News

The First Ukrainian Ecumenical Social Week (ESW) was held in Lviv from 9 to 15 June 2008 at the initiative of the Institute of Ecumenical Studies of this city with the support of the Ukrainian Catholic University, the Lviv Regional Council, and the Mayor’s Office of the City of Lviv. Among the approximately 20 partner-organizations of the project were the World Council of Churches, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the French organization Secours Catholique, and the Bradley Foundation. More than 40 Ukrainian social organizations took part in the ESW, among which were Caritas, L’Arche, and also Faith and Light. Lviv’s ESW received the blessing and support of all the heads of Christian churches present in Lviv. In addition to the apostolic nuncio to Ukraine, Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic, who traveled in from Kyiv, leading Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant hierarchs of Halychyna were personally present at a conference dedicated to the Ukrainian cooperative movement.

Dear friends,

We each come to God, we each come to our own understanding of God’s path for us, in our own unique way.

Blessed and fortunate are those who have discovered that, as the 14th Proverb says, “He that despiseth his neighbor sinneth, but he that hath mercy on the poor, happy is he.”

That when we help the hungry, the thirsty, the lonely, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned, when we show compassion, we are serving God, we are bringing ourselves closer to his presence. That there is a rent we pay for our place in this world, and that is the service we render others. That, as a great businessman and humanitarian once said, “The human being who lives only for himself finally reaps nothing but unhappiness -- selfishness corrodes, unselfishness enobles”.