Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin is in Ukraine this week for what is the diplomat’s first visit to the country since the start of the Russian invasion in 2022.

In the first half of his July 19–24 visit, Parolin stopped briefly in Lviv before traveling to Odesa, a southern port city, and to the northern city of Berdychiv, where he celebrated a Mass for the conclusion of a pilgrimage of Latin-rite Ukrainian Catholics.

The afternoon of July 21, the secretary of state met with Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, at the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Kyiv. 

The rest of the trip will include meetings with other religious and civil authorities, including Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

“The message I brought from the pope is one of closeness,” Parolin said, according to Vatican News. The cardinal recalled Pope Francis’ many references to a “martyred Ukraine.”

“From the very beginning, the pope has manifested a very great closeness, a very great participation in the pain and suffering of this people,” Parolin said, adding that he comes to the war-torn country to bring Pope Francis’ closeness “in person.” 

The pontiff, he said, “shares the pain but above all would like to be able to help open” paths for a solution to the war.

In Odesa, one of Ukraine’s worst-hit cities since the start of the war, Parolin visited the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Cathedral, where he met with lay Catholics and local clergy as well as representatives of the government and of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

According to Vatican News, the cardinal said he was bringing “the closeness, the presence, and the blessing of the Holy Father Francis,” who is “following your situation with so much attention, with so much worry and so much pain.”

“As Christians, we should not lose hope,” including the hope that “by the grace of the Lord, who is able to touch even the hardest of hearts … a way to a just peace can be found,” Parolin said.

In Odesa, the secretary of state also visited the Greek-Catholic Parish of St. Michael and the Orthodox Cathedral of the Transfiguration, which was damaged in a Russian missile attack last year.

On Sunday, July 21, Parolin celebrated Mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Berdychiv. The Mass marked the conclusion of a pilgrimage by Latin-rite Catholics of the Diocese of Lviv.

The intention of the Mass was for an immediate end to the ongoing war in Ukraine, Parolin told Vatican News.

In his homily at Mass, he encouraged Ukrainian Catholics to “never lose trust and hope in God, especially today, when it seems that evil has the upper hand, when the horrors of war and the pain of the many victims and the massive destruction undermine faith in divine goodness, when our arms fall off and we no longer even have strength to pray.”

Parolin’s homily was delivered in Ukrainian by Lviv Auxiliary Bishop Edward Kawa, Vatican News reported.

The secretary of state’s homily concluded with a prayer to the Virgin Mary for a “peaceful and sure future.”

“Oh Blessed Mother, grant that children and young people may have a peaceful and sure future, that families may be places of love, that the elderly and the sick may receive comfort and relief in their suffering, that those defending their homeland may be protected from the attacks of evil, that prisoners of war may return to embrace their loved ones, and that the victims may be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven,” he prayed.

This article was originally published on Catholic News Agency.