Pope seeking reconciliation in Ukraine

Pope John Paul II marked the first day of his trip to Ukraine with an apology for past Catholic wrongs and an assurance to Orthodox…

Pope John Paul II marked the first day of his trip to Ukraine with an apology for past Catholic wrongs and an assurance to Orthodox believers hostile to the visit that he had not come to win converts.

Pope John Paul II

"I have not come with the intention of proselytising but to bear witness to Christ together with all Christians with every Church," the Pope said in his arrival address, delivered in fluent Ukrainian to a crowd of Catholic clergy and politicians.

With thatstatement, the 81-year-old Pontiff, visiting Ukraine for the first time, responded to criticisms by some Orthodox faithful who tried to block his five-day visit.

The Orthodox Church regards the local Catholic Church as the Trojan Horse of an army bent on poaching souls in a post-Communist world of religious freedom.

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Of Ukraine's population of 49 million, at least 10 million are observant Orthodox and around six million are Catholic.

Repeating the gesture he made last month in Greece, the Pope said Catholic and Orthodox should seek forgiveness for offences against each other since the 1054 Schism that split the eastern Orthodox and western Catholic churches.

The visit is expected to try to heal some of the longstanding religious wounds in Ukraine.

In 1946, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin suppressed Ukraine's eastern rite Catholic Church, the Greek Catholic Church, and gave its places of worship to the local Orthodox Church.

After the ban was lifted in 1991, Catholics took back their churches, leading to sometimes violent disputes that occasionally pitted elderly believers against each other.

The Pope paid tribute to Ukrainians who suffered during nearly five decades of religious persecution under Communism, when the faithful were forced to worship underground.

He plans to beatify 27 Ukrainians, including Yakym Senkivsky, a priest who the Church says was boiled to death in a cauldron after being arrested by Communists in 1941.

The Pope also honoured the victims of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which he said should be a permanent warning to all scientists. He urged science to be wedded to ethical values.