Ukraine: Over 200,000 join interchurch pilgrimage

More than 220,000 pilgrims from the Ukraine, Poland, Denmark, the USA, England, Germany, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, and other countries visited the Marian shrine at Zarvanytsia in the Ukraine last weekend. A candlelight procession and Liturgy were led by Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), and Cardinal Jozef Glemp, Roman Catholic primate of Poland, assisted by 15 Roman and Greek Catholic bishops. The pilgrims prayed for the peaceful, Christian co-existence between the Polish and Ukrainian nations. In their address to the pilgrims, the two cardinals emphasized the necessity to forget the wrongs of the past and to progress towards reconciliation, like the nations of Germany, France and Poland have. "We are called to live in peace, because we are God's children," said Cardinal Husar to the pilgrims. The year 2004 has been declared the "Year of Poland in Ukraine." The UGCC and the Roman Catholic bishops of Poland have scheduled a number of events as part of this celebration in order to deepen the good traditions of understanding between the two nations. The pilgrimage to Zarvanytsia was one such event. Source: RISU