Reflecting on the Gospel reading of the Annunciation, which is celebrated on April 7 on the Julian calendar, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, said that “the enemy’s propaganda and ideology carry a fear factor. But today, God Himself is telling us: Ukraine, don’t be afraid!”

“God himself is embodied in your history, even in your grief and in your weeping,” he said. “We saw how the enemy army began pressing on to Kyiv, and it is as if nature itself had begun to fight against them. The Ukrainian land itself, the rivers of Ukraine, and even the radiation in the Chornobyl zone—the power of Most High is strangely manifest in the struggle of Ukraine, which is fighting against evil.”