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.        

During the Monday meeting, Parolin and Moskalkova discussed the need to uphold “the fundamental human rights enshrined in the international conventions.”

According to an Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report published in February, more than 10,500 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and approximately 20,000 others injured since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.  The true toll is “likely significantly higher,” the report said.

Other matters discussed in the Sept. 16 meeting included humanitarian issues such as assistance to Ukrainian military prisoners in Russia and the mutual exchange of soldiers detained in Russia and Ukraine. 

OSV News reported that Geleta revealed in an hourlong interview with the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church’s television channel Zhyve TV that the two priests were psychologically and physically tortured in a prison alongside other prisoners of war.

“[We] could also hear screams from our cell in the corridors,” Geleta said in the Zhyve TV interview. “Father Ivan was beaten so severely that he lost consciousness twice.” 

After regaining their freedom both priests have the desire to share their story to encourage other people who have relatives of prisoners of war to not lose hope but to turn to God in prayer. 

“The Lord God knows that even through these sufferings he leads everyone to himself. We do not know this, it is a mystery. Otherwise, a person might not be able to bear it,” Geleta told Zhyve TV.

This article was originally published on Catholic News Agency.