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The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) is an Eastern Catholic Church that lives according to the Ukrainian–Byzantine Christian theological, liturgical, canonical and spiritual tradition and is in full and visible communion with the successor of Peter. Unity with the Roman Apostolic See has become one of the most important foundations of the UGCC’s identity, enriching its church life and strengthening its ecumenical ministry. As a sui iuris Church in the “family” of Catholic communion, the UGCC actively develops its ecumenical commitments with the Orthodox Churches and Protestant ecclesial communities. In this article, we will briefly examine how the UGCC developed its communion with the Bishop of Rome and how communion with the Apostolic See was a blessing for this Church, but at the same time sometimes became a threat to its existence in times of persecution by totalitarian regimes. We will also present the current religious context in which the UGCC operates, analyze some of its most important ecumenical initiatives and examine its participation in the development of interfaith dialogue in Ukraine. We will consider the challenges that the Russian invasion has brought to the UGCC and other religions in Ukraine, and how the UGCC, by developing communion with Rome, manages to witness the Gospel of life in the difficult circumstances of war and death. Full article

Pentecostal ecotheology presents a holistic approach to healing that recognises the inherent worth of all creation and the interconnectedness of human and nonhuman creation. It draws on the Pentecostal full gospel and the experiences of biblical Pentecost to inspire an expansive pneumatology that transcends an anthropocentric soteriology and views the entire cosmos as the altar where human and nonhuman creation can tarry for and experience the sacred presence, power, and conviction of the Holy Spirit with a sense of eschatological urgency such that (inter alia) repentance from ecological transgression becomes normative. This framework envisions all of creation participating in the Spirit’s presence, power, gifting, and renewal. Leveraging Pentecostal ecotheology for holistic healing involves intentionally engaging, replicating, and contextualising the pneumatological experiences of the biblical Pentecost. It also involves embracing the pneumatological continuity between us and the biblical charismatic communities, enabling us to administer healing in contemporary environmental contexts through the Spirit’s anointing. Engaging in ecotheological intercession, overcoming the creational desacralisation that leads to the mechanistic exploitation of creation, and adopting a Spirit-born sense of solidarity with creation are further essential strategies for leveraging Pentecostal ecotheology for holistic healing. Full article

The paper aims at casting some light on the interrelations among the Gospels, Acts and Revelation. We do not consider words ranking and their frequency of occurrence, as largely done in the literature, but we analyze, statistically, some mathematical aspects of the texts, which the authors were not conscious of. We use mathematical methods developed for specifically studying deep-language parameters of literary texts, such as the number of words per sentence, the number of characters per word, the number of words per interpunctions, the number of interpunctions per sentence, all very likely peculiar to the writer’s style, after having recalled the punctuation in classical languages. First, we consider the full texts of the canonical Gospels, Acts and Revelation, then the partial texts attributable to the Triple Tradition (Matthew, Mark and Luke), to the Double Tradition (Matthew and Luke), Own Tradition (Matthew and Luke) and Q source. The mathematical/statistical tool used confirms and reinforces some general results concerning the Gospels, Acts, Revelation and Q source, but also evidences some interesting differences concerning the number of words per sentence and words per interpunctions, likely casting some light on the capacity of the short-term memory of the readers/listeners of these texts. All these New Testament writings fit very well in the larger Greek literature of the time. The existence of a proto gospel seems more probable than other possible hypotheses. Full article