/ News / Pope Entrusts Ukrainian Trip to the Mother of God:
THE PAPAL VISIT TO UKRAINE    
June 23-27, 2001    
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Pope Entrusts Ukrainian Trip to the Mother of God

Following an official state welcome at Boryspil Airport, Pope John Paul II made his first visit to a Ukrainian shrine, the Church of St. Nicholas at the tomb of Askold, symbolic as the site of several significant events in Ukrainian history.


23.06.2001 (18:55) // Religious Information Service of Ukraine

   Buried there are the ninth-century kings of Kyiv through whom Christianity was first spread in the country and nearby is the monument to King Volodymyr, through whom the ancient kingdom of Rus-Ukraine was baptized in 988. Also buried at Askold's tomb are the Heroes of Kruty, Ukrainian students who gave their lives in 1918 in the fight against the bolshevyks.

  The church itself is historic as the first Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church constructed in Kyiv after the church's rise from the underground in 1989.

  The Church currently displays the miraculous icon of the Mother of God from Zarvanytsia, which has been travelling around Ukraine to help the nation prepare for the papal visit. In his prayer before the icon, the Pope evoked the Eastern Christian devotion to the Pokrova (Mary as protectress of the nation) and entrusted his journey under her "maternal mantle", so that she might lead all Ukrainian Christians "to her son Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life for all". This citation from the Gospel of John is the official theme of the papal visit to Ukraine.

  See full text of Pope's prayer.

 Get the printable page

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