Perhaps the best symbol of the war in Ukraine is a photograph that the Catholic News Agency ran early in the conflict. It shows the ruins of the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin in Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region. According to the caption, it was built in 1862. A Russian bomb destroyed it one hundred sixty years later.
That photo contains an impressive irony. The Church of the Nativity was built during the Reign of Russian Czar Alexander II, who saw Ukraine’s Catholics as revolutionaries. It survived both World Wars. It stood when the Soviet Union turned to dust. This little church was a white-painted wooden outpost of Our Lord’s presence through all that turmoil. Now, it is smashed. Many other Catholic churches lie in ruins because of the Russian occupiers.
The destruction of a Church is an especially heinous act since it violates that which is sacred. It deprives the faithful of a place of worship of the one True God.
The Unholy Alliance
Suffering at the hands of the Russians is nothing new to these indomitable believers. This war is only the latest chapter.
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) is in complete union with Rome. Therefore, it is a natural enemy of the schismatic Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), which holds doctrines contrary to Church teaching. Its leader, Patriarch Kirill Gundayayev, is closely connected with Vladimir Putin and at the service of the Russian State.
Russia has a centuries-long history of religious persecution of Catholics. The dominant Russian Orthodox Church has worked to help suppress the Catholic Church in Russia-controlled areas of Poland and Lithuania under the czars.
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This legacy continued under the Soviet regime when the Ukrainian Catholic Church was forced underground. Its church buildings were occupied, and its priests were martyred. The Russian Orthodox Church became a KGB-controlled organ of the Communist Party, and the Catholic Church was one of the only intact organizations that offered real resistance to Soviet rule.
Today, the same animosity survives and intensifies as the Putin regime is intent on wiping out both the independent Ukrainian state and the UGCC.
A Little Church and its Bishop
The man at the eye of the present storm is Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, the UGCC’s primate. The Archbishop grew up under Soviet rule, an experience that taught him some difficult lessons. According to his biography, underground Catholic priests often celebrated Holy Mass in his family home. Much of his education came from his grandparents, who he describes as “a walking encyclopedia of both Church and national history.”
Archbishop Shevchuk carries harrowing accounts of Ukrainian Catholic life to the world’s capitals. On November 7, 2022, he visited Pope Francis in Rome. According to Catholic News Service, he gave the pope a fragment of a Russian explosive device that destroyed a Church building in a town called Irpin. “It is a very symbolic gift, not only because Irpin was one of the first ‘martyr towns’ affected by the Russian aggression against Ukraine, but also because similar pieces of landmines are extracted from the bodies of Ukrainian soldiers, civilians and children.”
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In March of 2024, the Archbishop visited Washington, D.C., to express the need for American aid in his country’s life-and-death struggle. The Archbishop explained to Newsweek, “Today, in the occupied territory, there is not one Catholic priest. All my priests, even the Roman Catholic priests, were all expelled or imprisoned.” His Beatitude (the title accorded by his office) related the experiences of Fathers Ivan Levitsky and Bohdan Geleta. Both refused to leave their parishioners when commanded by Russian soldiers. The Russians captured them in November 2022 and imprisoned the priests until June 2024.
The dire situation explains the archbishop’s plea for support. His voice joined with those of Ukraine’s Catholic bishops, who wrote in a recent statement that “Ukrainians cannot surrender because surrender means death.”
Continuing War, Mounting Casualties
As the war goes on, so do the many perils the UGCC faces. On August 9, 2024, a Russian drone strike caused a fire in the Church of the Holy Martyr Cyprian and Martyr Justina in the village of Antonivka, near Kherson. On that occasion, the parishioners managed to extinguish the fire. Unfortunately, two days later, a Russian rocket hit the shrine and completely destroyed it.
The same day that the rocket destroyed the mission, Catholics in Myrnohrad – about forty-five miles north – busily prepared to evacuate the Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Parishioners packed all of its valuable items and transported them to Dnipro.
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Father Ivan Vasylenko described the arduous but necessary work. “We are beginning the evacuation of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul. It hurts; I feel desolate. We have to transport the iconostasis [a wall of icons that acts as a medieval rood screen, separating the nave from the sanctuary], icons, banners, the library, and all the consecrated items from Myrnohrad and the Donetsk region. This church was built for the glory of God and the salvation of human souls. The enemy is already near, so this is all we can do.”
The fate of these churches and the capture of Catholic priests is a small indication of what will happen to Catholics should Ukraine lose its war for survival. The Church will lose its freedom and go underground once again. Ukraine will return to a time of martyrdom and suffering.
Thus, it is hard to understand why some Catholics refuse to support Ukraine in this war. Some even champion Orthodox Russia as a defender of faith. The fate of their fellow Catholics in Ukraine should at least move their souls in solidarity.
The testimony of Ukraine’s archbishop should also move the West to action. The small church of Nativity of the Blessed Virgin in Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region is a striking symbol of what awaits Ukraine should his pleas for his suffering people not be heard.
Photo Credit: © Народицька селищна територіальна громада, CC BY 4.0 – Wikimedia Commons