Mission Magazine Autumn 2023

“Obviously, there is incredible exhaustion and the suffering is cringeworthy,”
Archbishop Gudziak said. “But people understand very clearly that
if Russia is allowed to occupy Ukraine, there will be genocide, in addition to
the ongoing ecocide. And there have been genocidal manifestations and crimes
against humanity in the past 18 months.”
He has visited Butcha, a city near Kiev, the country’s capital, occupied
by Russia between March 4 and 31, 2022, and what he has seen there “is
devastating,” as is the witness of the first respondents he spoke to, those who
first found the mass graves for the 1,400 people tortured and killed in a span
of a month.
“It is devastating,” he insisted. But “there is this other side of the coin,
incredible valor, which makes you straighten up because how can we falter
when those living in Ukraine today are standing tall?”
Since the war started, the UGCC has been at the forefront of humanitarian
relief efforts. Archbishop Gudziak’s Archeparchy, for instance, raised nine
million dollars to support various projects aimed at assisting those in need.
From providing medical supplies like bandages and tourniquets to offering
aid to the six million internally displaced persons (IDPs) and eight million
refugees, the Church has been a beacon of hope for the vulnerable.
The UGCC is not
foreign to persecution
and martyrdom. On the
contrary, as Archbishop
Gudziak pointed out, every
time Russia has occupied
Ukraine since the 18th
century, his Church, the
largest of the Eastern Rite
churches in communion
with Rome, has been
banned. In the Soviet era,
the UGCC was the largest
illegal religious body in
the world and suffered
mightily for it.
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