Unimaginable suffering and clergy under pressure after two years of war in Ukraine

Two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, families within the country are desperate and searching to the Church for support, putting clergy under huge pressure. 

Kenneth Nowakowski, a bishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), told Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that support is required for clergy working around the clock to supply material and spiritual support to families affected by the war. 

Clergy have reported “unimaginable suffering” within the country during the last two years. 

The UGCC is developing a programme called ‘Healing the Wounds of War’ to supply training for Ukrainian clergy “who, day in and day trip should be coping with funerals” and counsel victims of war.

The training goals to plug the gap in seminary education that doesn’t teach clergy how you can give highly demanding trauma counselling to people caught up in war.

It may even train clergy in how they will effectively support families affected by separation.

“We cannot make priests psychiatrists or psychologists in six easy lessons. But we will at the least prepare them to have the option to direct people to the precise places to receive help and [assist them to cope with] the results of hearing these stories and having to cope with so many deaths – not only strange, normal deaths but people dying in war,” he said. 

The UGCC is working further afield, too, to support refugees who’ve re-settled within the UK. A Sunday programme offered by the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in London is attended by about 250 children, while around 2,000 children are involved within the St Mary’s Ukrainian School’s Saturday programme, which offers creative activities, interfaith services, mental health support, and safeguarding initiatives.

Priests are readily available on the cathedral’s Welcome Centre for Ukrainians in London who need a listening ear or prayer. The bishop said that priests listen “without either telling them to remain or encouraging them to depart”.

He concluded: “Our responsibility is to search out out what help people need and do our greatest to assist them.”