Hope, Defiance at a Ukrainian Church in Washington

At the Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of the Holy Family in Washington, D.C., the Divine Liturgy ended in applause — and hope.Two-year-old Veronica Tsintsiruk had just been baptized Sunday morning, and the congregation welcomed her “entering the life of Christ” as her parents looked on.It was a moment that reflected the cautious optimism of numerous local worshippers. The Shrine of the Holy Family serves many native Ukrainians and those with Ukrainian ties in the Washington metro area. Ukraine is a majority Christian nation, with nearly 80 percent identifying as Orthodox Christians. There is also a significant Catholic minority.While many at the service on Sunday expressed concern with the attack Russia has launched against Ukraine, the more prevalent mood was belief that the Russians have underestimated Ukrainians. Several worshippers said they thought President Putin could lose the conflict.Andrew Tsintsiruk, Veronica’s father, said that “it has been very special to see all the support from Americans. There are a lot of people here who are not regular parishioners who are here to offer prayers.” Mr. Tsinsiruk, 40, works in IT and came to America when he was in college. On his phone Mr. Tsinsiruk has a picture of his sister, Irina, who is still in Ukraine. In the photograph, she is seen looking up from inside a bomb shelter.“The media is putting up a view of something that I don’t think is happening,” adds Zenon Chalupa, 56, a salesman who was born in Ukraine and lives in Silver Spring, Maryland. “When this thing started I was sad, but now I don’t think the media is giving a full picture. People are fighting back and the whole world has come to our side. I heard someone say that this will be over in nine days with Russia winning. I think it will end with Putin withdrawing.”All week the National Shrine has been holding multiple prayer services for Ukraine.“As Christians we are still people of joy and hope,” says Father Robert Hitchens, 56, the pastoral administrator of the church. “People applauded as a way of welcoming Veronica into the body of Christ. Veronica is our future.” Father Hitchens’s family is originally from Ukraine, and he still has friends there. Like many others here, Father Hitchens expresses gratitude that through sanctions, social media posts, and protests, “the whole world has rallied to us.” Just a few miles from the church, there were pro-Ukrainian protests going on at the White House.“We’re not interested in war, but you know, people have a right, a moral right, to defend themselves,” Father Hitchens recently told local radio station WTOP.After the Sunday service, Father Hitchens stood outside the church talking to congregants. He emphasized the need to pray for the conversion of enemies, including Mr. Putin. The priest uses the phrase metanoia, “a transformative change of heart,” to describe what Christians should hope for in those who persecute them.The Shrine of the Holy Family is in Brookland, a neighborhood about four miles from Capitol Hill. The home of the Catholic University of America, Brookland has the nickname “Little Rome” because of the large concentration of religious orders stationed there.The liturgy on Sunday included supporters from the Little Sisters of the Poor, who are next poor, and the Sisters for Life. There was a more optimistic mood in the Shrine than was felt there on February 24, the day Russia launched its incursion into Ukraine. Father Peter Galadza, a Ukrainian Catholic priest, led that prayer service. He talked about the hope that the people of Ukraine felt after gaining independence in 1991, which followed a century with the “scars of intergenerational trauma” caused by different regimes and occupations. That, Father Galadza said, “makes this present moment so much more painful.”“We just did not imagine everything we read about in the history books, everything our parents told us about their experiences, every tear they had shed,” the priest said. “We thought that was over, a thing of the past. Yet today it’s being revisited upon us again.”

Hope, Defiance at a Ukrainian Church in Washington

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