Major Archbishop Shevchuk: Freedom must never be taken for granted
By Father Taras Kotsur
The Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, lists the figures for July 2026, the “bloodiest month” of four and a half years of war, which has already exacted an unspeakable toll in human lives and destruction.
In the following interview with Vatican News, he condemns the cruelty of the war and the ethical consequences produced by technology, in which the eye of a drone that can precisely see whom it is about to strike makes the notion of “accidental” civilian casualties not only tragic but unacceptable.
He speaks with Vatican Media as Ukraine marks 35 years of independence from Soviet totalitarianism, and emphasizes the value of freedom.
Your Beatitude, it is a great pleasure to hear from you again, especially in this context, when every day we hear of continuing and intense attacks on the Ukrainian capital, including strikes on the part of the city where your cathedral and residence are located. How are you experiencing the current situation?
All of us spent this night in the air-raid shelter, as we have on the nights before, because unfortunately the number of drones and missiles being launched over our heads is increasing. Lately, each month has become bloodier than the one before. For example, according to the United Nations monitoring mission, July was the bloodiest month since March 2022, which was the month with the highest number of casualties during these four and a half years of war. Official statistics say that in July alone, 437 civilians were killed and 2,610 were wounded, with the highest number of children killed and wounded since April 2022.
All the experts who are trying to understand what is happening say that this war is increasingly becoming a high-tech war involving highly sophisticated weapons. Some speak of a “war of the cities.” Why? Because, in practice, the possibility of advancing along the battle line has come to a halt. Advancing along the front has become increasingly impossible and extremely costly for the Russian army. So they are trying to strike civilians, increasing the suffering of people who live especially in the large cities. This is why the capital of Ukraine has become the number-one target. When people try to find historical parallels, many say that what is unfolding in Ukraine is very similar to the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, which was truly a war between two peoples who were unable to achieve victory along the front line and therefore sought to increase the suffering of civilians. The other very serious characteristic, from a moral and ethical point of view, is that the high technology being developed uses not only artificial intelligence to determine the point of attack for drones. Today, these deadly drones—and also missiles, which are becoming increasingly sophisticated in targeting civilians—have been equipped with cameras. So an operator guiding a missile or a drone in real time can see the people he is killing.
It is impossible to say that civilian casualties are accidental, unintended victims. For example, the other day a bus was struck in the city of Kherson. Not only the people traveling on that bus were killed, but also people who happened to be nearby. It is obvious that the operator of that drone could see the people he was killing. This is truly a very serious moral problem. It is said that today Russia is seeking to use the suffering of civilians, and even fear itself, as a weapon. What they have been unable to achieve on the battlefield, they are trying to accomplish through this terror inflicted on the major cities. This war is also seeking to turn people's exhaustion, their suffering, including their spiritual suffering, into an instrument of political pressure. Obviously, this is changing the face of the war, which remains, in every respect, a sacrilegious war. Every act of this kind is a crime both against international humanitarian law and against the moral law governing armed conflicts. This is the situation we have been experiencing, especially in the capital, over these past months and days.
In this situation, what does it mean to celebrate 35 years of independence, which coincide precisely with four and a half years since the beginning of this atrocious aggression?
For us, celebrating Ukraine's Independence Day means, first and foremost, thanking the Lord for the gift of freedom, of which the independent Ukrainian state is the guarantor. For Christians, love of one's homeland cannot turn into idolatry of the state. A state governed by the rule of law is an important instrument for protecting human dignity, freedom, the common good, and the people's right to life. Love for one's homeland is not hatred of others; rather, it is the willingness to assume responsibility for one's people and to serve them. Therefore, for us, this day commemorating Ukrainian independence is a day of prayer and reflection on how, today, we must not only defend our freedom but also positively build our future. These days we are also constantly speaking about national unity, because it is a unity around certain fundamental values. The state is an instrument for serving the common good and the dignity of the human person, for ensuring survival, for living freely, and for building our society in peace. Obviously, on this day we will all pray for an end to the war. We know that not only Ukraine's independence is a gift from God, but peace is also a gift from God. We will all be united in prayer, but also in our service to the common good, in our service of saving human lives, especially in the context of the war we are experiencing today
You have spoken about the gift of freedom. In this context, I would like to ask you something personal. You were born during the period of totalitarianism. Your priestly formation began in underground seminaries. What do these 35 years of freedom mean to you personally, especially when you look at young people today, who are already the second generation to have been born during this period of independence?
