The archbishop of 5 million Ukrainian Catholics said Wednesday that America needs to increase humanitarian aid to the war-torn nation on the front lines of an East-West conflict.
“As a church, we are trying first of all to protect human life in Ukraine … everybody,” Patriarch Sviatoslav Shevchuk said in a telephone interview, adding that the besieged nation will not falter in its resistance to Russian invaders.
He said he was grateful for America’s assistance so far, which meant “we were able to survive until now.”
The patriarch, who arrived March 2 in Washington, D.C., on to pray with Catholics and lobby for humanitarian assistance, will hold prayer services in Philadelphia and New York, as well as give a sermon at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on March 10.
Although the Ukrainian people “are tired, very often even exhausted,” they are also resilient in the face of continuing Russian attacks, the patriarch said.
“We have no choice: We have to defend ourselves,” he said. “We have to defend our country. We are facing that direct threat each day. We do understand that this frontline, which divides occupied territory and free territory, [is the] invisible line between life and death, freedom and slavery.”
Patriarch Shevchuk said Wednesday that reports of a Russian drone attack on the motorcade of Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy in Odesa are “nothing new, because we do live in this situation each day. The representatives of the state, and of the church, and even myself — we are targeted in different ways each day.”
“I was on the [Russians’] list to be eliminated” at the start of the war, the cleric said. He credits God’s intervention and the resilience of Ukrainian soldiers with keeping his base in Kyiv safe.
But while state security services protect Mr. Zelenskyy and other VIPs, the church protects the “simple people” caught in the crossfire, he said.
“The church in Ukraine is a part of civil society and a major actor in humanitarian assistance to those in need,” Patriarch Shevchuk said. “That is our main topic: 14.6 million people of Ukraine right now need urgent humanitarian assistance. We cannot delay this assistance; we have to cooperate in the name of saving human lives in Ukraine now.”
The Ukrainian Catholic church, which had been illegal in the Soviet era, now is learning how to operate in wartime.
“When the war erupted, we had some bad memories, because everywhere that Russian troops arrived, all kinds of church life was eliminated in the occupied zone,” he said. “There is not one Catholic priest left, only the very loyal — and controlled by Russian forces — Russian Orthodox Church is functioning.”
Patriarch Shevchuk said Ukrainian Catholics “are trying to assist our people spiritually, because [they] are in search of God in such circumstances. There is a big, big moment of conversion right now in Ukraine. So many people asking for baptism.”
He said the seeking comes as people confront dangers in wartime, and the church is preaching a message of belief in the resurrection that Christ promised his followers.
Pastors are also seeking ways to console Ukrainians who have lost loved ones in the war.
“Grief is not a sentiment,” he said. “It is a condition of the people who have lost their dearest, who have lost their houses, who are fortunately relocated, who are wounded.”
He said the church is learning “how to journey with those people” confronting grief and is “embracing” those who are going through a healing process.
The patriarch said his nation ultimately “will prevail.”
“Ukraine is wounded but unbroken,” Patriarch Shevchuk said. “Ukraine is tired but resilient. And the church is accompanying the suffering people of Ukraine.”
• Mark A. Kellner can be reached at mkellner@washingtontimes.com.
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