ONE Magazine December 2020 by CNEWA

one

December 2020

God • World • Human Family • Church

The Habits of

Compassion Sisters Serve in the Pandemic • Charities Support Embattled Armenians Churches Help Rebuild Lebanon • Christians Build Bridges in Ukraine Ethiopia Confronts Challenges

one COVER STORY

A Letter From India by Sister Ann Paul, S.D. with photographs by Sajeendran V.S.

FEATURES

Armenians in Flight Search for stability after a cease-fire by Gohar Abrahamyan

‘We Are So Tired’ Refugees, migrants in Lebanon face limbo after explosion by Doreen Abi Raad with photographs by Raghida Skaff

Building Bridges in an Emerging Ukraine Grassroots ecumenism gains ground by Anna Nekrasova-Wilson

Ethiopia on the Brink Pandemic and war cast poor into greater hardship by Maria Gerth-Niculescu with photographs by Petterik Wiggers

DEPARTMENTS

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Connections to CNEWA’s world Perspectives by Msgr. Peter I. Vaccari

t Filipino migrant Mela Agosto gazes at photos salvaged from the debris in her apartment, after the 4 August explosion in Beirut.

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OFFICIAL PUBLICATION CATHOLIC NEAR EAST WELFARE ASSOCIATION

Volume 46 NUMBER 4

What Will You Do for the New Year? In this time of new beginnings, consider beginning a legacy of hope, with an estate or planned gift You can make a difference by

24 Front: Sister Ann Paul, S.D., has dedicated her life to serving the destitute in Karunalayam, India. Back: Atakelti, an Eritrean refugee, spends time at home, before heading to work at the Jesuit Refugee Service in Addis Ababa. Photo Credits Front cover, 3 (upper left), 14-17, Sajeendran V.S.; 2, 18, 20-23, Raghida Skaff; 3 (top), CNS photo/Paul Haring; 3 (upper right), 4, 39, CNEWA; 3 (lower left), John E. Kozar/CNEWA; 3 (lower right), (far right), 8-9, 10, Courtesy Caritas Armenia; 6-7, Stanislav Krasilnikov/TASS via Getty Images; 11, Valery Sharifulin/TASS via Getty Images; 12-13, CNS photo/Artem Mikryukov/Reuters; 13, Alexander Ryumin/TASS via Getty Images; 24-25, Sergii Kharchenko/ NurPhoto via Getty Images; 27, OZAN KOSE/AFP via Getty Images; 28, Lidiya Lozova; 29, Petro Didula; 30, Sergei Chuzavkov/SOPA Images/ LightRocket via Getty Images; 31, Dan Kitwood/ Getty Images; 32-37, back cover, Petterik Wiggers. Publisher Msgr. Peter I. Vaccari

6 Editorial Staff Paul Grillo Laura Ieraci Deacon Greg Kandra Michael J.L. La Civita Elias Mallon, S.A., Ph.D. J.D. Conor Mauro Timothy McCarthy ONE is published quarterly. ISSN: 1552-2016 CNEWA Founded by the Holy Father, CNEWA shares the love of Christ with the churches and peoples of the East, working for, through and with the Eastern Catholic churches. CNEWA connects you to your brothers and sisters in need. Together, we build up the church, affirm human dignity, alleviate poverty, encourage dialogue â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and inspire hope. Officers Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, Chair and Treasurer Msgr. Peter I. Vaccari, Secretary Editorial Office 1011 First Avenue, New York, NY 10022-4195 1-212-826-1480; www.cnewa.org ÂŠ2020 Catholic Near East Welfare Association. All rights reserved. Member of the Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada.

Uplifting the poor Supporting seminaries or schools Providing food, health care Or offering a gift where the need is the greatest Make this a year of promise and possibility Contact us today to learn more: Haimdat Sawh Development Officer (212) 826-1480, ext. 511 hsawh@cnewa.org 1011 First Avenue New York, NY 10022 cnewa.giftplans.org

Connections to CNEWA’s world Lebanon’s Tragedy and Hopes On 10 September, Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rai, Maronite patriarch of Antioch and all the East, was the featured guest in a special international webinar coproduced by CNEWA, Salt+Light Media and Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture. CNEWA’s chair, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, introduced the session from New York City, and the patriarch joined from northern Lebanon. Entitled “Lebanon’s Tragedy, Lebanon’s Hopes,” the hourlong webinar afforded the patriarch the opportunity to offer a personal update on the crisis in Lebanon. He described the hardships the people are facing after the 4 August explosion and appealed to the North American public to help support the country in its hour of need, which is great. As the patriarch prompted in the webinar: “Help us to restore [Lebanon] once again to that vibrant and flourishing religious, political and cultural model in the Middle East, so that it may be able to play its role and fulfill its own mission.” In addition to CNEWA’s assistance of the most vulnerable in Lebanon — Lebanese, Syrian, Iraqi, Armenian and Palestinian — the Holy See has asked CNEWA to partner with L’Oeuvre d’Orient of France in coordinating worldwide Catholic aid to the nation that will focus on health care facilities and schools. To learn more, visit: cnewa.org/lebanon.

COVID Relief in India In September, CNEWA received an update from the newly established Syro-Malankara Catholic Eparchy of St. Ephrem, Khadki, in western India, which had received aid from CNEWA to help those in need during the COVID-19 crisis.

“Community kitchens have been set up for distribution to the poor and underprivileged. This distribution has been done across the state of Maharashtra with attention given to appropriate social distancing and hygiene norms while delivering the food to needy persons.”

The Rev. Samuel Thekkekavinal, who directs the social service activities of the eparchy, headquartered near Pune, Maharashtra, wrote: “Thanks to funds from CNEWA, we have launched realistic relief efforts to support as many vulnerable people as possible.

The eparchy also offered hygiene kits and held sessions to raise awareness about social distancing and other safety precautions. Father Thekkekavinal concluded: “We are grateful to the CNEWA family for your generous support, which has benefited so many of our people in the care of our eparchy.”

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Bringing Warmth to Armenia As Armenia confronts the fallout of conflict in neighboring NagornoKarabakh, along with the crisis of a global pandemic (see Page 6), CNEWA is once again partnering with Caritas Armenia, the charity of the Catholic Church there, to provide some measure of security and warmth to the country’s vulnerable, especially its elderly poor. The annual Warm Winter Appeal brings heat, health care and food supplies to those who have no work opportunities or resources, who have special needs or simply have no one to care for them.

Many people live in containers, neglected housing or simple structures in the rugged hills of the southern Caucasus. With CNEWA’s support, Caritas team members deliver fuel, food, first aid supplies and a comforting presence to a population in dire need. Learn more at: cnewa.org/ww. Pope Honors Msgr. Kozar In October, as CNEWA’s regional directors from around the world gathered for their annual global meeting, held virtually for the first time, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri announced that Pope Francis had named CNEWA’s former president, Msgr. John E. Kozar, a prelate of honor of His Holiness — an increasingly rare distinction of honor given to priests by the pontiff. Cardinal Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, joined Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, CNEWA chair, in expressing personal gratitude, affection and friendship for Msgr. Kozar. The monsignor, in turn, spoke warmly of his years of service to CNEWA and its mission of accompanying the Eastern churches. Msgr. Kozar currently serves the local church in his home diocese of Pittsburgh. Pizzaballa Named Patriarch Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, O.F.M., as Latin patriarch of Jerusalem on 24 October, after his service as apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarchate since June 2016. The new patriarch began his service in the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land in 1999. In 2004, he was appointed custos of the Holy Land, gathering support for the many activities of the Franciscan community in the Middle East.

He holds an undergraduate degree in theology from the Pontifical Antonianum University in Rome and completed his studies at the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum of Jerusalem. He subsequently served as professor of biblical Hebrew at the Franciscan Faculty of Biblical and Archaeological Sciences of Jerusalem. Instability in Horn of Africa Successive years of drought, locust infestations of biblical proportions, fear of the coronavirus pandemic, and interethnic and political violence threaten to destabilize Ethiopia, one of the largest nations in Africa, reports Argaw Fantu, CNEWA’s regional director for Ethiopia. Although the shelling of the nation’s Tigray region had slowed at the time of publication,

An estimated 47,000 Ethiopians had fled the violence in northern Ethiopia as of press time. Most, such as these women, have sought refuge in Sudan.

the violence had triggered a flight of refugees to neighboring Sudan. It also halted or limited the work of the region’s Ethiopian Catholic Eparchy of Adigrat and the Ethiopian Catholic Secretariat; both fund or operate schools, clinics and various social service programs for at-risk communities. In a recent media interview, Carl Hétu, CNEWA’s national director in Canada, said people in Ethiopia are being cut off from food, water and supplies. “A protracted war … is the last thing people need there,” he told The Catholic Register in Toronto.

