CV NEWS FEED // A Catholic aid organization highlighted that families are “one of the biggest victims of the war” in Ukraine as family members face loss and trauma, as well as an increase in divorce rates within the last year.
The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC) explained in a conference organized by Catholic nonprofit Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that the long-term effects of the war in Ukraine especially affect families.
ACN reported via email press release, “Ten years after the beginning of the war in Ukraine, ACN is dedicating its 2024 Lent campaign to standing by the suffering Church in the country and helping it bring God’s healing love.”
Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the UGCC, said at the conference, “The future of Ukraine and the Church depends on how we will be able to respond to this need to overcome war trauma, and this trauma has already affected the heart of Ukrainian society: the family.”
“Today we have new groups of families to deal with, the families of those who were killed, the families of those who received severe injuries, but also the families of those who are missing,” Shevchuk said:
According to Ukraine, 20 thousand children were kidnapped by Russia, although Russia speaks of 800 thousand deported, but we also have 35 thousand people missing in action.
The lives of their families are constant torture. One woman, a 23-year-old mother of two, asked me: ‘Am I a widow? Should I pray for my husband as one who is alive, or dead?’ Every time we have prisoner exchanges and their husbands don’t return, their grief is renewed, so it is constant physical and psychological torture for each family.
When soldiers do return, Shevchuk explained, and “When we speak to people returning to Ukraine, and they describe the conditions in which they were kept, they are horrible, especially for the military. Some of them are unable to speak, they are so traumatized.”
Many “women with children have left their own cities, or even the country” if their husbands are in the army, causing “the majority of families [to] live in separation,” Shevchuk said.
ACN described the “statistics caused by this situation” as “harrowing,” highlighting that divorce rates in Ukraine increased within the last year.
“In 2023 we had 170 thousand new families, but there were 120 thousand divorces,” Shevchuk said. “These are the highest divorce numbers in the history of independent Ukraine.”
“Helping these people is a big challenge for our Church,” Shevchuk added. “Very often you can do nothing, but be present, cry with them, hold the hand of this woman, or this soldier who is experiencing pain. This is the biggest pastoral challenge for me and for the Church today.”
Administering pastoral support and the sacraments is also reportedly impossible in the Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine, according to ACN, where “the UGCC has been forced underground”.
Shevchuk said at the conference, “There are no more Catholic priests in this part of Ukraine. We received information that in Donetsk our people were going to the church to pray each Sunday, even without the priest, but the church was seized and the doors closed.”
“In the occupied parts of the Zaporizhzhia Region, the Russian authorities issued a special decree forbidding the existence of the UGCC and confiscated our properties, so people are praying in their homes, and if they can, they follow our liturgical services online,” Shevchuk added.
The apostolic nuncio to Ukraine Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas said at the conference, “For people abroad it is difficult to imagine what is going on here. Some are tempted to think that everything has finished, but we are losing hundreds of lives every day, both military and civilians.”
ACN Executive President Regina Lynch said at the conference, “with so much conflict and unrest around the world at present, we are in real danger that Ukraine could be forgotten, as global attention moves to the next crisis.”
Lynch said that ACN is “determined that this does not happen, and this is part of the reason that we are using this year’s Lenten Campaign to highlight the situation in Ukraine.”
“Ukraine is experiencing its own Way of the Cross,” Lynch said:
The goal of the campaign is to provide much-needed support during the conflict, including assistance for seminarians, priests and religious sisters, who help with the care of the displaced and impoverished people as well as trauma healing for soldiers and their families. We also focus on youth and family ministry.
We urge all our friends and benefactors not to forget our brothers and sisters in Ukraine and to pray for them during the period of Lent.
