They would ask, “Where do you get that spirit that keeps a joy in you? Why do you not despair?” His response: “Because I pray.” “You can pray? Really? What does it mean to pray?” “Talk to God.” “And does he really exist?” “Yes, because I exist. He is the source of my life.”
While in the army Shevchuk decided to study to become a priest. In 1991 after finishing military service, he began seminary studies in Argentina. Shortly thereafter, the Soviet Union collapsed and seminaries reopened in Ukraine, so Shevchuk returned to Lviv to finish seminary. He was ordained in 1994, then pursued a doctorate in anthropology and moral theology in Rome, returning to Lviv in 1999. At the time, he thought he would live out his life as a priest-professor teaching in the seminary and at the Ukrainian Catholic University. But in 2002 he was named personal secretary to Cardinal Lyubomyr Husar, head of the Patriarchal Curia in Lviv. Then in 2007 he was elected bishop for the Ukrainians in Argentina, a country six times as large as Ukraine, with only 16 priests. There he first was introduced to his brother bishops by none other than the future Pope Francis.
In 2011 Cardinal Husar stepped down as major archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and Shevchuk was elected Major Archbishop by the synod of bishops and confirmed by Pope Benedict XVI. Leading the church has called upon his energy and passion during this difficult time of turmoil – a new parliament, new president, Russian annexation of Crimea, the Revolution of Dignity on Maidan Square in 2013, ongoing conflict in the East, Russian militarization on the border, and now, invasion.
In a film made for his 10th anniversary, Patriarch Shevchuk said that the Great Commission – “Go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19) – is the beginning of all strategic planning in the Church. The Church, he insisted, is neither a social service agency nor a cultural club, although the Church does the works of charity and justice, and the Church is a culture-forming counterculture. At the bottom line, though, the Church is a sacramental communion that, because it is sanctified by Christ, can and must offer others a new and nobler way of life – the way of being a disciple of the Lord Jesus.