There is even more on the web

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Visit cnewa.org for daily updates And find videos, stories from the field and breaking news at cnewa.org/blog

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Armenians in

Flight by Gohar Abrahamyan

CARE FOR THE MARGINALIZED Christian refugees, piled into a car with their belongings, wait at the Armenian border.

hen Rima Poghosyan fled her home with her children in 1988, she left behind everything: her furniture, her house, her village. “I was born, raised and married in the village of Chardakhlo in Shamkhor [a region in northwestern Azerbaijan]. I used to work in the fields there — I was an experienced farmer — and then our life turned upside down,” she recalls of the violence between Armenians and Azeris that began in the early 1990’s in the southernmost portions of the former Soviet Union. “I don’t even want to go back to those days, when we left everything behind and were hardly able to reach safety in Armenia.” She found refuge with her inlaws in a village located in the northwestern Armenian region of Tavush, not far from the border with Azerbaijan. Her sanctuary, however, became hell. “The bloody hands of the enemy reached even here,” she recalls bitterly. “They attacked our village, burned my husband’s parents in their own house, and kidnapped my husband.” “Once again,” she adds, “we fled, eventually settling in Karabakh.” So much of her life has been spent in flight — escaping violence, hardship, war. Now she finds herself fleeing once again, with thousands of others, seeking shelter and some security in a part of the world that seems locked in perpetual turmoil.

ima Poghosyan and her family are ethnic Armenians whose families have long lived in the southern Caucasus, a transcontinental land that lies between Asia and Europe, squeezed between the Black and Caspian seas. For millennia contested by powerful empires — Roman, Persian, Byzantine, Ottoman Turkish, Russian and Soviet — its

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rich mountains and valleys have sheltered a mosaic of peoples: ethnic Armenians, Georgians, Greeks, Persians, Turkmens, Udis and Yazidis. Historically a part of greater Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh (meaning “mountainous black garden”) was for centuries annexed to the Persian Empire, with local Armenian princes governing its territories and peoples. Ethnic Armenian Christians dominated the region, yet coexisted with nomadic Turkic Shiite herdsmen and their families, ancestors of modern

Azeris, who traversed its valleys and mountain passes. Internationally recognized as a part of Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian majority seceded from Azerbaijan and declared its own republic, named Artsakh, in 1994. Since then, the government of Artsakh has welcomed Armenians, including Mrs. Poghosyan, who settled in the village of Kotchoghut in the region of Martakert, where she raised her four children alone — “three soldiers,” as she says, and a daughter, who has married and has eight children.

border that divides Azerbaijan from Artsakh. In response, the Republic of Armenia and the government of Artsakh declared martial law and a total military mobilization. The first casualties among civilians were reported at 10:17 a.m. — one woman and a child. Soon after, Armenians received word that 16 men died, then another 15, then 28. By the end of November, [Armenian or Artsakh] government reports put the number of Armenian deaths between 1,172 and 2,425, although up to 4,000 may be dead. Azerbaijan has not issued an official count of casualties or deaths. According to initial estimates, some 90,000 residents of Artsakh, primarily women, children and the elderly, fled their homes. Mrs. Poghosyan was among them. “My three sons are on the front lines. The youngest has recently joined the army, while another had been discharged in January. Although my eldest son was not allowed to go to war — he is the father of five children — he volunteered to protect our home and homeland. … We left our village with my daughter-in-law, five grandchildren and a neighbor. And we could only take the necessary basics: clothes, some food and documents.”

“God tests our faith and wants us to pass through it to revive and strengthen our faith.”

For some two decades, Mrs. Poghosyan has worked hard to build a better life in Kotchoghut for her growing family as a single mother. But this year, war interfered, again. “On 27 September, I got ready as usual and went to work,” she recalls. “It seemed to be a peaceful autumn day. The bus was about to move when we heard a very loud explosion. We looked up as if there were drones. For a moment, we didn’t realize what was going on; it looked like fireworks.” As the bus passengers tried to comprehend the noise, three

Rima Poghosyan (seated, second from right) and her family meet with Caritas workers in Torosgyugh, Armenia.

consecutive explosions rocked the bus. Then “we got a call informing us that the enemy had launched a large-scale offensive, so we returned back to our homes and hid ourselves in the basement,” she says. Thus began what Armenians now call an “unfinished” Sunday. That morning, they learned Azerbaijani troops had attacked the entire length of the “Line of Contact,” the

pon reaching Armenia proper, the family found refuge for 21 days with a host family; but as the hostilities between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces continued, Caritas Armenia reached out and moved the family to a summer camp of the Armenian Catholic Church located in the village of Torosgyugh in the Shirak region. “My family of seven people has been provided with a very comfortable room here, as well as hygienic supplies and meals three times a day.” She also notes that classroom activities and time to

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The

CNEWA Connection Refugees continue to flee from Nagorno-Karabakh, despite the cease-fire signed 10 November. (Opposite) Shellfire nearby casts doubt and worry over the faces of a woman and child in Aghjabedi, Azerbaijan. A Caritas Armenia worker (at left) prepares supplies for hundreds of refugees from NagornoKarabakh.

Some measure of peace was achieved in the southern Caucasus at the time of publication, but the loss of formerly Armenian-settled territory in parts of Nagorno-Karabakh — in exchange for that peace — has Armenians reeling. Yet, Armenia’s Catholic Church is responding, addressing the needs of the most vulnerable among the nation’s 2.9 million people, more than 25 percent of whom live below the poverty line. CNEWA works closely with the Armenian Catholic Ordinariate and Caritas Armenia in their efforts, helping to keep warm the elderly, the poor and the displaced; supporting child care programs; providing access to health care, especially for those living in the remote north; and assistance for those with special needs. To learn how you can join CNEWA in helping the church in its outreach to the people of Armenia, call: 1-800-442-6392 (United States) or 1-866-322-4441 (Canada). play punctuate the day for her grandchildren. “I don’t know how to express my gratitude for the tremendous support during these devastating times,” she says. Some 30 people have been settled in the camp, named for the legendary cardinal of the Catholic Church, Patriarch Gregory Peter XV Aghajanyan (1895-1971). Working with the regional authorities, Caritas took the initiative in housing the refugees until a long-term solution could be determined. “It’s very comfortable here and equipped with all commodities,” says

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Siranush Minasyan of Caritas, the charitable arm of the Catholic Church in Armenia. “It’s a beautiful area … and is only 12 miles away from the regional center. There is a nearby school, a kindergarten, which will enable us to organize the process of children’s education in case the war drags on,” she continues. Besides providing accommodations and meals, Caritas provides some medical services, distributes first aid kits, hygienic supplies and clothing. “We have given toys and educational games to the children,” notes Ms. Minasyan. “Caritas

volunteers visit and entertain them. We try our best to help these children, not to let their worry about war take over and lead them into isolation and withdrawal,” she says, adding that psychologists visit the families, and priests often meet and talk to them about issues that concern them. The battle against the COVID-19 pandemic in the southern Caucasus did not cease even as war waged on. Despite the adherence to protocols to combat the spread of the virus, up to half of the tests administered confirm the presence of the virus. “To curb the spread of the coronavirus, each family is placed in a separate room with a separate bathroom,” Ms. Minasyan notes. “They have been provided with masks and sanitizers, and the staff always wears masks.” With the onset of winter, and the cessation of hostilities, Caritas is stepping up its support for refugee families, as large portions of territory that made up the Republic of Artsakh have been ceded to Azerbaijani control, forcing thousands more to abandon their homes and flee. Armenuhi Mkhoyan, a communications specialist for Caritas, says close ties with regional governments have enabled the charity to reach more people as they arrive in the country. “We have provided 50 families with food, hygiene supplies and blankets, and will provide hygiene supplies to seven more families in

“I have gone through three wars but would have never imagined something like this.” Shirak,” he reports, saying that they have identified another 1,300 refugee families, plus 840 families from the Ararat region. “We have also contributed to a hotel in Syunik region, which hosted families. Food, medication, and hygiene supplies have been distributed to more than 220 families there,” he adds. Thirty-five-year-old Alina Vardanyan, a mother of three from the city of Stepanakert, the capital of the Republic of Artsakh, has also found temporary shelter in the Aghajanyan camp in Torosgyugh. Her husband, together with her brother and brother-in-law, remain

on the front line in the contested region. To protect the children, she left her house behind and fled, taking her frail and elderly motherin-law with her. She says her children screamed in fear when they first heard the terrifying sounds of explosions. When they arrived at the camp, they could hardly speak. But after a few conversations with the camp counselors, she adds, they overcame their fears. “We fled half naked, literally in slippers. They were constantly shooting. We were staying in the basement,” she recalls, adding that they could not return to the house to take anything.

Upon arriving in Armenia, they stayed with Ms. Vardanyan’s uncle for a few days, until they learned of the camp. “Here, they provide us with everything we need. … We don’t need anything,” she says, noting that the Caritas workers “entertain the children, and fill their days with interesting activities. “I want to think we are here for a short vacation and will be back in our homes again soon and live our life as before. No matter how well they treat us here, we are looking forward to receiving a call to tell us that peace has been established and we can return

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home,” she says, wiping away her tears. Even though the hostilities have ceased for now, she awaits her call.

orty-year-old Aida Adamyan looks forward to returning home. She misses her home village despite all the efforts and the heartwarming attitude of the Caritas team that tries to help her and her family overcome the trauma they have experienced. Young people pray inside a church in Yerevan, Armenia.

