Rome Newsroom, 18 September, 2024 / 12:20 pm (ACI Africa).
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin met with Russia’s Commissioner for Human Rights Tatiana Moskalkova via video conference on Sept. 16 to highlight the need to safeguard international human rights conventions in the Russia-Ukraine war.
According to a Sept. 18 Holy See Press Office statement, Parolin thanked Moskalkova for her role in securing the June 28 release of two Ukrainian Redemptorist priests, Father Ivan Levytsky and Father Bohdan Geleta, following their 18-month captivity by Russian forces in the occupied city of Berdyansk.
In a Religious Information Service of Ukraine report, the two priests chose to stay with, and minister to, the Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic communities they served in Berdyansk. On Nov. 22, 2022, both were arrested by Russian military forces on charges of weapons possession.
Pope Francis had thanked God for the release of Levytsky and Geleta during his June 29 special Angelus address on the feast day of Sts. Peter and Paul. “I give thanks to God for the freeing of the two Greek Catholic priests,” the pope said. “May all the prisoners of this war soon return home.”
In July, Parolin met with both priests, who belong to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, during his July 19–24 visit to Ukraine to meet with religious and civil leaders in Kyiv and Odesa.
