Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine, August 23, 2017
Photo: uoj.org.ua Ukrainian Independence Day is becoming an increasingly more significant holiday from year to year, more important than New Year’s, Nativity, and Pascha, according to President Petro Poroshenko, speaking at the opening of a children’s building of the regional hospital in the city of Kropyvnytskyi in the central Ukrainian province of Kirovohrad, reports ukrinform.ua.
“From year to year, Independence Day is becoming a holiday ever greater and even more important than the New Year, Christmas and Easter. It marks our repeated birth, the resurrection of our dreams, and the novelty of our state,” Poroshenko said.
The Declaration of Independence was released on August 24, 1991 and confirmed by the referendum of December 1, 1991.
The head of state also took the opportunity to take aim at Russia, noting that this 26th year of independence is also important because “we have overcome the deep crisis caused by the war. It's not just Russian troops at the front, and it’s not just the supply of modern weapons: It’s the closure of Russian markets, the closure of orders for Ukrainian production facilities, it’s a trade war, and terrorist operations on our territory prepared by terrorists who are trained in Rostov, Kursk, Belgorod and other regions. We have overcome these challenges.”
Meanwhile, prayers for Ukraine, peace in the state, and the Ukrainian people will be raised up in all churches and monasteries of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) on Independence Day tomorrow, with the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphry of Kiev and All Ukraine.
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia sent a message to President Poroshenko last year, in which he congratulated all residents of the country on the 25th anniversary of the declaration of independence.
“In 1991, Ukraine chose a path of independent development. Having taken that path, it entered a new reality and was faced with many new, often severe challenges. To my deep regret, the conflict in the eastern part of the country remains one of them,” the patriarch wrote.
The patriarch said at that time that he is confident that “the peacemaking efforts of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church will continue promoting the creation of civil peace and accord in society and the establishment of traditional moral values among people.”