“In the 1990’s, we lived in the Martakert region until we were evacuated, again,” she says. “Together with my mother and younger brother we came to Armenia and were placed in one of the camps, while my father and other brother were on the front line, where my brother was severely wounded. In 2016, my younger brother went to the front line, and today my daughter and I are displaced, again. “This endless war is like the sword of Damocles,” she says, exasperated. “It’s hanging over our heads.

“I have gone through three wars, but would have never imagined something like this. It’s indescribable. … We have always had the fear of a large-scale war. We were aware of it; it was expected as the conflict was not entirely solved. But we never thought it would be so intense.” The only glimmers of light thus far, she says, are her encounters with the church. “I don’t know what I would do if not for these people and for Caritas Armenia. I used to think there were no good people left in this world,” she says, “but it’s certainly not true.

Just a few words with Father Grigor Mkrtchyan strengthens me. … Perhaps our faith in God helps us not to go crazy during these hard times.” The president of Caritas Armenia, Archbishop Raphael Minassian, champions the charitable efforts of this instrument of the small Catholic community in Armenia. Caritas Armenia works for the common good of all Armenians, as it extends a helping hand to all in solidarity, encouraging them to persevere, despite all the obstacles of life. As the shepherd of a widely scattered flock of Armenian Catholics living in Eastern Europe, the

Caucasus and the Russian Federation, Archbishop Minassian feels keenly the unique fears and needs of the Armenian people, particularly in light of the many tragedies that have devastated them in the past 100 years or so. He is certain God does not abandon his children. “The sorrow has come to all of us. … We must overcome it and help each other go through this black streak as soon as possible. God tests our faith and wants us to pass through it to revive and strengthen our faith. “I am pretty sure God will not forget his children.” n

You help us bring warmth to those left out in the cold #WeAreCNEWA

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You can find more on the struggles of the Armenian people on our blog at cnewa.org/blog

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Gohar Abrahamyan manages issues of justice and peace in the Caucasus for local and international media.

A letter from

India

by Sister Ann Paul, S.D. with photographs by Sajeendran V.S.

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EMERGENCY RELIEF

Sister Ann Paul listens to a resident of the Home of Mercy, which offers care and compassion for women who are ill, elderly and alone.

M.Erumquam unt facculpa sitam ariae plitiae est et pelendanda

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“Even when my heart was burdened, I uttered with my lips, ‘only your will Lord … only your will.’ ”

trembled when the deadly coronavirus reached our front door. For the past six years, thanks to God, I have lived with and cared for 120 women — my “sisters and mothers” — who have nobody to care for them in the Ernakulam area in the southwestern Indian state of Kerala. Our Home of Mercy, or Karunalayam, is run by the Sisters of the Destitute, a congregation of women religious of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church. We care for women who are alone, elderly, suffering from emotional illnesses or in the last stages of life. Founded in 1971, Karunalayam offers a loving place to prepare these forgotten ones with dignity for a peaceful and serene journey to eternity. Last July, a few of our sisters and some of the residents began to register mild fevers. The local

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governmental health department urged the sisters to take the COVID-19 test. The sisters traveled to Ernakulam Medical College and a few days later, on 21 July, we received the results that all three tested positive. It shocked us! Because sisters and patients interact with one another as in any home, there was a real fear the virus would run rampant. We immediately began testing and, by 23 July, we learned that 63 of our residents tested positive. Distress overcame Karunalayam. What to do? Where to begin? How to begin? Darkness swept over us. But God stretched his merciful hand toward us through great hearts! We had to close our kitchen. There was no one to cook; no one to serve. Just a few of us could care and feed the patients most in need.

The Sisters of the Destitute faced a tough summer when more than 50 percent of residents at their Home of Mercy in Ernakulam, India, tested positive for COVID-19.

We ordered food from nearby caterers — a costly option, but our only one. When the food arrived, the delivery boys were prevented from entering the compound; the Home of Mercy had become a micro containment zone. Understanding our fears and our difficulties, the Rev. Kuriakose Mundadan, who directs the nearby Naipunya Public School and works with the priests of the Major Archeparchy of Ernakulam-Angamaly, came to help us. He was like a life jacket that brought us to shore. Taking into consideration the mental and physical aspects of our residents, he gathered the Rev. Jose Vailikodath,

vicar of a nearby parish, and Shri P. T. Thomas, a member of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Kerala, for a meeting to discuss how to continue. Quickly, we concluded that Karunalayam should become a COVID-19 First-Line Treatment Center and conveyed the recommendation to a local municipal medical officer, who agreed. Now, with the appropriate resources, we were able to create a peaceful home environment that helped our patients to recover much more quickly. But the work was tremendous. As work on the elevators was not yet complete, we had no other option but to carry COVID-positive patients from the ground floor to the second level, as most were too weak to walk. As almost all the sisters had themselves become infected, the work had to be carried out by one of our sisters, Sister Rona, two of our postulants and me. God kept us safe to take care of others. We are blessed.

he pain, the distress and the hard labor of 22 July lasted until the dawn of the next day. We did not sleep. We did not eat. The stress ripped us totally. I surrendered everything into God’s hands. Then I remembered Job in the Bible, the man who lost everything and yet said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of Lord.” The night of 23 July, Annie Antony, one of our patients, became critically ill and was moved to the Medical College. But she died en route. The first death. It created a great panic as the stories of the heavy death toll in the homes for the aged throughout Europe and North America flashed through our minds. Fear overwhelmed our thoughts.

I tried to pull myself together, and prayed, “Oh! Lord, what I thought of as mine, is all yours! Always yours! “I have nothing of my own, the ones whom I thought are my children, are not mine. They are your gifts.” Our founder, the Venerable Father Varghese Payapilliy, and our elder sisters taught us to surrender to the Lord totally. And our superior possesses nothing, leaving all to the will of the Lord. And so, even when my heart was burdened, I uttered with my lips, “Only your will Lord … only your will.” My fears subsided and my spirit changed. Peace started to rule my heart and mind. Even in the middle of all the difficulties, it gave me strength to say, “Lord, whatever happens, to your feet I surrender myself. And only for you, I will live this life.” Still there were many obstacles. It was a great challenge to find volunteers to serve the sick and the aged COVID-19 patients — it is not at all easy to serve patients by wearing PPE kits for long hours. Sisters and candidates from our provinces throughout India volunteered to serve our patients. Later, religious sisters from other congregations joined us. The accommodation for the volunteers was arranged in an old convent. The Rev. Joseph Koluthuvallil, who directs the social welfare efforts of the Archeparchy of ErnakulamAngamaly, trained the sisters and provided us with a machine to help disinfect our premises. Food, PPE kits and other necessary items came to us from parishes and other religious communities, thanks to the support of the vicar of the major archbishop, Mar Antony Kariyil, and members of the curia. Priests, brothers and seminarians helped pack food for the patients. The church in Kerala, as well as the people from the local

We walk beside those who share Christ’s love #WeAreCNEWA

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For another glimpse at how religious sisters in India are facing the pandemic, visit our blog at cnewa.org/blog

municipality, regardless of religion or politics, extended their hands to help us. And with heart-filled gratitude and prayers, we remember all those who helped us. May God bless them all. By the end of August, all our patients had recovered, except for two, whom the Lord called home. Now, with all that behind us, these words fill my heart: “God was with me always, especially with those through whom he works.” n

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‘We Are So Tired’ As the country recovers from the explosion, refugees face limbo by Doreen Abi Raad with photographs by Raghida Skaff

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Tessie Andros stands at the doorway of her apartment, made unlivable by the 4 August explosion.

Life for refugees has become even harder since October 2019, as Lebanon struggles with one crisis after another, including currency depreciation, national debt default and hyperinflation; the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown; the dissolution of government; and a growing scarcity of both liquidity and employment. The cumulative strain has devastated Lebanese society and has placed severe strains on the limited means of the many social service efforts of Lebanon’s churches, including the Syriac Catholic Patriarchate that sponsors the center. Lebanon’s difficulties reached a tipping point with the port explosion. Considered one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosions in history, the disaster killed 200 people, injured more than 6,500 and left 300,000 people homeless. At the time of the explosion, Mr. Shandekh and his wife, Murooj, were in their living room, their three daughters on the balcony. While they live nearly five miles away from the port, the force was so intense it shattered the windows of their apartment. “I didn’t think of anything, just that my children were okay,” Mrs. Shandekh recounts. She ran to the balcony, saw her three girls on the floor, and was shocked to find 13-year-old Mawj’s head covered in blood. “I thanked God they were alive.” Immediately, the distraught parents called the Rev. Roni Momeka, the director of the Holy Family Syriac Center, who accompanied the family to a hospital. Mawj needed nine stitches for the deep gash in her head. She also had cuts on her hand and leg. Mrs. Shandekh suffered an injury to her hand from the broken glass, requiring 15 stitches; the glass had entered near the nerve and she now experiences numbness.

