On Saturday, April 26, 2025, the funeral service of Pope Francis took place in the Vatican. His Beatitude Sviatoslav and a delegation of bishops of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church took part in the Divine Service.
The funeral of the Pope was attended by: Bishop Borys Gudziak, Archbishop and Metropolitan of Philadelphia, Bishop Mykola Cardinal Bychok, Bishop of the Melbourne Diocese, Bishop Kenneth Nowakivsky, Bishop of the Diocese of the Holy Family in London, and Bishop Hryhoriy Komar, Apostolic Administrator of the Apostolic Exarchate in Italy.
From 5 am, the streets around St. Peter’s Square began to fill with the faithful. Many spent the whole night at the checkpoints to be able to get to the square. According to law enforcement agencies, approximately 250,000 people gathered to see Pope Francis off: 50,000 directly on the square, and the rest on the surrounding streets, where they watched the Divine Liturgy on television screens.
Before the Divine Liturgy began, His Beatitude Sviatoslav greeted the Ukrainian delegation led by the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky. In a conversation with the head of the Ukrainian state, he thanked him for his personal presence and emphasized the special significance of Pope Francis for the UGCC and the Ukrainian people.
After that, the funeral Divine Liturgy began, led by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Dean of the College of Cardinals. Cardinals, about a thousand bishops, and several thousand priests concelebrated with him.
Remembering Pope Francis, His Beatitude Sviatoslav noted: “We will always remember him as the Pope of mercy and the Pope of hope, as the Pope who declared the Catholic Church a Church that welcomes everyone, calling it a military field hospital that heals wounds.”
He also emphasized that Pope Francis will go down in history as the Pope who prayed for Ukraine: “As the Vicar of Christ on earth, as the successor of the Apostle Peter, he did everything possible to stop the war. Pope Francis always emphasized: when humanity starts wars, it loses, because after each war the world becomes worse.”
The Holy Liturgy was attended by representatives of other Christian denominations, in particular Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, as well as delegations of other religious communities and up to 160 official representations from different countries of the world, more than half of which were headed by monarchs or presidents.
At the end of the Divine Service, His Beatitude Sviatoslav, together with the heads of other Eastern Catholic Churches, prayed the Easter Panachida at the coffin of Pope Francis.
Then the funeral cortege set off for the Papal Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where Pope Francis had ordered his burial. Along the entire route, tens of thousands of people accompanied the Pontiff with applause and prayer to his final resting place.
Secretariat
Heads of the UGCC in Rome
