In spite of a year of war, Ukrainians endure and religious ministry continues

BY CHRIS HERLINGER  OSV News

IRPIN, Ukraine (OSV News) • On a February afternoon of welcome blue skies and bright sunlight, brothers Basil and Nicolai Knutarev surveyed the scorched apartment complexes in Irpin, Ukraine, where they once lived.

The apartments have remained untouched since a brutal three-week Russian siege and bombardment that ended March 28, 2022, more than a month following the start of Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. With their charred exteriors, the buildings evoke danger and menace, underscored by the smell of leaking gas wafting in the cold air.

The siege resulted in nearly 300 civilian deaths, making Irpin, a once-tranquil community about 15 miles west of Kyiv, nearly as infamous as neighboring Bucha, the better-known site of alleged Russian war crimes.

Irpin’s pre-war population of 70,000 dwindled after the siege. Most residents have since returned, though some, like the Knutarev brothers, remain displaced.

“Life has changed not just for Ukraine, but the whole world,” Sister Yanuariya Isyk, a member of the Sisters of the Order of St. Basil the Great whose ministry is based in Kyiv, told Global Sisters Report. “We’re living a new life now. It can’t be the same as it was before the war. Life will never be the same again.”

The new reality is one of displacement and confusion, loss and death. Hospitals, schools and neighborhoods have been targeted in brutal acts that have outraged the world. The United Nations said more than 7,000 civilians, including more than 400 children, have died because of the war, and more than 11,700 have been injured.

Even far from the front, life is always on edge, with blackouts and electrical outages – Russia has targeted the country’s power grid – and constant air-raid sirens.

Yet Ukrainians also speak of renewed unity, solidarity and hope. In a country that has become one big conflict zone, the war has galvanized religious communities to open their doors to those who have been displaced and to lead various humanitarian missions.

“For us, 2022 was a year of deep darkness and crucifixion for the Ukrainian people,” Sister Isyk said. “Thousands of Ukrainian hearts were crucified, people’s destinies were mutilated, cities and villages were destroyed.”

“Ukraine and the Ukrainian people have experienced a long, difficult and painful year of Lent. Every Ukrainian has suffered during this year,” said Sister Anna Andrusiv, another Basilian sister who lives in the western city of Lviv. She and other Basilian sisters offered shelter in the early months of the war to those heading to nearby Poland.

There is no sign that the war will end soon. And earlier this month, people spoke of bracing for the worst, with many fearing a new Russian onslaught from the north, possibly from Belarus, a Russia ally.

“Right now, things are stable, but everything is still on the table,” Dominican Father Mikhailo Romaniv said of the situation in Fastiv, a community of 45,000 about 45 miles southwest of Kyiv. Father Romaniv heads the Christian Center of St. Martin de Porres, which assists mothers and children in addition to those displaced or experiencing homelessness.

Sister Damiana Monica Miac, a Polish sister and one of five Dominican Sisters of Jesus and Mary who live and work in Fastiv, said a kind of routine has returned to the school where she teaches kindergarten.

Sister Miac, 53, has lived in Ukraine for 30 years. She recalls the beginning of the war as nerve-racking and trying. There was little food, and life felt like it was under siege.

NEWLY DISCOVERED ANCIENT GALAXIES PUT SPOTLIGHT ON ‘BIG BANG THEORY,’ GOD’S ACT OF CREATION

WASHINGTON (OSV News) • The James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s flagship infrared observatory launched on Christmas Day 2021, makes successively astounding discoveries, including one find that might eventually require tweaking the Big Bang Theory as it found six ancient and giant galaxies shouldn’t exist the way apparently they do 500-700 million years after the universe’s beginning from a single point called a “singularity.”

Given what scientists know about how galaxies form, they’re much too big and much too dense for their age. But Jonathan Lunine, a planetary scientist and physicist, professor at Cornell University, and a member of Webb’s Science Working Group, explained reports of the Big Bang’s death are greatly exaggerated and called the findings “a great example of how science is done. You have a new capability; you can see things that you couldn’t see before.”

Vatican astronomer Brother Guy Consolmagno called the results “fascinating” and helps show “that God is responsible for the existence of the universe is as true now as it was when Genesis was written – even as our understanding of the science is very different now.” He said, “underneath it all is the loving act of a God who willed that time and space exist, and who found it good.”

REMEMBERING DEADLY SHIPWRECK, POPE PRAYS TO END HUMAN TRAFFICKING

VATICAN CITY (CNS) • Human traffickers must be stopped from risking the lives of migrants traveling in search of a better future, Pope Francis said.

After praying the Angelus with some 25,000 visitors gathered in St. Peter’s Square March 5, the Pope prayed for the victims of a shipwreck off the coast of Cutro in Italy’s southern province of Crotone, which killed at least 70 people Feb. 26. A boat carrying some 180 migrants sank near the Italian coast after sailing from Turkey. Only 80 survivors had been found as of the morning March 6. According to Italy’s border police, the migrants each paid smugglers 8,000 euros (about $8,500) to be taken to Europe.

“That human traffickers be stopped, and that they do not continue to take the lives of so many innocent people,” Pope Francis prayed after the Angelus. “May the journeys of hope never again turn into journeys of death,” he said. “May the clean waters of the Mediterranean no longer be bloodied by such tragic accidents.”

Drone footage taken Feb. 6, 2023, shows a freight train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Some 50 cars from the train derailed the evening of Feb. 3 near the Pennsylvania border. OSV News photo/NTSBGov handout via Reuters

‘NOT ANOTHER LOVE CANAL,’ PASTOR PRAYS FOR TOWN STRUCK BY TOXIC TRAIN

EAST PALESTINE, Ohio (OSV News) • An Ohio Catholic priest told OSV News “it will be a long time” before he and his parishioners feel secure in their surroundings, following a Feb. 3 train derailment in East Palestine that dumped toxic chemicals into the environment. Numerous local, state and federal agencies have been working to address the wreck, but “despite all of the cleanup … we’re learning now how dangerous those chemicals were,” said Father David Misbrener, pastor of the Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Jude Parish Communities, located respectively in East Palestine and Columbiana. Father Misbrener said he thought the consequences of the derailment “could be much worse” than so far anticipated. In a Feb. 14 news conference, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine called on Congress to investigate a failure to flag the train for hazardous materials prior to the derailment.