Christ said: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations”. Faith is not just personal, but it belongs to the culture and public sphere. However, how are we nowadays supposed to perform Jesus’s appeal? Our state is officially not bound to any ideology or religion. Simultaneously, society becomes more secular and polarized. Christianity irritates, its teaching is neglected, and even it is accused of spreading hatred. How can we kindly testify for the truth in a such difficult situation? How to form a society that will be characterized by mutual respect and peace?
Cyril Vasiľ is a Slovak Greek Catholic archbishop. He is currently the eparchial bishop of the Košice Eparchy and the papal delegate for the Syro-Malabar Church in India. He studied theology at the Cyril and Methodius Faculty of Theology in Bratislava and was ordained a priest in 1987, when he also emigrated to Italy. In his new position, he supplemented his theological education with a licentiate and later a doctorate in canon law, and in 1990 he entered the Society of Jesus in Genoa. In the following years, he held several important positions, including Dean of the Faculty of Eastern Canon Law and Rector of the Pontifical Oriental Institute. He was ordained bishop in Rome in 2009 and was also appointed secretary of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches. After 33 years in Italy, he returned to Slovakia in 2020.
He graduated in philosophy at Trnava University. He serves as the President of the Ladislav Hanus Fellowship and co-organizes the Bratislava / Košice Hanus days festival. He is the editor-in-chief of Verbum, a magazine for contemporary Christian culture. He also works as a script editor for the RTVS discussion program Do kríža and is also involved in civic activities, especially in the field of pro-life.