I had the experience of living through the moment when the totalitarian communist state, which sought to control even people's minds and wills, collapsed into pieces. At that moment, we understood that freedom does not simply mean the possibility of being free externally. We understood that freedom is a spiritual and moral category. I remember that even in the Soviet Union, we Catholic Christians who lived underground were freer than the communist leaders, because we carried this freedom of the children of God in our hearts. And precisely thanks to this ability to be free—to have the courage to think differently from what was imposed by the state communist ideology—the freedom to make decisions, to decide freely, but always according to the criteria of Christian discernment—this, for us, during the Soviet era, was a spiritual school of freedom. Then, when this totalitarian state collapsed, we were able to transmit this inner freedom that we had carried within us into the context of Ukrainian civil society. And so we truly became the leaven of the new society. Our Church truly became an agent of the transformation of Ukrainian society from a post-communist, post-Soviet colonial country into a democratic country. Obviously, this journey will never be something accomplished once and for all. Every day we must demonstrate this Christian freedom and continue on our journey. But here I understood something very profound that belongs to the Byzantine spiritual and theological tradition: freedom is something greater than mere free will. Freedom is the fruit of a good choice, a choice grounded in truth. If I make the right choice, if I choose fundamental values, if I choose what is good, then my free will—which is a potentiality of freedom—is transformed into an experience of freedom. Therefore, helping people make the right choices is a path toward authentic freedom. Not license, not anarchy, but a freedom that is always connected with responsibility and the common good. It is obvious that this understanding of freedom is very much sought after in Ukraine today. It is interesting to note that many of our young men who were prisoners of war, who endured terrible torture while in Russian captivity and were subsequently liberated, said that they felt freer even with their hands bound than those who were torturing them. Why? Because those Russian officers were truly prisoners of their own intellectual frameworks. They were afraid of their superiors. They were afraid of ending up in prison themselves for failing to obey the orders they had received blindly. And our soldiers, at those moments, felt freer even with their hands bound. Why? Because they had made their choice. The right choice. The choice that is always based on truth and on the defense of people's lives. This is our experience from the time of the Soviet Union. It is our experience of a society rebuilding itself after the fall of state totalitarianism. And this is the freedom that the Ukrainian people are seeking to defend and to build ever more deeply in their own free and independent country.
What could be the message of the Ukrainian people to today's world, where we can observe a certain crisis of democracy, with authoritarian tendencies growing in different parts of the world, even in places where one would least expect them?
Do not grow tired of being free! In my view, this crisis of democratic values is connected to a certain crisis of personal responsibility for one's own country. Everyone wants to shift their responsibility onto the shoulders of others. And sometimes people look for a scapegoat, a politician or an autocrat who can take upon themselves the personal duties that each of us has toward our homeland and our country. Sometimes people want to be relieved of the need to think and discern. They want someone else to think, discern, and decide for them. This is a form of infantilism, because that is how children behave when they think that it is always someone else who should build a better future for them. The flight from responsibility, in my view, is one of the great scourges of modern democracies. That is why I am struck by the fact that today the Church is increasingly becoming a guarantor and defender of democratic values, because the Church affirms the dignity of every human person. It is precisely the Church that is protecting human beings, within today's culture, from dehumanization at every level, beginning today with the challenge posed by artificial intelligence. It is precisely the Church that says that no one should have the right to steal other people's dreams and hopes for their future for the sake of their own interests. On the contrary, we ourselves are the builders of our own lives and our own future. Do not be afraid to be free. This is the fundamental message that Ukraine can send to the whole world today. Even if this freedom has to be defended. Because freedom cannot be taken for granted. Those who are unwilling to take the risk of embracing freedom and living as free men and women are not worthy of this gift of freedom.
As a pastor of a portion of the faithful in Ukraine and also in other parts of the world, what appeal would you like to address to the universal Church on the occasion of this anniversary of independence?
The highest expression of freedom is the human being's capacity to love. To love God and to love one's neighbor. Today in Ukraine, we see that the national unity that led us toward national independence can be defended only through mercy: the capacity to empathize with those who suffer, the capacity to show mercy toward those who make mistakes, but also our capacity to do good to our neighbor. Therefore, we must not forget that the greatest experience of freedom comes when we love God and our neighbor. I would like to thank all those who, on Ukraine's Independence Day, August 24, will join us in prayer. I would like to recall that the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches has issued an appeal to the World Council of Churches, and has also written a letter to Pope Leo and to all men and women of good will, asking them to observe August 24 as a day of prayer for peace in Ukraine. All of us in Ukraine will be united in prayer on that day. We, the heads of Churches and religious organizations, will gather in the oldest cathedral in Eastern Europe, Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv. There is an eleventh-century mosaic of the Oranta, the Praying Virgin Mary. Before this mosaic of the Kyiv Oranta, we will pray for peace. We ask for your solidarity and unity in prayer, but also in humanitarian action, which for us today is an excellent way of demonstrating our love for God and for our neighbor.
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