Together with two other brothers, this trip enabled him to pray with young people in Lviv, Ternopil and Kyiv, and also to meet many witnesses of the suffering and courage of the Ukrainian people. Brother Matthew also met several leaders of the two Orthodox Churches and all the bishops of the Greek-Catholic Church, who were meeting in synod at the sanctuary of Zarvanitsya.

In the town of Zhitomyr, he took part in a gathering with teachers and pupils of a Catholic school in the town, and then went on a pilgrimage of remembrance to the towns of Irpin and Bucha, where the traces of the occupation by the Russian armed forces in the spring of 2022 are still visible.

On the last evening of his stay in Ukraine, during a prayer in the Latin Catholic church in Kyiv, Brother Matthew said to the young people gathered: “We are going back to France, but we will not forget you. We are going to pass on your courageous testimony to the young people we will meet in Taizé. This is the time of the Resurrection: sometimes it is difficult to believe in the Resurrection, but it teaches us that suffering will not have the last word”.

Contacts

 General media questions: media taize.fr
 Requests and photos specifically linked with the brothers’ stay in Ukraine: ukraine taize.fr.