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Kateryna Yushchenko Attends Second Ecumenical Social Week in Lviv

October 6, 2009, Head of the Supervisory Board of the Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Foundation Kateryna Yushchenko took part in On the Past for Future’s Sake: Historical Truth of the Soviet Period plenary session. The event, hosted by the Ukrainian Catholic University, was a part of the Healing the Past Wounds scientific and practical conference at the Second Ecumenical Social Week in Lviv.

Also present at the session were President of the Institute for Religion and the Society at the UCU Myroslav Marynovych, Chorepiscopus of Kyiv Archdiocese Yosyf Milian, UCU Rector Father Borys Huziak, Director of the UCU Institute for Ecumenical Studies Antuan Arzhakovsky, Director of the Liberation Movement Research Center (Lviv) Ruslan Zabily, researchers, historians, representatives of various creeds, and public figures.

“The approach you suggest, On the Past for Future’s Sake, really appeals to me,” Mrs. Kateryna said in her address. “It means that you not simply turn to the blank spots and tragic leafs of Ukrainian history, but realize how important knowing the past is for our country’s future.”

“In the twentieth century the Ukrainians had been destroyed from the inside systemically and mercilessly, aiming at their biggest values: the language, unique culture, spirituality, family ties,” Mrs. Kateryna said. “In those dreadful years the nation’s elite had been destroyed: scientists, the military, clergy, artists, farmers, writers, musicians, kobza players… It was a true genocide.” In Mrs. Yushchenko’s words, the discussions like that one gave the Ukrainian society a chance to get rid of the post-genocide syndrome.

Mrs. Kateryna told the audience about the Ukraine 3000 Foundation’s work on researching and preserving the historical memory, speaking in more detail about the History Lessons program. In her words, the Foundation has recently turned to the topic of destroying the Ukrainian church by the Communist regime. “For decades millions of Ukrainians had to conceal their religious feelings,” she said. ‘Our spirituality and traditional culture have suffered a deformation we will have to deal with for a long while.”

‘Today we discover new pages of our history almost every day. We want to renew our genetic code, the ties between generations, and bring back the system of values destroyed by the Soviet power,” Mrs. Yushchenko said. She thanked the organizations contributing into reestablishing the historical truth and expressed her satisfaction with the fact that “more and more young people and children take part in this movement.”

“I am convinced that a nation able to draw conclusions from its own past has a great future. We can do it. We have proved it already and continue to do so,” Mrs. Kateryna said.

Mrs. Yushchenko invited all present to the unveiling of the Repressed Spirituality: Destroying the Church, Religion, and Traditional Rites in Ukraine by the Communist Regime exhibition, taking place immediately after the session at the Ukrainian Catholic University.

The Second Ecumenical Social Week is held in Lviv October 5-11, 2009. Its theme is Social Responsibility. The evnt organizers are the Institute for Ecumenical Studies, Ukrainian Catholic University, Lviv City Council, Lviv Oblast State Administration and Oblast Council.

The Week features the Healing the Past Wounds scientific and practical conference of three plenary sessions; a series of round tables Developing Joint Social Projects with Western and Central Europe, and Social Responsibility in Politics plenary session. Also, there will be held the Forum of Lviv Social Organizations and a fair of social organizations. Additionally, October 10, the Day of Trust will be held, prepared jointly with the Taize Christian ecumenical community (France).

Among the participants of the Second Ecumenical Social Week are Vice President of the Social Weeks of France Bernard Chevenez, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Germany to Ukraine Hans-Jurgen  Heimsoeth, Secretary General of the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) Rev. Piotr Mazurkiewicz, et. al.

In 2008 Mrs. Yushchenko took part in the First Ecumenical Social Week in Lviv.