Following an official state welcome at Boryspil Airport, Pope John Paul II made his first visit to a Ukrainian shrine, the Church of St. Nicholas at the tomb of Askold, symbolic as the site of several significant events in Ukrainian history.
Buried there are the ninth-century kings of Kyjiv through whom Christianity was first spread in the country and nearby is the monument to King Volodymyr, through whom the ancient kingdom of Rus-Ukraine was baptized in 988. Also buried at Askold's tomb are the Heroes of Kruty, Ukrainian students who gave their lives in 1918 in the fight against the bolshevyks.
The church itself is historic as the first Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church constructed in Kyjiv after the church's rise from the underground in 1989.
The Church currently displays the miraculous icon of the Mother of God from Zarvanytsia, which has been travelling around Ukraine to help the nation prepare for the papal visit. In his prayer before the icon, the Pope evoked the Eastern Christian devotion to the Pokrova (Mary as protectress of the nation) and entrusted his journey under her "maternal mantle", so that she might lead all Ukrainian Christians "to her son Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth and the Life for all". This citation from the Gospel of John is the official theme of the papal visit to Ukraine.
Official translation of the Pope's Prayer
O Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Zarvaniza,
I thank you for the gift of my visit to the Kyjivan Rus'
from where the light of the Gospel spread through this whole region.
Here before your miraculous icon,
kept in this church of Saint Nicholas,
I entrust to you, Mother of God and Mother of the Church,
my apostolic journey to Ukraine.
Holy Mother of God,
spread your maternal mantle over all Christians
and over all people of good will
who live in this great nation.
Lead them to your Son, Jesus,
who is for everyone the way, the truth and the life.
23.06.2001 (18:55) // Religious Information Service of Ukraine
23. juni 2001