Syriac Catholic Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III directed Father Momeka, his assistant secretary, to tend to the Iraqi refugee families, knowing the difficulties they would face in seeking treatment without insurance. Though the patriarchate in Beirut also experienced damage from the explosion, including blasted out windows and doors, it covered all the hospital costs, as well as repairs for apartment damages, for 22 Iraqi Syriac Catholic refugee families affected by the blast. “We are so thankful for how the church cares for us,” Mrs. Shandekh says. “Father Roni never left our side.” “When the explosion happened, it revived all our memories of the violence in Baghdad,” Mr. Shandekh says. Three months after the blast, he points out, “we are still afraid. We are always thinking about our safety.” Although refugees in Lebanon are not legally allowed to work, Mr. Shandekh had found a job doing laundry, which barely covered the family’s expenses for rent and food. But he was let go because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Holy Family Center provides the 214 Syriac Catholic families that remain in Lebanon with a supermarket voucher each month, enough to cover basic food items. For 90 individuals who have chronic health issues, the center provides a monthly pharmacy voucher for medication. The families also received a food distribution, on behalf of CNEWA and Aid to the Church in Need, in the aftermath of the explosion. “If the church didn’t help us, we would have nothing. It means a lot to us,” Mrs. Shandekh humbly acknowledges. Of the family’s life in Lebanon, Mrs. Shandekh says simply: “We are so tired. We just want to bring our daughters to a safe place, to have a better future.”

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CARE FOR THE MARGINALIZED

ani Shandekh had experienced many explosions in Baghdad; so much so his hearing has been permanently affected. But he had heard nothing like the explosion in Lebanon. “It was bigger than any in Baghdad. And more dangerous,” says the Syriac Catholic refugee about the horrific catastrophe at the Beirut port on 4 August. Mr. Shandekh had fled to Lebanon with his wife and three children to escape danger. That was in 2015. “When we came here we thought we would stay just a little while, and then emigrate to a life of safety. We are asking to go any place outside the Middle East, for a safe place for our children,” he explains. Their wait continues. In all, 1,200 Syriac Catholic families arrived in Lebanon following the summer of 2014, when 120,000 Christian families from Iraq’s Nineveh Plain were driven out of their homeland overnight by the Islamic State. The Christian presence in Iraq dates to apostolic times. As with the Shandekh family, Iraqi Christian refugee families considered their time in Lebanon as an interlude to a hoped-for new life in the West. Having had their lives uprooted and put on hold — for no other reason than their Christian identity — they wait in a miserable limbo that worsens each day. The Holy Family Syriac Catholic Center, located in the Sad el Baouchrieh suburb of Beirut, has been a lifeline of support for Iraqi Christian refugees during their time in exile. Although many families have been resettled by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 214 families remain in Lebanon.

Their eldest, Alesar, 15, has a zest for learning and aspires to be a chemist or a physicist. “I love science,” she says. Homebound due to the pandemic, she has taken the initiative to learn new languages on her own — French, Italian, English, Turkish and Japanese — via YouTube. Mawj, who enjoys science and English, would like to be a pediatrician. Her parents praise her for having been so brave during her traumatic visit to the hospital for her head injury. And little Maryam, 7, wants to be a lawyer. Her mother proudly points out that Maryam would like to change the world for the better. Staying home because of the pandemic, “We are praying all the time. We believe that Jesus will do the best for us and we put all our life in his hands,” Mrs. Shandekh says. Of the few possessions the Shandekhs took with them when fleeing their homeland, the Bible and their Holy Family book of

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prayers are among their most precious. The Holy Family Center also helps the Iraqi refugees to sustain their Syriac Catholic faith amid the hardships of life in Lebanon. On Sundays, the Divine Liturgy is celebrated in the chapel that takes up nearly the entire space of the small center. The two Sunday liturgies have now become four to allow for social distancing amid the pandemic. While the center has continued its counseling programs, other efforts, such as catechism classes, have been suspended. The refugees miss the frequent gatherings of extended family that punctuated their lives in Iraq, but the center helps them “feel they are living together as a family,” notes Father Momeka. As the economic unraveling of Lebanon continues, more of the country’s citizens need assistance. Despite their limited means, the churches are doing what they can to help — caring for refugees, their own communities, as well as other

migrants, many of them Christian, who have found economic opportunity in Lebanon. “I don’t want to think of the future, because it looks dark for Christians in the Middle East,” Father Momeka admits. “But I am praying all the time and I trust our God will not leave us alone,” he says, adding, “I hope the international Christian community will remember the Christians in the Middle East.”

here are approximately 250,000 migrants from Africa and Asia living in Lebanon. Nearly 95 percent are women working as domestics. Driven by poverty in their homelands, they find work in Lebanon and send their earnings back home to support their families, often leaving their children behind in the care of relatives. Mawj Shandekh, with her father, Hani, and mother, Murooj, points to a photo of the head injury she sustained in the 4 August blast.

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As an Iraqi refugee, Oday Falooj does not have the right to work in Lebanon. The father of three volunteers at the Holy Family Syriac Catholic Center.

But Lebanon’s dramatic economic crash has dealt a severe blow to the entire population — Lebanese, refugees and migrant workers alike. In less than a year, the Lebanese currency has devalued by 80 percent, severely affecting purchasing power. Annual inflation hit 120 percent in August. More than half of the Lebanese people now live below the poverty line, and the unemployment rate exceeds 50 percent. The country’s once sizeable middle class is disappearing, and the poor are becoming poorer. Even the wellto-do are finding they cannot fully access their resources, as banks and other financial institutions under stress have had to limit withdrawals. Middle-class families who once employed a live-in housekeeper no longer can. Migrant workers who remain employed — many of them in the service industry — have lost 80 percent of their income with the devaluation of the Lebanese currency, such that their monthly wages total only $50 to $60. The coronavirus compounded the economic crisis, and the final straw was the Beirut port blast. Tessie Andros lost more than two months’ pay when the engineering firm where she worked as an office cleaner closed during the coronavirus lockdown. Mrs. Andros came to Lebanon from the Philippines 16 years ago, first working as a domestic for a family, sending her earnings back to the Philippines faithfully to support her four children. On 4 August, Mrs. Andros was at work in the fashionable Beirut neighborhood of Mar Mikhail. She had finished her tasks near the conference room when she

Since the explosion that rocked Beirut on 4 August, the Holy See has commissioned CNEWA to partner with a French Catholic charity to coordinate worldwide Catholic aid for Lebanon’s fragile Catholic health care and school systems, the most important network of social services for all Lebanese. To that end, CNEWA has launched a campaign focused on the renovations of the Rosary Sisters and Jeitawi hospitals, the rehabilitation of several clinics and dispensaries, the renovation of religious houses, counseling for traumatized children, modest home repairs and the distribution of food supplies. To join us, call: 1-800-442-6392 (United States) or 1-866-322-4441 (Canada). heard the first explosion. She looked out the window and saw dark smoke rising from the nearby port. Filled with fear, she ran to the bathroom and hid. The wall by where she had stood moments earlier collapsed from the force of the second explosion, and the windows shattered, sending glass flying. “If I had stayed where I was, maybe I would have died. I believe God saved me,” Mrs. Andros says with conviction. Her injuries were limited to some scratches on her arms. Leaving the damaged office to walk to her apartment in nearby Gemmayze, she encountered panic in the streets.

“I’ll never forget all the people on the road, injured and bleeding. I was so scared.” When Mrs. Andros arrived at her building, she was shocked to find it in shambles, and her tiny apartment destroyed. Distraught, she went to a friend’s apartment, and has since been homeless, drifting from one friend’s home to another. As with so many businesses ruined by the explosion, the engineering firm has not reopened. Homeless and now unemployed, Mrs. Andros has not been able to send anything to her husband and children. She finds occasional part-time housecleaning work, earning the equivalent of $1 an hour, for a few

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“I am praying all the time and trust our God will not leave us alone.” hours a week. She is grateful for that paltry sum, but remains traumatized. “Every time I hear a sound, I jump. I feel very stressed. “It is very difficult,” she says wearily. “I feel sad because I don’t have work. I hope to go back to the Philippines.” Yet she knows there are no jobs for her there. Back home, her husband has no work either, except the little he earns from rice cultivation. Disaster struck him last November, when Typhoon Goni wiped out his rice paddies and flooding damaged the family’s home. Despite hardships, Mrs. Andros finds strength on Sundays at St. Joseph Church in Beirut. “Here I feel relaxed. I pray God helps me to take care of my kids,”

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she shares after a recent Englishlanguage liturgy. The parish, run by the Jesuits, offers the migrant community a haven, a place where men and women are nourished spiritually and pastorally, where they experience friendship and fellowship. “This is really a holy day for them,” said Jesuit Father Fady El Chidiac, director of the Afro-Asian Migrant Center (AAMC), which the Jesuits established at St. Joseph’s in 2000. “It’s more than Mass. It’s really where they celebrate their freedom and celebrate life.”

fter Mass, the community gathers for a potluck lunch of Filipino favorite dishes in the upstairs multipurpose room,

now a bright and welcoming space since its renovation early in 2020. “We want our churches to be beautiful,” says Jesuit Father Daniel Corrou, the center’s associate director, “but we also want the spaces where communities gather to be beautiful, to recognize the way that God sees them, so we can say, ‘You have dignity and you are worth a nice place to come to on your one day off.’ ” Fortunately, despite the center’s proximity to the port, the meeting rooms sustained little damage, other than some broken windows. But the historic church was another story. Heaps of twisted metal, broken doors and window frames now surround the church, competing for space with stacks of new plywood for the repairs still in progress.

