From September 23 to October 9, Mary Jane Kalenchuk and I, travelled to Ukraine to do ministry work for the Shrine, visit and support the Sister Natalia’s orphans and to meet and support the wounded soldiers who have come back from the war front. We also met with dear friends and fellow-workers. The time was very rewarding and educational. We travelled to Ukraine to share in the circumstances and the reality of war.

During our stay, on October 5 in the early morning (4 am to 9 am) we were present in Lviv when missiles fell on the city. We could hear the Shahed drones flying over head, the anti-air defense fire and the explosions of the missiles. Unfortunately, a family of four died in this attack. The father arrived that day from the war front only to find his family gone. Several others were injured and infrastructure destroyed. This certainly brought home the reality of war. We experienced trauma from that one attack. We could not imagine the trauma that the people of Ukraine are experiencing now for almost four years.

We met the “new girls” which have now come to live with Sister Natalia at the “Home for Girls in the Name of Blessed Vasyl Velychkovsky”. We learned that the former girls who were with her have now graduated, found jobs and some have started families. Meeting these girls for the first time, we discovered they were all victims of this war in one way or another. While we were there, the mother of one of the new girls was killed brutally by the Russians in one of the front-line villages in the battle zone. We learnt of this tragic event only after we returned home. Another girl escaped from Kherson while it was being attacked and occupied. All the girls who live with Sister need support, especially in providing tutors to help them with their classes.

In the past, because they received tutoring, most girls qualified for higher studies at colleges or universities. Your support is saving them and helping them to become responsible Ukrainian citizens. As the war intensifies and as winter approaches, we noticed the lack of electricity, heating and even cell phone service. Almost daily blackouts occur.

We had the privilege to meet some of the soldiers that have been supported by our recent Church Yarmaroks and fundraising. We met five of them. Mykhailo: who fought in 2014, was wounded and after his recovery he rejoined the army to fight in this new invasion. He recently lost his right arm and is in need of a good arm prosthetic. The cheaper wooden one was causing infections. Andryi: a year ago lost his right leg from the hip and his left leg from the knee. He wears prosthetics and continues to work for the military in the office. He needs help to obtain a bigger apartment so that he could use his wheelchair since the doorways are too narrow. His mother escaped from Mariupol to live with him. Serhyi: was a military special agent who was wounded while on surveillance behind enemy lines, has developed osteomyelitis. He needs an operation from an European or North American hospital. Orest: was on the front line when his unit was poisoned with chemical war gas. He was able to crawl out and walked for 3 km to an evacuation zone. He is now being treated for his lung damage in the city of Rivne. Mykola: was wounded in Mariupol and received brain trauma. He is blind in one eye and lives now in Kyiv. It was inspiring to hear their stories of courage and hope in the presence of God whom they know saved them from death.

We met an inspiring young woman named Julia who collects and brings medical supplies to those on the front lines. Sister Natalia passes on to Julia some of the funds that we allocate for medical equipment. Julia has been in contact with the front-line medics who occasionally inform her how the medical supplies (tourniquets, blood clothing patches, etc.) that she has given have saved soldiers’ lives.

The most inspiring and eye-opening experience was our visit and tour of St. Panteleimon, a huge modern hospital in Lviv with a state-of-the-art rehabilitation center called “Unbroken”. Because of the reality of war and the need to heal not only the body, but also the mind and the spirit, “Unbroken” has developed a very person-centered rehabilitation hospital, allowing the wounded to accept their worth and dignity as human beings. The Director of the Centre, Dr. Orest Berezowski, told us that these soldiers have changed and can never return to who they were before the experience of war. Dr. Orest said: “They are better than us. They have one through great trauma and the danger of death and have survived. They understand life more deeper than we do and it is us who have now to change to understand and accept them.” He said: “Each wounded soldier is a strong believer. No one can tell them that God does not exist. They may not be church-goers, but their faith is profound for they were saved from the clutches of death.” We saw soldiers in physical therapy, mental therapy, art therapy, music therapy and many more therapeutic methods. These help the wounded to become whole again. “Unbroken” which began in Lviv, has now become a project for many countries and organizations. We met medical volunteers who have come from all over the world to this place to learn from the technology and methods of these Ukrainian doctors treating the wounded soldiers. We were impressed to hear that the Canadian Red Cross donates directly to this project. This project is worthy of our support.

In fact, since Blessed Vasyl himself was a soldier and experienced the frontline battle, he has become an inspiration to many during this wartime. God is more powerful than any evil.

At the end of our time, we went to the military cemetery in Lviv, prayed the Panakhyda and spent over an hour walking between the graves of the fallen soldiers, meeting the widows, mothers, daughters and families. We noticed that many of the grave sites had the blue and yellow rosary wrapped around the crosses. These rosaries were made by a wounded soldier. We had the opportunity to obtain some of these rosaries which are sold at our Shrine.

It was with great joy that we spent time at some length with Fr. Ivan Levytsky, C.Ss.R., who was imprisoned by the Russians for 19 months (November 16, 2022 to June 27, 2024). His faith and sense of life was very inspiring.

There is a short video on the Bishop Velychkovsky Martyr’s Shrine YouTube channel of a sermon he gave in Blessed Vasyl’s apartment/museum in Lviv - short but profound.

Let us pray for the people of Ukraine as they endure this time of war, that the Lord bring lasting peace and an end to this unjust aggression.

Slava Ukraini! Glory to Ukraine!

(Since this article was written we have an update on Mykhaylo. Through funds received by the Redemptorists he has been able to obtain a bionic prosthetic arm.)