AN ADDRESS

AN ADDRESS
From Leaders of the Christian Churches
To Christians and All People of Good Will
“Experience of the Christian Churches in Building Civil Society”

Brothers and sisters beloved in Christ,
dear compatriots, government officials,  
and all others who participate in the civil and political life of Ukraine!

Contemporary Ukrainian society is on the path to defining and establishing itself as the independent author of its own fate. At this stage of the way, it is very important to create the kind of relations between government and society that would enable all citizens to feel part of the civil-political and government-building process.

Every year since our young State begain its independent existence, we have seen growth in the number of members of our society who are not indifferent to Ukraine's future; who strive to take active part in civil and political life – even though, due to certain negative factors, this is not always possible. Another positive development is that, every year, the government turns more and more towards the citizen, and shows an ever greater willingness to support the growth of civil society in Ukraine. Such processes inspire hope that better conditions for protection of human dignity and promotion of individual self-realization will be created in our society. In this context, the Christian experience of concern for the dignity of human beings and for their liberation from everything that burdens their conscience, restricts their freedom, and interferes with living a full life in community, acquires great significance for society.

According to Holy Scripture, humans are created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26). The human person as an image of God has a dignity that cannot be taken away, and that is preserved regardless of social and economic status and regardless even of the person's actions. This is a crucial postulate of the Christian view of humanity, which turned upside down the preceding classical conceptions and formed the basis for the modern understanding of human beings and their unique place among God's creations. Human freedom, which cannot be suppressed by any worldly power, is connected precisely to this unconquerable human dignity.

If the image of God in man is a given, the likeness of God suggests the need for personal improvement, for making oneself more like God. By his or her deeds, a person can either confirm or act against the dignity given by God. This is, again, connected to freedom, which can be used either for good or for evil. Criteria by which good is distinguished from evil are at the foundation of personal and social morality. In our society, these criteria are based on the Christian tradition. That is precisely why the Christian tradition must have a decisive voice in determining the ethical norms by which our society must orient itself.

The fact that God-given freedom can be abused intimately connects the concept of freedom with that of responsibility. The essence of social responsibility is that every person, in pursuing the fulfillment of his or her own interests, must coordinate them with the interests of his or her peers, family, local community, nation, and humanity in general.

The Christian community has always been an environment where people learned to use their freedom, to live according to the image of God in them. The life of the first Christian communities included elements of what later came to be called civil society. Building up the primary unit of religious life – the parish – requires uniting the efforts of all its members, including the leadership. Relationships within a Christian community are based on recognition of the image of God in one another, as well as responsible use of one's own freedom to create harmonious relations among members of the community. A Christian community builds a church, provides for catechization and evangelization, looks out for and helps those who require care and assistance, entrusts various tasks to its members according to their knowledge and skills. In this manner, a self-governing social unit is created, in which every member is actively involved with the community, caring for the well-being of each participant as well as the community as a whole. In turn, this community is an active member of a greater community – the whole Church, in which all participants, whether individual believers or their communities, take part in creating all that is necessary for the Church's full and independent life.

A human being is not an isolated atom, and is not completely self-sufficient; he or she needs other people. Upon witnessing the need or suffering of another, everyone is called to dedicate him- or herself to that other, and to share with him both in joy and in sorrow. This is known as the principle of solidarity. In building a family, or another kind of community, a person strives to make it self-sufficient. If both the person and the community thus created prove unable to provide for its needs, then together with others they create structures to which is given the right and the obligation to provide for them. This means that the associations and civil organizations created by citizens are autonomous, and government organs should not interfere in the functioning of such local organizations, nor try to replace them, because that creates excessive bureaucracy, with all the negative consequences associated with it – which includes corruption and unjust restrictions on the initiative of citizens and their associations. The mode of social organizations we describe here is known as subsidiarity; according to it, high-level entities must assist – that is, support and encourage – lower-level entities, and to refrain from any actions that restrict the life of society's basic units, their initiative, freedom, and responsibility.

The mission of Christ's Church consists not in promoting certain models of political and economic development, but rather in service to the Lord and care for human souls. However, precisely for that reason the Church is not indifferent to the conditions of human life on Earth; God so loved each individual person, and humanity as a whole, that His own Son took flesh that all who believe in him may have eternal life. Remembering this divine truth and wishing true good for humanity, the Church constantly reminds all about the values and principles that, if observed properly, can transform any society, and particularly one in which immorality, injustice, corruption, irresponsibility of the elite, and other profound problems have taken root.

We believe that the values and principles on which the life of the Churches themselves was built can transform Ukrainian society. This would require respect for these key values and principles both by individuals and by the State, as well as awareness that freedom is not the same as license and arbitrariness; it is responsibility for every action, respect for one's own dignity and the dignity of every person, and – first and foremost – service to and pursuit of truth, of which both the source and the purpose is God Himself.

This Address was signed by:

Filaret – Head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, Patriarch of Kyiv and all Ukrainian Rus';
Volodymyr – Head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Ukraine;
Lubomyr (Husar) – Cardinal, Head Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church;

Markian Trofimyak – Bishop, Vice-Head of the Association of Roman Catholic Bishops of Ukraine;
Vyacheslav Nesteruk – Head of the All-Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Baptist Christians;
Mykhaylo Panochko – Bishop of the Evangelical Church of Ukraine;
Leonid Padun – Senior Bishop of the Ukrainian Christian Evangelical Church;
Sergii Debelinski – Head of the Brotherhood of independent churches and Evangelical Baptist missions in Ukraine.