Two years in the past, in February 2022, we gathered right here on this Basilica for the primary time after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started for a moleben, a Byzantine-rite prayer service throughout which we pled for peace in Ukraine. I keep in mind the church was stuffed to the final seat, and there was an environment of unreserved solidarity with Ukrainians and righteous anger over Russia’s unprovoked invasion into the territory of a sovereign neighboring nation. The battle occupied the headlines in all of the media in America and the world. I’m certain that lots of those that prayed right here on that day two years in the past have been hoping for a fast cessation of the battle. The sheer madness of Russia’s actions, it appeared, wouldn’t permit it to final for too lengthy.
Right now, two years have handed, and right here we’re once more, nonetheless praying for peace in Ukraine. A lot has occurred in these two years, and far appears to have modified on the earth since then. Ukraine not dominates media headlines, definitely a minimum of not day-after-day; and I’ve met individuals right here in America and different nations of the world who have been stunned to listen to about this battle once more: is it nonetheless such an enormous downside? Sure, expensive mates: the dire, brutal actuality of the Russian-Ukrainian battle stays with us. Ukraine remains to be at battle—at battle for its very existence. On daily basis, each hour, each minute—on this very second!— troopers are being killed on the entrance; civilians—ladies, kids, senior individuals—die from missiles, bombs, and drones; complete cities, cities, and villages are being razed to the bottom. We now have discovered many terrifying classes over these two years of battle. Quite a few battle crimes dedicated by the Russian troops have been uncovered and documented. Ukrainian civilian infrastructure—together with hospitals, colleges, theaters, church buildings, and cultural facilities—has been systematically focused by Russian missiles. The Worldwide Prison Courtroom issued an arrest warrant for Putin and considered one of his helpers, accusing them of mass deportations of Ukrainian kids into the Russian territory. Tons of of hundreds of Ukrainians have been killed or injured, and the variety of refugees and displaced individuals exceeds ten million.
With all this destruction and struggling, it’s wonderful how resilient Ukrainians stay. The phrases of at this time’s studying from Second Corinthians can describe this so effectively. It says:
We’re in each approach, however not crushed; perplexed, however not pushed to despair; persecuted, however not forsaken; struck down, however not destroyed; all the time carrying within the physique the dying of Jesus, in order that the life of Jesus may additionally be made seen in our our bodies (2 Cor 4:8-11).
Ukrainians will not be solely alive. They’re unbroken. I keep in mind how impressed and humbled we have been to see this once I was in Ukraine final summer time along with Fr. Andrij for an educational convention in Lviv. That Ukrainians’ resilience finds robust help from their worldwide companions and mates is encouraging. The cooperation between Notre Dame and the Ukrainian Catholic College is a treasured instance of such help. As a priest of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, I wish to say a phrase of due to this college—to its college students, college, and employees—for all that they’ve executed and are doing to help Ukraine. I say this on behalf of my sisters and brothers in religion in Ukraine and within the diaspora.
That mentioned, I do know—alas!—too effectively that there’s regrettably nonetheless a big deficit of data and understanding relating to the battle’s roots, historical past, and background in America and around the globe. What troubles me most is that church buildings and ecumenical boardrooms at instances appear to have even much less a way of urgency and consciousness than political actors regarding these present occasions within the middle of Europe that shatter not solely the worldwide political order however the very foundations of Christian morality. Too simply some church leaders and theologians difficulty requires peace, dialogue, and compromise with out understanding the entire scary fact about this battle. This battle shouldn’t be a battle about territories, and never only one extra native showdown between two nations at loggerheads with one another. It’s a battle about God-given human dignity and human freedom, a battle in opposition to tyranny in considered one of its worst kinds in historical past—in a type that reproduces many options of twentieth-century fascism and totalitarianism. This can be a battle by which the aggressor publicly, within the plain sight of the entire world, denies its victims the suitable to exist by claiming that they aren’t a sovereign nation and by denouncing as a “Nazi” everybody who says that she or he is a Ukrainian, or desires to be a Ukrainian and to talk Ukrainian. Thus, Russia leaves Ukrainians with no different selection however self-defense—self-defense in opposition to a neocolonial aggression with clear genocidal tendencies.
So usually at this time I really feel reminded of the phrases of prophet Jeremiah: “They’ve handled the wound of my individuals carelessly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no such thing as a peace” (Jer 6:14). This is the reason the message that I wish to convey at this time, now directed to each Christian on the earth, is the sense of urgency and a name for resilience after two years of this battle. The 2 years of this battle have taught Ukrainians to be cautious and weary of phrases—even stunning phrases. We want not simply unspecified and normal requires peace (that typically sound so low cost) however a severe dialogue about simply battle and simply peace, about the suitable to and the boundaries of self-defense, in regards to the tyrannies and ideologies of the twenty-first century, about human dignity confronting a resurging totalitarianism, and eventually about new vicious strategies of masking up politics with faith. It’s grotesque when up to date Russia is usually offered as a bulwark of religiosity and conventional values. When we could see ultimately that, with the Russian Orthodox Church being an lively ideological promoter of the battle, the very credibility of Christianity is at stake and that the flexibility to “take a look at the spirits,” based on the primary epistle of John, to discern between real non secular religion and political propaganda disguised as faith, is especially wanted?
And above all we’d like religion. The religion in Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected, the One who exhibits the way in which from struggling to ascension. This religion may give us not solely hope but in addition confidence and the power to behave. Exactly as we heard at this time from the second epistle to Corinthians: “Let gentle shine out of darkness.” And I conclude by including: Allow us to be brokers of this divine gentle—brokers of uncompromised fact and peace, peace with robust sinews and peace with justice.
EDITORIAL NOTE: This homily was initially preached on the Basilica of the Sacred Coronary heart on February 24, 2024. Fr. Avvakumov needs to thank his co-minister Fr. Andrij Hlabse, S.J. for celebrating the Byzantine Divine Liturgy on that day and for sharing his ideas and feedback on the homily.