The Rev. Roni Momeka (in photo at left), director of the Holy Family Syriac Catholic Center, tends to the needs of Iraqi refugee families in Lebanon.

Inside the cavernous structure, scaffolding stretches to the vaults, which had partially collapsed. Approximately 100 windows have been replaced. As part of the center’s efforts to assist migrant workers, especially the displaced and those who have lost their jobs, the Jesuits and their volunteers distribute groceries. Mrs. Andros is among some 250 recipients who benefit from the CNEWA-supported initiative. “The distribution is essential right now,” Father Corrou stresses. “Hopefully, Lebanon can become a more stable place where these immediate emergency needs aren’t as dire.” At a recent liturgy, Father El Chidiac in his homily encouraged the faithful to thank the Lord “for always being with us, giving us the strength to go through one hurdle and struggle to another, with our hearts always connected tightly to God’s heart through Mary, our Mother.” Vigil lights illuminating images of the Virgin Mary and the saints testify to the fervent devotion of the congregation.

hat lies ahead for Lebanon’s people as the country passes through this dark period? The nation is hemorrhaging educated youth, who are leaving in search of better opportunities elsewhere. Refugees have no possibility of naturalization in Lebanon, which has the largest number of refugees per capita in the world. Home to some 4.5 million people, Lebanon has absorbed an additional 1.5 million Syrian refugees, thousands of Iraqi refugees, and more than 500,000

Palestinian refugees who have lived in camps for some 70 years. If Iraqi Christian refugees returned to their homeland, they would lose their refugee status and thus forfeit any prospect of being resettled by UNHCR. So, they see no other option but to linger in Lebanon, sustained by the hopes of emigration. For migrant workers, whose prospects for earning money in Lebanon are quickly evaporating, returning home may be their only option. Some employers have even taken their former employees to their respective embassies to begin their journey home. Since February, the Philippine embassy has repatriated four flights of Filipino migrant workers at its own expense. The Ethiopian embassy has chartered one flight. Otherwise, migrants who wish to travel must pay their own ticket and paperwork, which for most is simply impossible. Mohamed Jalloh, 47, a migrant worker from the African nation of Sierra Leone, lost his job in a clothing manufacturing company when it closed in November 2019. Beginning as a clothes presser, Mr. Jalloh had worked his way up to a designer position. He has since found work as a cleaner three days a week. “I have been in Lebanon 27 years, and I never expected Lebanon would reach this stage: people suffering, no food, no jobs. It’s so sad. It needs a lot of prayers,” says the Muslim man who comes to St. Joseph almost every Sunday. Mr. Jalloh is pitching in, volunteering his time to organize and deliver the center’s food relief efforts to his fellow African migrants. “I am so proud to be serving the African migrants in Lebanon, through St. Joseph Church. God bless the fathers for never forgetting the hungry.” n

In the darkest of times, we offer light #WeAreCNEWA

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As Lebanon continues trying to rebuild, you can follow stories of perseverance and hope at cnewa.org/blog

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Doreen Abi Raad is a freelance writer in Beirut. She has written for Catholic News Service and the National Catholic Register.

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ince Grand Prince Volodymyr of Kyivan Rus’ accepted Christianity in its Byzantine form, instructing his subjects to be baptized in the year 988, the city of Kyiv has been among the Christian centers of the world. In the span of more than a millennium, however, five independent Eastern churches, Catholic and Orthodox, function in what is now an independent Ukraine with Kyiv as its capital. These faith communities include the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, and the Carpatho-Rusyn (also called Ruthenian) Greek Catholic Church. The first four trace their history to the baptism of Kyivan Rus’ and consider themselves direct successors of the church of Kyiv, which when founded embraced full communion with the churches of Rome and Constantinople. The Carpatho-Rusyns were among the Slavs who first received the Christian faith from Sts. Cyril and Methodius in the ninth century. “The Kyivan tradition was born when the church was [still] united,” says Constantin Sigov, director and cofounder of the European Humanities Research Center of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv. “The memory that both Volodymyr’s baptism and the construction of Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv took place before the split into [the] Western and Eastern traditions … is the memory that we are actually related to the first millennium, People wait outside Hagia Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv in January 2019 for a chance to see the decree recognizing the independence of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.

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ACCOMPANYING THE EASTERN CHURCHES

Building Bridges in an

Emerging Ukraine by Anna Nekrasova-Wilson

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when the church was one,” adds the philosophy professor. Given these four churches’ common origin, questions have emerged as to whether this shared history can inspire unity among the Eastern churches in Ukraine today and whether Ukraine’s jurisdictional maze is a hindrance to achieving greater mutual understanding in a country at war — and threatened by cultural and social rifts — as it struggles in its search for a national identity.

ccording to a 2020 survey on religious affiliation in Ukraine conducted by the respected Razumkov Center, 62 percent of the population identifies as Orthodox Christian, a drop from 71 percent in 2013. Ten percent identify as Greek Catholic, although that number jumps to 38 percent in the western part of the country. Some 15 percent of Ukrainians claim no religious affiliation, while non-denominational Christians account for 9 percent of the population. The rest of the people identify as either Protestant Christians, Roman Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists or Jews. Ukraine’s religious pluralism and its need for greater cohesion and social understanding are inherent in the search for unity among its Eastern churches. However, relations among the Kyivan churches in Ukraine are complex. While they sometimes seek to unite Ukrainian society, interchurch divisions and historical and jurisdictional disputes often get in the way. Perhaps the best example is the 2019 decree of the ecumenical patriarch, Bartholomew of Constantinople, who recognized the autocephaly or independence of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Formed in 2018 by Ukrainian Orthodox communities from multiple jurisdictions, its recognition by the ecumenical patriarch, the

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“first among equals” in Orthodox Christianity, has led to tense relations with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church governed by the Moscow Patriarchate. Until the breakup of the Soviet Union and the independence of Ukraine in 1991, the Moscow Patriarchate claimed the loyalty of all Eastern Christians in Ukraine, as Stalin had suppressed the Greek Catholic churches and a nascent autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox church born amid the upheavals of the revolution and civil war in the former Russian Empire. Threatened with the loss of parishes and resources to the renascent Greek Catholic churches and selfconsciously Ukrainian Orthodox churches, the Moscow Patriarchate has ruptured full communion with those Orthodox churches, including the ecumenical patriarchate, that recognize the independence and existence of a unified Orthodox Church of Ukraine. Furthermore, while the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Greek Catholic churches have a strong sense of Ukrainian national identity, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate does not, remaining an autonomous but not independent branch of the Orthodox Church of Russia — despite the Russo-Ukrainian War that began in eastern Ukraine in 2014. “This discord among churches is considered a problem on the part of the state,” as it is “detrimental to state-building,” says Dr. Pavlo Smytsnyuk, who directs the Institute of Ecumenical Studies at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. He believes the discord may also be a factor that “drives people away from the church, especially youth.”

lthough there are good examples of cooperation among the different churches within the Ukrainian Council of

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew embraces Metropolitan Epiphanius (in blue) of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine at the Patriarchal Church of St. George in Istanbul in 2019.

Churches, which was established by the Ukrainian government in 1996, there is still no official ecumenical dialogue among them. Despite the lack of official dialogue, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has been actively promoting ecumenism for decades. It established a commission on ecumenical and interreligious affairs and published the document, “The Ecumenical Concept of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church,” which emphasizes the need for a positive attitude among the laity toward dialogue, ecumenical activities with other churches — in particular with the Orthodox — and the unity of all Christians who trace their origin to the Kyivan church. The Rev. Igor Shaban, who heads the commission, says the church “is open to dialogue and we declare this at every step, at every meeting, with all our Orthodox and Protestant brothers, if we have joint activities.” Dialogue with the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, which the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has been trying to develop over many years, has been taking place in waves, both positive and negative, he adds. “We had quite good relations,” says Father Shaban. “Unfortunately, now it seems that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate is trying to be partially enclosed in its ‘ghetto.’ From our side, it looks like that.” Sergii Bortnyk, a member of the Department for External Church Relations of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, explains that his church leadership often seeks to avoid dialogue, because “we believe that simply

“Solidarity is impossible without communication.” engaging in dialogue with those with whom we disagree somehow sets us up to fail.” He says his church maintains the position on ecumenism of the noted Russian Orthodox theologian, Father Georges Florovsky, which is that “we do not need to unite. We have the truth. We need to testify about Orthodoxy. We do not think that we lack something, and we believe we can share, bring Orthodoxy to them.” Mr. Bortnyk, who teaches the graduate course “Interfaith Relations in Ukraine” at the Kyiv Theological Academy and who often participates in ecumenical conferences, says he thinks Christ’s words, “That they may all be one” (Jn 17:21), express the main idea of the ecumenical movement and should be treated responsibly. “We need to see Christians in others. Protestants are certainly not

