Under a Mother's veil of protection

A vivid, poignant picture of the faith of Ukrainian Catholics is emerging from the images of death and destruction wrought by the Russian invasion of their country.

Whether they are kneeling on pavement and praying the rosary or marching through the streets carrying icons of the Mother of God, or Theotokos, Ukrainian Catholics — who represent the largest of the Eastern Rite churches in communion with Rome — are showing the world that their strength is not in numbers, arsenals, and political power, but in Christ and His Church.

“Since Ukrainians have not had a Ukrainian state behind them for most of their history,” said American-born Archbishop Borys Gudziak, “the Church has been their protector, the educator of the people, the institution that lifted up what was otherwise often socially and politically marginalized in a repressed population.”

Archbishop Gudziak, who heads the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church’s Philadelphia Archeparchy, said that after its revival following decades of such suppression the Ukrainian Church developed, articulated, and incarnated Catholic social doctrine, applying it to critical issues in Ukrainian society. In the process, the Church achieved a moral authority, respect, and influence that surpasses its minority status.

This has infused the response to the Russian invasion and is what is astounding, motivating, and uplifting the world, Archbishop Gudziak said.

Ultimately, what we’re seeing is the manifestation of the greatest love. Jesus said in John 15:13, ‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,’” he said. “What we’re seeing is hundreds of thousands doing that. They are willing to give their life for the truth and willing to protect at the highest personal cost the innocent.”

Amid this, Archbishop Gudziak said, “People are seeing a real sacrament, visible signs of God’s grace, something it is not natural to do. There’s supernatural sacrifice and that requires supernatural grace.”

‘United in love of Mary’

Marked by what the archbishop called a high degree of piety and a softness and engagement of sentiment, the Ukrainian Catholic expression of faith is imbued with a strong devotion to Mary that is shared by Ukraine’s majority Orthodox Christians.

“This is the great beauty of Ukraine – that the Catholics and Orthodox are united in love of Mary,” said Fr. Jason Charron, a Ukrainian Catholic priest who serves churches in Carnegie, PA, and Wheeling, WV. “Eastern Catholics, Western Catholics, and Orthodox Christians have a shared spiritual mother and intercessor in the Mother of God.”

To this day, Fr. Charron said, “In Ukraine, you’ll have big burly men kneel down on the side of the road and pray to the Mother of God for protection and for her intercession . . . They call her ‘our sweet little Mother of God’ – ‘Matynka Bozha.’”

Ukraine was consecrated to Mary in 1037 by Prince Yaroslav the Wise when the country was part of Kyivan Rus, and the entire culture is rich with images of her. A particularly prominent image is that of the Pokrova, or “Protection of Mary.” It is based on a 10th- century apparition in which Mary reportedly spread a veil over the people in a church in Constantinople during a siege on the city. After she appeared, the enemy forces retreated. The Pokrova is one of the images that have been seen being held by Ukrainians and their supporters during the current Russian invasion.

Another popular Marian depiction is the Oranta, which shows Mary with her hands uplifted in prayer. This image is in a mosaic in the apse of the 1,000-year-old St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv. Archbishop Gudziak said the mosaic is on what is called “the immovable wall” because it has continued to stand even when the church has been damaged and the town around it ravaged.

“For Ukrainians, [Mary] represents the protection of the people and the Church,” he said. “She is in the depths and very heart of the capital of the country and that protection is what we are imploring.”

Mary as ‘Queen of Ukraine’

Father Charron, who is not Ukrainian, but is married to a Ukrainian woman and lived in Ukraine from 1999 to 2002, said, “Mary is the queen of Ukraine.” (In some Eastern Catholic churches outside the United States, married men can be ordained priests.) Her feasts, he continued, are celebrated throughout the year – her Annunciation in March, her Dormition in August, her Nativity in September, and her Protection in October. “These are all very big feasts in Ukraine and you can’t understand religiosity in Ukraine without the Mother of Christ,” said Fr. Charron.

Although every Ukrainian Catholic church has at least one Marian icon, images of Mary also are found in most Ukrainian homes, Fr. Charron said. Even people of limited means traditionally will place in their living rooms depictions of Jesus and Mary with a cross between them and an embroidered cloth over them. “That’s the family prayer corner,” he pointed out, “and every traditional Ukrainian house is going to have those images in it.”

Such spaces also are known as “icon corners” and serve as reminders of Jesus Christ, who is known as “the cornerstone.” In addition to Mary and Jesus, these icons also can include St. Nicholas, who signifies compassion and hospitality.

