Angelus News | March 25, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 6

An image of Mary and the Ukrainian flag are
pictured during the funeral for three fallen
Ukrainian army members in Lviv on March 11.
| CNS/KAI PFAFFENBACH, REUTERS
college, when both volunteered at a
Ukrainian orphanage. After their marriage,
and continuing after the birth
of their son Sebastian, 7, they began
hosting Eastern European orphans on
short-term visits. Three years ago their
hearts melted over two Ukrainian sisters,
who turned out to have a younger
brother. Their efforts to adopt all three
have stalled for three years over the
technicality that the siblings — now
ages 10 and 13 — are in a foster home
rather than an orphanage.
At St. Peter and St. Paul Ukrainian
Orthodox Church in Carnegie, the
Charests are organizing relief supplies
and trying to stay in touch with the
children. Bombs and rockets have
come perilously close.
They had given the children a
cellphone, telling them to text a daily
minimum of one thumbs-up emoji.
When that doesn’t happen, their
hearts stop.
“Hours later, we will hear that they
were in a [bomb] shelter where there
is no service,” Father Charest said.
He has offered to pay the whole
foster family’s way to Poland, to have
a friend in Kyiv escort them out. The
foster parents, an older couple, don’t
want to leave their home for a journey
that is also fraught with danger.
“I’m not there. It’s easy for me to
make the right decision,” Father
Charest said.
“They are in a terrible situation. The
kids are frightened. They hear things
they don’t fully understand. … If they
can’t come to us, if we can’t adopt
them, then at least they should go to a
good home, out of that war zone.”
Father Ihor Hohosha, a parish
priest and hospital chaplain in
Pittsburgh, spent his childhood
under Soviet rule in the 1980s, when
the Ukrainian Catholic Church was
illegal. His grandmother taught him
to pray in secret, from a book that
had been hand-copied because it
could not be published legally. Now
42, Father Ihor is among the oldest
of Ukraine’s Catholic priests. “The
generation above me were all killed,”
he said.
After World War II, Soviet dictator
Joseph Stalin — who a decade
earlier had engineered the starvation
deaths of at least 3 million Ukrainians
— forced the merger of the
Ukrainian Catholic Church into the
Russian Orthodox Church. Bishops,
priests, nuns, and parishioners who
resisted were killed or deported to
labor camps. After Ukraine’s 1991
independence, however, millions of
Catholics emerged from the shadows.
In seminary, Father Ihor met elderly
priests.
“Many of them were tortured,” he
said. “I still remember one priest
who was so beaten that only one of
his lungs worked well. He never had
enough air to speak and breathe at the
same time.”
He sees little difference between
the new Russian regime and the old
oppressors.
“This is genocide,” he said, citing the
bombing of a maternity and children’s
hospital. “I have no doubt that Putin
is the new Hitler. This is Russian
fascism.”
The fight is personal. His brother,
who like Father Ihor is married with
several children, had been an army reservist
and has volunteered for active
duty. He was given minutes to pack
and say goodbye to his family. He now
awaits deployment.
One of Father Ihor’s parishes, St.
George Ukrainian Catholic Church,
supports itself with an annual Lenten
pierogi (or “pyrohy”) sale. Church
members prepare thousands of the
delicacies from a secret recipe handed
down for generations. This year they
upped the price by a dollar, with the
proceeds for Ukrainian relief. Some
go to humanitarian aid for civilians,
some to buy protective gear for soldiers.
“This is not just war between
Ukraine and Russia. This is between
darkness and light, and we have to
win,” Father Ihor said. “Maybe it looks
like my country is being crucified,
even sacrificed. I still believe in resurrection.
I believe there will be a new
start, a new beginning. After night,
comes the sunrise.”
Ann Rodgers is a longtime religion
reporter and freelance writer whose
awards include the William A. Reed
Lifetime Achievement Award from the
Religion News Association.
March 25, 2022 • ANGELUS • 13