Orthodox, but they are also Christians. Catholics teach a little differently. They have the filioque, but they have preserved the apostolic tradition and they have a similar tradition of prayer as we do,” he says. “There are a number of things that unite and bring us closer through Christianity.” According to Mr. Sigov, however, who also cofounded and serves as the director of the Dukh i Litera (“Spirit and Letter”) Scientific and Publishing Association, the paradox is that Kyiv could be a unifying force for these churches and for all Christians, East and West. However, “because of the traumas of the Soviet Union, on the one hand,” and Russia’s aggressive “imperial projects, on the other, it is also today a neurological point of tension,” he says. “Particularly, the tension is between the Orthodox who want to be in unity with

Catholics and Greek Catholics, and the rest of the Orthodox who … are influenced by the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church.” According to Mr. Sigov, the establishment of the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine, led by Metropolitan Epiphanius of Kyiv and all Ukraine, is a positive development that adds a new player to the field of ecumenical dialogue. “Kyiv has not spoken with its own voice for a long time, too long,” says Mr. Sigov, noting that Ukraine did not have an independent Orthodox Church since it gained national independence in 1991. Granting this new church autocephaly also allows for a way out of a certain isolation, allowing Kyiv to have direct dialogue with Rome, Constantinople or other centers, he adds.

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Brother Richard of the Taizé community gives Constantin Sigov (right) a book about the founder of Taizé, Brother Roger, at the 2009 Assumption Readings conference.

“Finding this voice is not against anyone at all, but it’s just a chance for polyphony, so that everyone can hear each other, so that Kyiv’s voice can be heard in different countries of the world, including neighboring countries. And there is hope that this voice will be heard even in Moscow,” says Mr. Sigov. Recognition of this new Orthodox church is also an important step toward Ukraine’s liberation from its Soviet past, he adds. The Soviet era was one of great isolationism, politically and otherwise. Countries behind the Iron Curtain were separated from the West, clergy and faithful were repressed, and churches, rich in cultural and historical traditions and artifacts, were destroyed.

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“The Soviet regime tried to make a clean slate, tabula rasa, to destroy any memory of the past and in particular to destroy the memory of the millennial church tradition, to destroy the memory of Eastern Christianity,” says Mr. Sigov.

he Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church also sees the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine as a positive step forward toward unity. Ukrainian Greek Catholic Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych and Metropolitan Epiphanius have met several times at the Ukrainian Council of Churches and other public events. Both have discussed the need for a so-called “common roadmap.” “We are ready for a theological dialogue, because there are a lot of issues that we would like to start solving, such as mixed marriages in Ukraine and recognition of the

Holy Sacraments,” says Ukrainian Greek Catholic Father Shaban. According to the priest, aside from the Union of Brest in the 16th century, a real model for future unity has not yet been found. Though official ecumenical dialogue in Ukraine is lacking, the private meetings and friendly exchanges that are held are already very positive, he says. Formal dialogue often starts this way, he adds. “The Orthodox Church of Ukraine is open to dialogue and this is its official position,” says Archpriest George Kovalenko, a member of the Synodal Commission on InterChristian Relations of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. However, he holds a somewhat different view from Father Shaban. For Father Kovalenko, how unity is defined “determines whether it exists or whether it is just our dream — or a lost, broken vessel that can no longer be glued together.” Father Kovalenko believes the current plurality in Ukraine requires other forms of unity that would not be necessarily organizational, but would rather take on an “essential, meaningful or dialogue format.” “The answer to a particular question at a particular time is not always the same answer at another time, in other circumstances or situations. There must also be the Holy Spirit and the spirit of the Gospel operating in the church,” he says regarding dialogue on matters of a historical nature. In accordance with this perspective, the church can be changed and developed in some external form yet remain constant at its core. “It will be the Church of Christ that confesses Christ as the Son of God, and it is the foundation that does not change,” he says. Father Kovalenko is also the rector of the Open Orthodox University of Saint Sophia-Wisdom,

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CNEWA Connection

Members of the Hutsul community gather for Christmas at Sts. Peter and Paul Orthodox Church in Kosmach, Ukraine, in 2004. Historically, Greek Catholic and Orthodox Hutsuls, a cultural community in southwestern Ukraine, celebrated church feasts together. Efforts to restore that unity, ruptured during the Soviet years, proceed despite hardened differences.

which he launched in 2016 as a modern educational institution to offer a space for scientists, philosophers and theologians to dialogue about present and future issues. It is based on the concept of “Open Orthodoxy,” which is favorable to dialogue with society and other denominations. The Orthodox Church of Ukraine “would like to be in unity with all Orthodox of Ukraine and all Orthodox in the world,” he says, and “also in some format to be in unity with all Christians in Ukraine, and to pray together for our country and people — to serve the common good together.” “Unity without a conflict is really possible,” says Mr. Bortnyk of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, “if the new structure [the newly independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine] will stop considering us as exiles of the Russian Church in Ukraine, and will recognize that we are citizens of Ukraine and we live here and have the right to our own opinion, it will be a reason for unity.” Mr. Bortnyk also underlines that the difference between the official positions of church leadership regarding unity and the perspectives of the faithful on the ground is a problem. He says the latter are often quite aggressive in not accepting the other side, and this is inherent for both the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate.

“Always act as if the church is one, unless you are forced to encounter a difference,” has long been CNEWA’s operating directive, as CNEWA works to be of service to all Catholics, to all Christians, to all believers and to all members of the one human family. In the modern world, differences, rather than distinctions, often become insurmountable causes for division, even in the church. But in the “dialogue of charity,” to use the words of the sainted Pope John Paul II, CNEWA focuses on the common needs of all, and the appeal and power of love. As Ukraine continues in its path of nation-building and exploration of identity, its churches, too, are compelled to advance the cause of Christian unity and the interests of dialogue, respect and mutual understanding among all Ukrainians of good will. CNEWA is humbled to support the ecumenical efforts described here, as well as those programs sponsored by the Holy See’s dicasteries for Christian unity and interreligious dialogue. To help CNEWA continue these initiatives, please call: 1-800-442-6392 (United States) or 1-866-322-4441 (Canada).

idiya Lozova, who coordinates the activities of a not-for-profit organization that promotes ecumenical and intercultural dialogue, says she has experienced a similar rigidity among the faithful in the implementation of her organization’s “Dialogue in Action” initiative. Many people do not believe in unity, she says. Ms. Lozova insists that any ecumenical or intercultural dialogue that occurs as an academic or

churchwide initiative must have a connection with the reality on the ground. Church declarations of openness on social media are heartwarming, but they do not reflect the “extremely tough, conservative position” she encounters in her work with ordinary citizens in eastern or western Ukraine. Sponsored by St. Clement’s Center, which is affiliated with the European Humanities Research Center of the National University of

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“If you don’t have openness to all people, if you don’t see that all people are made in the image of God ... then the power of your message and work is small.” Worshipers gather in the Cathedral of St. Volodymyr in Kyiv for the 2006 Christmas vigil liturgy. The cathedral was built to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the Baptism of the Rus’.

Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, “Dialogue in Action” involves representatives from various religious organizations and aims to develop a culture of communication and cooperation in small communities throughout Ukraine. The high level of mistrust among citizens and the many stereotypes and prejudices they have of each other are serious problems, which “prevent people from being able to speak at all, which is why facilitation is needed,” she says. “Dialogue is not just about talking. It is the ability to create an appropriate space, safe and

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comfortable … a space where you can coexist, see yourself and see another and a common future,” she says. “Solidarity is impossible without communication. “If you don’t have openness to all people, if you don’t see that all people are made in the image of God, that you are connected to them all, then the power of your message and work is small and ineffective,” she says. Mr. Sigov adds there is a great need to provide opportunities for and to facilitate such dialogue in the country’s educational institutions and seminaries. Post-Soviet Ukraine has lacked the experience of a broader vision and a space to foster communication between representatives of different denominations and researchers in the humanities. In an effort to

address this deficit, Mr. Sigov began the Assumption Readings in the year 2000. The annual international theological conference gathers leading theologians, philosophers and humanities scientists from Ukraine, Europe, the United States and Russia and aims to bring Christians of East and West closer together. Mr. Sigov’s vision for the Assumption Readings was partially inspired by a decisive ecumenical experience in the mid-1990’s — a meeting with Pope John Paul II in Rome — when he discovered how Ukraine is part of the vision of the universal church. “When you realize that you are talking to a person who represents a billion Catholics on the planet, for whom what he calls the ‘eastern lung’ is absolutely not indifferent, it

really expands the vision,” says Mr. Sigov, an Orthodox Christian, of his meeting with the pope. “Assumption Readings is evidence that Kyiv wants to breathe with two lungs and that Kyiv wants to hear both Eastern and Western sources,” he says. “Every person, myself included, in order to be able to breathe normally, needs to breathe with two lungs.” This year’s conference participants issued a joint document, “Longing for the Truth That Makes Us Free,” which reflects on the secularity of modern society in Ukraine. The document was signed by representatives of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine and two evangelical Christian organizations.

