Archbishop tells pope visiting Ukraine could help end war

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Thanking Pope Leo XIV for his prayers for Ukraine, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church gave the pope a painting and a list of prisoners the Ukrainians want the Vatican's help in liberating.

Pope Leo met privately with Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych in the library of the Apostolic Palace May 15, the day after greeting the archbishop at the Jubilee of Eastern Catholics.

According to Archbishop Shevchuk's office, he invited Pope Leo to visit Ukraine, like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he did during a May 12 telephone conversation with the new pope.

"We believe that the visit of the pope could contribute to stopping the war in Ukraine," the archbishop said in a statement.

"Clearly, the timing and the occasion will be decided by the Lord, however, I consider it my duty to convey to you the invitation of millions of Ukrainians, who are waiting for you," the archbishop told the pope, according to the statement.

"I am with the Ukrainian people," Pope Leo told the archbishop, the statement said. "The Holy See continues and will continue to support every initiative to create the necessary conditions for dialogue and will accompany the Ukrainian people in this terrible time in their history."

Since soon after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Vatican has been acting as an intermediary in prisoner exchange negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

Archbishop Shevchuk's office said he gave the pope another list of Ukrainian prisoners of war, explaining how Pope Francis had helped arrange earlier prisoner exchanges.

"Every time I visit our parishes and eparchies in different regions of Ukraine, I meet families of prisoners of war and missing persons, who give me the names of their loved ones, asking me to personally bring them to the pope," the archbishop told the pope. "We have testimonies that when the Russian side receives such lists from the Vatican, the treatment of such prisoners improves."

Archbishop Shevchuk also gave Pope Leo a painting titled, "Requiem Prayer," by Bohdan Pylypiv, an artist who lost his son, Andriy, in the war.

In the lower right corner of the painting are the gears and mechanisms of a clock. "The embryo in the clock spring is a symbol of children who were never born due to war," the archbishop's office said.

The clock mechanism itself "counts down the bottomless moments of loss, rivers of blood that take away the most important thing -- human lives," the description continued. "The clock hand in the form of a Roman legionnaire's short sword is a sign of wartime, the calamity that has hung over Ukraine and the world."