1,000 days after the outbreak of the large-scale war in Ukraine, a liturgy to invoke peace was celebrated in the basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere.

Presided over by the president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, Card. Matteo Zuppi, in the basilica packed with people, the liturgy was attended by the Ukrainian first lady, Mrs. Olena Zelenska, Mrs. Laura Mattarella, in representation of the President of the Italian Republic, and the first ladies of Serbia, Lithuania and Armenia, the president of the Community of Sant'Egidio, Marco Impagliazzo and the founder Andrea Riccardi, together with a large delegation of the diplomatic corps of several countries. 

‘Peace,’ said the Cardinal in his homily, ‘is never weakness, it is strength, if it is seriously guaranteed within a credible framework. And it is clear that this is the responsibility of the international community, and here I especially think of Europe, which was founded to imagine the unthinkable peace between peoples who had been fighting each other for centuries. An international community that is not only of those who have the power and the duty to make decisions, but of all those who exert pressure to create new, strong and clear conditions in order to find solutions that are just and in accordance with the law. Much more must be done and with more courage. Pope Francis never stops calling for this. Let us never stop asking God for the gift of peace’.