Your Beatitude, Metropolitan Epiphaniy of Kyiv and All Ukraine,
Reverend Hierarchs and Clergy,
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Last evening, together with Archons of the Order of Saint Andrew, we received Your Beatitude at a dinner celebrating Your presence in the United States. Today, with much joy and anticipation, we receive You here at the Headquarters of the Sacred Archdiocese of America. In both cases, we are glad to behold Your Beatitude and are grateful for Your appearing in our midst.
Your Beatitude: The Sacred Archdiocese of America welcomes You with all the enthusiasm and hopefulness that we can muster. We fully appreciate and realize these delicate times for the suffering Ukrainian People. We know how Your Beatitude’s heart breaks for the suffering that continues unabated for nearly three years now, and how the sovereign Nation of Ukraine has been violated by Russian aggression. We are all heartbroken as well and are continuously praying for a just and peaceful resolution that will honor Ukraine’s borders.
Perhaps the saddest part of this war has been completely unnecessary and has pitted Orthodox Christian against Orthodox Christian. The unconscionable decision of the Russian Church to endorse Putin’s mad scheme of war and conquest has ripped open a wound in world Orthodoxy which may well take years to overcome. The loss of life alone has been staggering, and the damage to the infrastructure and general conditions within Ukraine has been as senseless as it has been cruel.
Your Beatitude:
You and Your synodia are most welcome here, and we are especially happy about Your Archpastoral Visit to Washington for the Ukrainian American Prayer Breakfast, which was in tandem with the National Prayer Breakfast. We hope that Your meetings were productive and that You had the opportunity to present Your case and the case of the noble Ukrainian People to the American Government.
There is, and there should be, absolute clarity on who is the aggressor and whose cause is righteous. We will work with You to ensure that Your case is understood at the highest levels of the new Administration, which has taken on religious liberty as a political issue of great importance. Thus, if freedom of faith and freedom of conscious are truly significant to American Power, then we know on whose side it will fall.
As I said last evening, our prayers are with You and the Ukrainian People, and we pray for a swift and just peace that will leave Ukraine with its entire territorial integrity.
I also stressed that there must also be righteous reparations for all the damage done to the Country, especially the hundreds of churches and the institutions that have been wantonly destroyed.
The Sacred Archdiocese of America, the first Eparchy of the Great Church of Christ in the New World, stands with You. We are all the spiritual Children of the Great Church of the Mother Church of Constantinople, and as loving spiritual siblings, we shall always be at Your side.
Your Beatitude:
We welcome You with open arms and open hearts.
With respect and reverence.
Ὡς εὖ παρέστητε Μακαριώτατε!