he Institute of Ecumenical Studies at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv has been conducting intense research, as well as educational and practical activities in ecumenical studies, since 2004, with a stated goal of “facilitating ecumenical dialogue between churches, civil society and policy makers.” A year later, the institute cofounded the Ukrainian Christian Academic Society with the European Humanities Research Center. “Ecumenical Social Week” is one of the institute’s prominent projects. This year, the annual conference was dedicated to discussions on integral ecology. “We cannot overcome the consequences of environmental challenges without an interdisciplinary approach and dialogue between different sectors,” says Iryna Kitura, the project coordinator. In her view, the churches have great potential in shaping the ecological culture of the community through the prism of faith and

responsibility. The forum featured the position and interests of the churches in solving environmental problems, as well as the need to join forces. “It is important to hear each other and to work together to create a new environmental wisdom, a new policy of conserving resources, not hyper-consumption,” she says. While every mainline church in Ukraine participates in some environmental initiatives, says the Rev. Dr. Roman Fihas, a researcher at the institute, churches need to collaborate more on joint projects to have a real impact on the changing situation in society. “Working together on important challenges of the time, especially in the environmental sphere, has ecumenical potential, because working Christians will get to know each other, learn to dialogue and ... to ‘go together,’ ” he says. “That’s why it is so important to have various opportunities where representatives of different denominations can come together, communicate, share experiences and cooperate.” Therefore, despite the absence of official ecumenical dialogue among the churches in Ukraine, says Father Fihas, dialogue happens in the form of various initiatives that promote “unity in cooperation and communication,” and it is gaining momentum and prospects through the efforts of individuals and institutions. “‘Gutta cavat lapidem,’ a water drop hollows a stone,” says Dr. Pavlo Smytsnyuk, the institute director, translating a Latin proverb that speaks of the power of gentle persistence. “Ecumenism has been always the work of individuals who began and were not noticed by others. And then, gradually, they convinced everyone around them that this is the right way.” n

We pray that all will be one #WeAreCNEWA

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Learn more about the church in Kyiv and the work for Christian unity at cnewa.org/blog

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Anna Nekrasova-Wilson is a Kyiv-based journalist and producer from Ukraine, working with international media such as USA TODAY, Die Zeit, and The Wall Street Journal.

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Ethiopia on the

Brink

The church helps one of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s poorest countries confront a pandemic by Maria Gerth-Niculescu with photographs by Petterik Wiggers

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People stand socially distanced in the food distribution line of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Addis Ababa.

M.Erumquam unt facculpa sitam ariae plitiae est et pelendanda

RESPONDING TO HUMAN NEEDS

hen the coronavirus first hit the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, one of the first casualties was Benson Gassanga. He managed to remain healthy. But as with many in the country, he suffered from side effects that were not physical, but economic. An English teacher, he was prohibited from meeting with his students due to the safety measures and protocols intended to combat the spread of the virus. Without computers and internet connections, remote learning was not an option. He lost his job and his home. Without an income, he now lives with a friend. Getting by is a daily struggle. “It changed our lives in different ways,” the young man explains as he sits in the sun wearing a blue and purple shirt. “People are prisoners in their own houses, they have lost their jobs, some people became beggars. It affected everyone.” Benson arrived in Ethiopia 12 years ago. He had fled his native village in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo when his father and other family members were killed during targeted attacks on their ethnic group. Benson spent some years in a refugee camp in northern Ethiopia, then received permission to complete his studies in the capital. However, the pandemic has made life difficult for the millions living there. Now Benson is waiting in the compound of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) for a onetime food distribution. Without a legal right to work, most refugees living in Addis Ababa depend on informal employment, occasional financial assistance from the United Nations High

The

CNEWA Connection (Opposite) Patients have begun to return for treatment at the Mendida Medhanialem Clinic. Sister Dinkenesh (at left), who runs the clinic, says fear of the pandemic had kept patients away for several months.

COVID-19. Drought. Environmental change. Ethnic violence. Locust infestations. Refugees. Ethiopia is confronting enormous challenges even as it seeks to educate and lift out of poverty its burgeoning population. Catholics constitute a small minority in Ethiopia, yet the church’s contributions to education, health and social services and the work of justice and peace are significant. To join CNEWA in its support of these initiatives of the Catholic Church for the good of all Ethiopians, call: 1-800-442-6392 (United States) or 1-866-322-4441 (Canada). Commissioner for Refugees and nongovernmental organizations, such as those of the nation’s numerically small but vibrant Catholic community. When the pandemic first hit the country, refugees were the first to lose their jobs. “There is only one center providing food items and soap. But the distribution frequency is limited,” says Odjiu Ayale, a refugee from the recurrent ethnic violence in her native South Sudan. She has four children to feed and she struggles to provide for her family. Odjiu and about 20 other refugees were invited to the JRS center for assistance. It usually provides much more than emergency assistance — from English classes to informal education, as well as sports and psychological support. This spacious and welcoming place is usually full of life, but the pandemic has forced the center to halt most activities.

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The staff is extremely concerned about the 18,000 people usually supported by JRS. “They lack basic assistance, there is food insecurity, sometimes they eat only once a day,” explains Hanna Petros, the project director at the JRS Community Center. Due to lack of funding, the emergency response provided by JRS during the height of the pandemic was limited. On the day Odjiu visited the center, she received a bag of rice, some flour and a bottle of cooking oil. She says this will feed her family for two days. Before the pandemic, refugees who could not manage in the city could request to return to one of the refugee camps, but this option is difficult to implement now. “It’s often impossible for them to cope with the urban situation. We used to encourage them to go back and join the camp because it’s better

for them there,” says JRS’s Neway Alemayehu. Now, entering a camp, such as the one located in Shire in northern Ethiopia, requires a negative COVID-19 test result and a 10-day quarantine. Many are thus stuck in the city without any backup plan. It is a story one hears again and again. As one of the world’s poorest countries, Ethiopia could not afford to implement a complete lockdown when the coronavirus first took hold in the northeast African nation last March. Nevertheless, many shops, restaurants, bars and other businesses in the cities closed, at least temporarily. Tourism dried up with increasing security concerns and the implementation of a mandatory quarantine to contain the pandemic. In a country with few social services and no safety nets, the measures to contain the virus and interethnic violence have shocked the fragile economy and hit hard the country’s vulnerable populations, who always bear the worst of any downturn or tragedy. Food insecurity has risen as locust invasions, floods, droughts and now war in the country’s northern Tigray region exacerbate the already tenuous COVID-19 landscape. To speak with those most affected by this crisis in the country is to hear again and again stories of desperation and frustration. However, amid the uncertainty, many are turning to the only resource available, the one which gives them the surest sense of hope: the church.

sychologically, the pandemic is taking a toll on many of the refugees. The JRS center

would help them create social bonds or prepare for future projects through English classes. Forced to remain home, many refugees are now bored, isolated and depressed. Lidya Tariku, an English teacher at the center, worries about her students’ mental health. “They used to come here to play volleyball, take music classes and do other activities in addition to the English classes,” she recalls. “This was helping their psychological well-being. Now some of them have no hope for their future.” Outside the refugee communities, too, fear of the pandemic has gripped the nation. With a toll of more than 1,500 deaths, the

pandemic’s biggest impact has not been on the health sector. Etenesh Urke used to work as a cleaner around Mendida, a village some 60 miles northeast of Addis Ababa. She was told by her employers not to return to work for fear of the virus. Her son Ephrem, a smiling child who likes to sing, is almost 4 years old. He was suffering from malnutrition before the pandemic. “I am not fully supporting my family, but with my husband we are trying our best,” the mother of two explains, a grey scarf wrapped around her head. Women such as Etenesh “are a very vulnerable group because they

didn’t have a fixed job, as their work depended on daily jobs,” says Sister Dinkenesh, who runs the Mendida Medhanialem Clinic. The health center provides nutritional support for 80 children, who would regularly receive hot meals. But during the pandemic, families received food packages instead, which included flour, eggs, oil and sugar. This program lasted three months, until the end of August. Ephrem was one of the children whose family benefited from the program; he is healthy now. “Before the support, he didn’t look like this. With the supplementary feeding, he became stronger,” his mother says.

“People are prisoners in their own houses, they have lost their jobs, some people became beggars. It affected everyone.”

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The clinic, tucked into a quiet compound with a garden and whitewashed buildings, is adjacent to a kindergarten and a Catholic parish church. Six women of the Sisters of Divine Providence and five novices live there together. The community was founded in Mendida in 1973, when the archbishop of Addis Ababa invited sisters from Italy to establish a health and education facility. The Medhanialem Clinic offers services to families who are not able to afford the cost of treatment at public health care centers. The Medical assistant Dereje Samu has worked at the Medhanialem Clinic in Mendida for 33 years.

people in Mendida, who are from the Oromo and Amhara ethnic groups and worship in the Ethiopian Orthodox or Catholic traditions, consider it the best health care center in the area. “For a long time, this was the only health institution for the people of this town,” Sister Dinkenesh recalls, sitting in the living room used to receive guests. “Only about 12 years ago did the government build the other health centers.” At the time of publication, the small town located in the Oromia region of Ethiopia had not had one case of COVID-19. Nevertheless, the population and the clinic staff live in fear of the virus daily.

