His wife, Ukrainian native Halyna Charron, said family members and friends throughout that her home country are surprised and encouraged that the West is now devoting so much attention to Ukraine after years of paying little notice. It’s in America’s interest to do so, she said, because the United States was signatory to a 1994 pact in which Ukraine agreed to give up Soviet-era nuclear weapons on its soil in return for Russia promising to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
“I understand some Americans will say, ‘Oh, what’s the big deal? Ukraine is somewhere far,’” she said. “But once you are in that position of power and you sign papers, you have to honor those promises.”
In Pittsburgh this past weekend, members of St. Vladimir Ukrainian Orthodox Church were selling homemade soup in a “Souper Bowl” fundraiser to help feed people in need back home. In past years’ fundraisers, customers would often ask where the country is. But in 2022, with constant headlines about the crisis, they no longer have to ask and are often eager to help.
The Very Rev. John Haluszczak, the church’s pastor, said parishioners are worried about relatives and others in Ukraine, such as the children and staffers at a church-supported orphanage.
“We’re not praying for winning or losing but pretty much for peace,” he said.
The Most Rev. Borys Gudziak, metropolitan archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Philadelphia for the United States, said there are daily prayers for peace being said in each of the 200 or so Ukrainian Catholic parishes in the U.S., along with regular collections for orphans and wounded soldiers.
In recent weeks the Ukrainian diaspora in America has also staged a number of demonstrations including a Philadelphia rally in late January of religious leaders and the faithful, supported by the Belarusian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Polish, Estonian, Georgian, Uzbek and other diasporas of the city’s greater metro area.
“The Ukrainian Catholic community and the general Ukrainian community in the U.S. has been involved in this in a very regular way” Gudziak said of the eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine in which more than 14,000 people have died. “Now with this new danger, a danger of being in further invasion, there is heightened awareness.”
A Russian invasion could cause thousands of deaths and unleash a refugee crisis with millions forced to flee, Gudziak added in an interview via videoconference from Lviv, where he was attending a meeting,
“How many schools, how many hospitals, how many bridges and roads, how many churches, synagogues, mosques have to be destroyed? How many more orphans need to be created? How many people have to be driven into homelessness and poverty?” said Gudziak, who also serves as head of the department of external church relations for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church is a minority Eastern Rite church that uses the Byzantine or Greek liturgy and is loyal to the pope. Last month Pope Francis called for a day of prayer over the Ukraine crisis and for political talks prioritizing “human brotherhood instead of partisan interests.” The Holy See’s secretary of state phoned the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church on Monday to express the Vatican’s solidarity.
The Council of Bishops of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA, meanwhile, released a statement headlined, “Pray for Ukraine.”
“The scare and intimidation tactics with the presence of the armed vehicles and over a hundred thousand of soldiers around the borders of Ukraine combined with systematic cyber attacks at all levels of life in Ukraine can only be interpreted as terroristic threats that target innocent lives of Ukrainian citizens,” it said.
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This article originally appeared on APNews.com.