These corners are more than decorative. Families often pray in them, and parents will bless their children with the icons at such key moments as the start of a new school year, a marriage, or departure for military service.

Father Charron, who went to Ukraine in late February to help rescue and relocate to Lithuania 22 orphans between the ages of 3 and 16, said that even among these young people he witnessed signs of faith. “I was only with them a few days, but they are kids who pray, and they raise their voices in song to the Lord Jesus Christ, and they evidenced that faith during our time together,” he said. “Especially the older children talk freely about God and how He is going to assist them.”

Faith sustains in persecution

Such faith is what likely sustained the Ukrainian Catholic Church during its years of persecution and led it to revive and thrive at a time when Church structures in many Western countries dwindled.

“From 1946 to 1989,” Archbishop Gudziak said, “the Ukrainian Catholic Church was the biggest illegal church in the world.”

Banned by the Soviets, the Church saw its bishops imprisoned and thousands of priests, religious, and faithful sent to Siberia. Many were martyred. “This was a consequence of the fact that the Church did not collaborate with the Soviet totalitarian regime that wanted to expunge all religion but worked with particular vehemence against Ukrainian Catholics,” the archbishop explained.

When the Soviet Union fell apart and the Church was decriminalized, Archbishop Gudziak said the recovery was astounding. The number of priests returned to pre-World War II levels, growing by a factor of 10 in the last 33 years.

Because of their history, Ukrainian Catholics have good reason to fear a possible Russian occupation of their nation. “Anytime any Russian authority — whether Czarist, Communist, or Putinist — takes over Ukraine, where the Catholic Church ministers, it is strangled,” Archbishop Gudziak warned.

Still, in the past, Mary, the Mother of God, has delivered the nation. The archbishop’s hope is that it could happen again, possibly through the act of consecration by Pope Francis united with the world’s bishops that took place on the feast of the Annunciation, March 25.

“It is hard to say when and how people will be converted, but I hope it will be soon,” said Archbishop Gudziak, “and I have no doubt that an act of dedication, an act of fervent prayer, will greatly contribute to conversion and to the deliverance of people in Ukraine, Russia, and throughout the world.”

For his part, Fr. Charron said he is encouraged to see the Ukrainian nation united as never before in resolve and a common goal.

“It is perhaps one of the last truly religious societies left in Europe,” he said, “and it will be that faith which will enable them to emerge victorious from the hellfire of Russia’s bombs.

Judy Roberts is a Legatus magazine staff writer.


Devotion to Mary, as always, points to Jesus

Mary, the Mother of God, is a prominent figure in the Ukrainian Catholic Church, but she is always portrayed or mentioned in reference to Christ, her Son.

Archbishop Borys Gudziak, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Philadelphia Archeparchy, said this is why she is referred to as Theotokos, which means “Mother of God” or “Bearer of God.” “Mary’s whole mission is bearing God, and pointing to God, and doing God’s will.”

Like their Roman Catholic counterparts, Ukrainian Catholics express their devotion to Mary through the rosary and other prayers. However, they also refer to her frequently throughout their liturgical services.

“The place of the Mother of God in the prayer in the liturgy is very important,” said Archbishop Gudziak. “Almost all prayers reference the Mother of God in one form or another.”

Ukrainian Catholics pray the Hail Mary, the biblical prayer that is repeated in the rosary, but they have a rich treasury of other devotions as well. One is the “Akathist Hymn to the Theotokos,” which consists of 24 stanzas and recounts the events of Christ’s Incarnation from the Annunciation to the Presentation in the Temple.

Another devotion is the “Moleben to the Mother of God,” a prayer service containing a Gospel reading, psalms, and prayers and based on the service of Matins, part of the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours. Many Ukrainian Catholics know it by heart.

Father Jason Charron, a Ukrainian Catholic priest, said another popular prayer to Mary is one drawn from the Church’s Divine Liturgy (or Mass). It says in part: “More honorable than the Cherubim and by far more glorious than the Seraphim, ever a virgin, you gave birth to God the Word. O true mother of God, we magnify you.”

Ukrainian Catholics will sing this, Fr. Charron said, as little nestlings who are chirping for their mother to return to the nest with food.

“We sing it to Mary in the hope that the Mother of God will come to our aid and bring crumbs from heaven to nourish us in our time of affliction and to sustain us during this trial,” he said.