During the first months of the pandemic, it was difficult to acquire personal protective equipment in Mendida, about an hour’s drive from the nearest city, Debre Berhan. Medical masks were expensive, about $1 apiece, and almost impossible to find. Aster Adane works at the front desk of the clinic, called the “card room,” a small space with pink folders covering the walls. All patients have to go through her to exchange patient cards and pay modest fees. She was particularly frightened when the pandemic first hit. “I am in the front line, in direct contact with the patients, and I feared the virus would be transmitted through money,” says the young woman.

“Health care professionals are like soldiers. They live for the people.”

In June, the clinic received supplies from CNEWA to protect the staff. Gloves, masks and goggles are now mandatory for every employee. Although restraining, the PPE supplies came as a relief. Dressed in a white shirt, his head covered with a mask, goggles and a hair cover, medical assistant Dereje Samu has worked at the facility for 33 years. When the coronavirus was confirmed in Ethiopia, this tall, energetic man knew he wanted to be part of the fight. “Health care professionals are like soldiers,” he says. “They live for the people. I understood there would be a risk for me, but I knew I had to give my life for others. Little by little, I became less worried.” While he was happy to work, many people nearby struggled for work. Even his wife, who used to run a small shop in front of their home, lost almost all of her customers. “This virus affected people, especially economically. Now our shop is open only on Saturdays. Everything is getting expensive because of inflation. For example, one quintal of teff [about 220 pounds of the main staple crop in Ethiopia] used to cost 2,400 birr [or $62]. Now that same amount costs 3,700 birr [or $97].” The community fears the virus will eventually make its way to Mendida, as people travel to Debre Berhan or Addis Ababa on a regular basis. “It is still in Ethiopia, so maybe one day it will come here. I continue to protect myself through preventive measures,” the clinic’s pharmacist Belete Birhan explains. It is a challenge for health care workers to identify patients who might test positive for the virus. In Ethiopia, more than 70 percent of cases are believed to be asymptomatic and symptoms vary from one person to the next. “It’s impossible to know. We have to suspect everybody,” says Sister Dinkenesh regretfully.

All patients with a temperature higher than 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit must isolate in a separate tent, located in the back of the compound. “If the paracetamol works, we let them out,” she says. “If the fever persists, they have to wait for an ambulance, since this might be a sign of COVID-19.”

or the past few months, the clinic has seen fewer patients, as people feared contracting the virus if they went for treatment. The maternity ward remained almost empty for several weeks, which increased the risk of maternal death, as women opted to give birth in their homes. As the pandemic stabilizes and people get used to the existence of the virus, patients are slowly coming back to the sisters’ clinic. Women wrapped in white netelas, the traditional scarves of the region, line up for their medicine, as a warm breeze sweeps through the peaceful compound. The adjacent kindergarten remains quiet, however, as most schools have yet to reopen. In the playground, painted wild animals and colorful tires wait patiently for life to return to normal. “We receive a modest income from our registration cards,” explains Sister Dinkenesh. But as the number of people who sought help at the clinic decreased, so did the income, “and this affected our ability to pay the staff.” Meanwhile, she adds, the number of people looking for food aid has increased. “Our resources were declining. Our own safety was at risk. Thinking of and looking at all these things was frustrating,” she says. It was at this juncture “that CNEWA helped us. … Now, we can raise our heads and look forward to continuing our service. “We don’t know how long this will take us. But we keep on hoping and praying.” n

When sickness strikes, we strike back #WeAreCNEWA

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To discover more about Ethiopia on the brink in a time of ethnic violence, drought and disease, visit cnewa.org/blog

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Maria Gerth-Niculescu is a freelance journalist based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. She has worked for France 24 and Deutsche Welle.

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Perspectives

s I write this reflection for the winter edition of ONE, more than 61 million global cases of COVID-19 have been recorded and almost 1.5 million global deaths. No aspect of life as we knew it before the arrival of this vicious virus has remained unaffected. Our entire world has experienced a seismic shift that knows no recent precedent. Our CNEWA world, and the world of other Catholic aid agencies, has been directly impacted by the eruption of the pandemic. The experiences of natural disasters, political violence, poverty, the reality of displaced people and refugees, the need to respond to health care emergencies, faith and religious formation issues, and starvation, all continue. However, the challenge to respond to such crises under current COVID-19 conditions has been exacerbated by the dramatic rise of unemployment, suffering and death on a global scale. The articles in this edition of ONE highlight the dedication and commitment of our staff and the generosity of our donors. CNEWA remained steadfast in its commitment to the prestigious Assumption Readings conference in September. Thanks to Carl Hétu, national director of our CNEWA Canada office, and the assistance of Anna Dombrovska, I had the privilege to address, albeit remotely, the ecumenical conference hosted by the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. Last February, during my first visit to our office in Beirut, I offered Mass for some 800 migrant workers in St. Joseph Church, which remains under the pastoral care of the Society of Jesus. Following the 4 August explosion in the Beirut port, the Holy See designated CNEWA as one of the two Catholic aid agencies, along with L’Oeuvre d’Orient, to coordinate all Catholic aid into Lebanon. L’Oeuvre d’Orient remains responsible for assistance to Lebanon’s educational institutions, while CNEWA, under the able leadership of Michel Constantin and his staff, have coordinated the assistance to hospitals and health care facilities. In the Middle East, Lebanon has the highest percentage of Christians (about 35 percent) of the total population and preserves the great tradition of religious and cultural coexistence. This is an important expression of the meaning of

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by Msgr. Peter I.Vaccari

religious freedom. As we commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Special Assembly for the Middle East of the Synod of Bishops, CNEWA is in full communion with the hope of the Holy See to preserve a significant Christian presence in Lebanon. Our prayers and concern for the violence in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region with its possible impact on the wider region, that is Eritrea and Sudan, are only heightened by the ongoing spike of the coronavirus pandemic throughout the countries in the Horn of Africa. Under the leadership of Argaw Fantu in Ethiopia and Sister Lettemariam Mogos, D.C., in Eritrea, our work to support the heroic presence and commitment of the religious congregations of women, along with the Jesuit Refugee Service, continues. In the South Caucasus, we see the emergence of a fragile peace in the area marked recently by war in the historic Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Once again, CNEWA partners with Caritas Armenia through our Warm Winter Appeal. The reality of COVID-19 and the feature articles of this issue of ONE all converge around significant themes found in the most recent encyclical of Pope Francis, “Fratelli Tutti,” published on 4 October. The title of the document translates into English as, “On Fraternity and Social Friendship.” Pope Francis acknowledges the pandemic “unexpectedly erupted” as he was writing the encyclical letter. From my perspective, CNEWA, as a papal agency, must be conversant with the major announcements of the Holy Father. I would argue further that many of the themes advanced by Pope Francis in this document and in his encyclical “Laudato Si” (2015) — translated as “On Care for Our Common Home” — are themes that require our prayerful study and reflection in the analysis of support for our many projects. What we do must have a clear analysis, both a philosophical rationale and framework, and an assessment of its impact. We do this so we can demonstrate the ongoing radical commitment and fidelity to our mission, and out of respect for and accountability owed to our most generous donors. In

addition, it is my hope our articulation of our Gospel mandate and papal character will result in an everwider network of CNEWA partnerships. In upcoming reflections, I will try to articulate some of the major themes from the papal documents that will serve to shape CNEWA’s noble mission of service on a global stage. CNEWA’s mission is all about the service of accompanying the local church, particularly in its human, pastoral, spiritual and formational needs. This issue of ONE appears as we enter the winter months. Let us all hope and pray these months will be marked by vaccinations and medications that will bring relief and hope to our “weary world.” This time also includes our celebration of the mystery of Christmas, when God became one with us in the mystery and “scandal” of the Incarnation of his only begotten son, Jesus, who became man, was crucified, and rose from the dead. It began in Bethlehem of Judea. This truth is the root and basis of CNEWA’s political theology. Are we political? Yes, by virtue of the Incarnation. We are engaged always and everywhere. However, we are never partisan in the mysticism of our politics. Political, yes; partisan, never! A final note: The CNEWA family wishes to congratulate and assure the recently installed Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, O.F.M., of our prayers and enthusiastic support. We recognize that pilgrims travel from around the world to visit one empty tomb. That empty tomb is found in the Holy City of Jerusalem — the mother church. There, the seed was planted. From there, the seed has grown and spread to Beirut, Rome, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, India, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ukraine and Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, Ottawa and to New York City!

Msgr. Peter Vaccari distributes food at Table of St. John the Merciful soup kitchen in Zahleh, Lebanon, in February 2020.

God bless you,

Peter I. Vaccari President, CNEWA

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