calmly, yet with the confidence of one who lives his Christian faith and is aware of the role entrusted to him by the Lord, he again renews the footprints of Truth”.
Describing the book “Tell Me the Truth,” the Secretary of State of the Holy See said: “The book is built on the ‘theological’ dimensions of truth (truth as faith, hope, and love), but it is not ‘disembodied.’ His Beatitude is well aware of the role of history as the place where the divine-human theo-drama of our salvation occurs. Therefore, history is the third dimension of truth that shapes this work. The historical dimension is present not only in part devoted to autobiographical reflections (in connection with the date and place of his birth, His Beatitude Sviatoslav speaks of the experience of ‘two lives’: one in the Soviet Union, the other after 1989) but also in a calm but clearly understood reflections on complicated issues for his church, which he does not avoid with parrhesia (frankness, sincerity). These issues are about ecumenical relations and the national dimension of the Eastern Churches, both Greek Catholic and Orthodox, which are of profound importance in one of the most difficult periods of international politics; the not accidental and not temporary importance of the very existence of the Greek Catholic Churches; the contribution that these Churches can make with their testimony of truth given in times of persecution, in the struggle against old and new totalitarian ideologies that act in an anti-Christian way, and also the unwavering adherence to unity with the Apostolic See.”
The book was first published in Italy in 2018 as a dialogue with Fr. Paolo Asolan, a professor at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. The afterword to the Ukrainian edition was written by Andrea Gagliarducci, a journalist and Vatican observer.
The Secretariat of the Head of the UGCC in Rome
