Last February 18, the first Sunday of Lent, at the end of the Eucharistic celebration in the Cathedral, Archbishop Roberto Repole blessed a copy of the Shroud, which was delivered to Father Benedykt Swiders’kyj, provincial minister of the Franciscan Friars Minor of Ukraine , in the presence of the President and Vice President of the Confraternity of the Ss. Sudario of Turin and Mario Po’, promoter of the initiative and director of the Cultural and Museum Center of the Scuola Grande di San Marco in Venice.
The copy was donated to the Friars Minor of the Ukrainian Province (present in sixteen convents and over fifty parishes) by the Confraternity of the Scuola Grande di San Marco of Venice and by the «Rivela» Association of Verona. After being exhibited in the Chapel of the relics of the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians in Turin, in the crypt of the church of San Fermo in Verona and in the Sanctuary of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska in Poland, the copy of the Shroud arrived in Ukraine and began a long pilgrimage which will take you to various religious locations in the country.
The blessing of the copy of the Shroud in the Cathedral of TurinThe first stop was the Sanctuary of the Passion of Jesus in Sharhorod, a city in southern Ukraine a few kilometers from the border with Moldova. On Friday 22 March, in the presence of three thousand faithful belonging to the Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Latin rite, the copy of the Shroud was welcomed with a solemn and long ceremony lasting four hours, from 12 to 16, which began with a solemn celebration in the church of the Sanctuary, presided over by Msgr. Radosłav Zmitrowicz, bishop of Kam’ianets’-Podil’s’kyi. The Shroud reproduction was placed at the foot of the main altar to allow the numerous faithful to venerate it up close and pause in prayer in front of the cloth. At the end of the Mass, all those present took part in the Via Crucis which winds along a two kilometer itinerary on the nearby hill, created over the last fifteen years, with great sacrifices, by faithful and benefactors of the oblast (region) of Vinnytza in to which the city of Sharhorod belongs. This is the largest monumental Via Crucis in all of Ukraine which, as revealed by Father Benedykt Swider’skyi, will be solemnly consecrated on June 25th by Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Patriarch of Jerusalem.
In the coming months the copy of the Shroud will be exhibited in other churches, monasteries and sanctuaries in Ukraine, in the cities of Lviv, Husyatyn, Zytomyr, Polonne and Šepetivka before returning to Šarhorod where it will be permanently kept. Already in 2004 a copy of the Shroud was donated to the Ukrainian Church and brought to Lviv by AMCOR, the Turin association «Amici Chiese d’Oriente».
During the ceremony held in the Sanctuary of Šarhorod, Father Benedykt Swiders’kyj underlined the profound meaning of the presence of the copy of the Shroud on Ukrainian territory: «The strength of compassion and conversion that comes from the Shroud image is the reality that most today is close to understanding the pain of the Ukrainian nation. Once again our homeland – after the genocide of millions of Ukrainian peasants planned by Stalinism and after the thousands of Catholic priests, bishops and faithful killed in hatred of the faith during the Soviet period – called to a further test: to experience terrible suffering of a bloody war, sufferings which however we know will precede the ‘resurrection’. For this reason, we can say that we identify with the Shroud of Jesus as a Church, as Roman Catholic Christians and even as a nation. This ‘Imago Christi’ should become the symbol, the banner of all experiences of persecution and hope because in the Shroud we read the face of suffering but also the miracle of the Resurrection.”
Since the Russian aggression began, Italy has been helping Ukraine in various ways: with material goods and equipment, monetary offers, social and cultural collaborations and with the hospitality offered to many refugees. More and more often, however, as Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, Apostolic Nuncio to Kiev, recently underlined, pressing requests for help also come from the Ukrainian people in the form of community and individual prayer initiatives. Concluding the celebration at the Shrine of Šarhorod, Msgr. Radosław Zmitrowicz addressed strong words to the numerous faithful present, who mourn their sons and husbands who died during the war: «The Shroud presents us with the image of Christ who suffers without any guilt; for this reason his presence among us leads us to think that Ukraine has now become a ‘Shroud nation’, a nation that suffers unjustly at the hands of others. We pray for the conversion of the Russians who attacked and invaded us, so that from the veneration of the Shroud we can learn the consolation and forgiveness that lead to conversion. The gift of the copy of the Shroud is the most beautiful spiritual gesture we have received in recent years from Italian Catholics.”
