Last week Polish scouts handed over the 2007 Bethlehem Peace Light to Ukrainian scouts, who will bring it to Kyiv in an unusual way-on bicycles. The bicycle relay itinerary is Rava-Ruska-Lviv-Ternopil- Khmelnytsky-Zhytomyr-Kyiv.
The Bethlehem Peace Light is a symbol of Glad Tidings and hope for all people, regardless of their beliefs and religion. This program was inaugurated in Vienna in 1986. During the Christmas charity show “Light into Darkness” each donor, as a token of gratitude for helping the poor and sick, received a candle lit from the fire at Jesus’s birthplace. The Peace Light was kindled in Bethlehem by an Austrian child and then transported to Austria under the close supervision of numerous services. After two years scouts from many countries joined the program. Today this tradition is spreading across the world and turning into an indispensable part of Christmas festivities.
This is the ninth year that Ukrainian scouts took part in the annual program. “For the first time this year the members of Plast, the Ukrainian scout organization, participated in the ceremony in Vienna, where the Peace Light was shared with delegations from 30 European countries,” said Solomia Keivan, the head of the Bethlehem Peace Light Coordinating Committee in Ukraine. “This enabled our scouts to make themselves and their country known and establish or strengthen contacts with various scouting organizations in Europe.” According to Keivan, every year Slovak scouts bring the light from Austria, hand it over to their Polish counterparts, and they in turn give it to Ukrainian scouts.
On Dec. 23, on Volodymyrska Hill, a symbolic site in Kyiv, the light was shared with the representatives of the government, the Kyiv community, churches, regional branches of Plast, etc. This year the action received blessings from the patriarchs of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate), Ukrainian Autocephalous Church, and the Ukrainian Roman Catholic Church. The program is supported by Kateryna Yushchenko, the first lady of Ukraine.
Ukrainian scouts lit the Bethlehem Peace Light on Mount Hoverlia the same day. The next day it went across the country, reaching churches, city and oblast administrations, orphanages, and hospitals. Next, the light will travel to Moldova.
