Bohdan Luhovyi, 26, and Ihor Bazan, 24, are two of eight Ukrainian students in training at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross. They tell us about their pain and hope about the war in Ukraine. They are seminarians at the Basilian College of St. Josaphat, a Greek Catholic saint. They belong to the Greek Catholic Church.
It is a sad time for everybody. In Europe, we were expecting a spring without sanitary emergency, masks, social distance. We had hoped for a new season, of joy and peace, but we found something horrifying that we would never have imagined could happen again in Europe: a war. And a cruel war, without mercy, on the eastern fringe of our own continent.
Images of refugees displaced for thousands of kilometers with their few belongings; children crying; bombs destroying ancient and modern palaces, houses, cars, life. And the snow that covers the land is wounded with burned houses, trees, lives and hopes.
And that is why today, in the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross and all over the world we are praying. And more: being Ash Wednesday, the university community has decided to respond to the call of Pope Francis and adhere to the Fasting Day for Peace.
During the 12:45 p.m. Holy Mass in the Basilica of St. Apollinaris - a Mass to which students, faculty and staff were invited - prayers were said in particular for peace in Ukraine, in union with the whole Church.
And with us have been two special guests, Bohdan Luhovyi, 26, born in Bolekhiv and Ihor Bazan, 24, born in Ternopil. They tell us what is happening in their country.
I have to admit that it is very shocking for me to meet you... You are both very young, like many of your friends who are in Ukraine fighting this absurd war. You are here studying at the Faculty of Institutional Communication and right now you are involved in another battle, that of communication, since this is a war also of communication and you, for the first time in Rome, are "communicators" of a situation in which the Church is particularly involved in helping the Ukrainian population.
Bohdan: That's right, and we belong to two different dioceses of the Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine. I was born in the city of Bolekhiv, in the western part of Ukraine, but after school I studied for six years in the seminary in Kiev. When I graduated, I was working and living for one year in Kiev, between 2021 and 2022. Now, then, I belong to the Archieparchy of Kiev and, after my studies here in Rome, at the Faculty of Communication, I will return to my Archieparchy.
Ihor: I was born in Ternopil, also in western Ukraine, and I belong to the Archieparchy of Lviv. I have been in Rome for six months, studying, and I have to tell you that right now everything is very difficult... I did not run away from the war. But still, my thoughts are with Ukraine and with my friends who are fighting. I feel anxious for my home, my people and my country. I bow my head and my knees before God..
For my part, being here, all I can do is pray, tell them the truth about the situation in the country and look for opportunities to support materially and financially the people who are suffering, the fugitives, the victims, their families. Now I have joined the work of a group of volunteers, here in Rome, and I communicate daily with Ukrainian teenagers who are suffering from the war, giving them psychological support, telling them stories that help them not to think too much about the war, how to act in different situations and keep calm.
I know that faith is helping you a lot at this time.....
Bohdan: Yes, and thank God it is something that has been with me since childhood. When I was a child, my parents discovered my faith in God and my desire to go to church. From an early age I went to church, attended liturgical services and also served at the altar for six years. Therefore, after graduating from high school, I decided to study to be a priest at the seminary of the Greek Catholic Church of Ukraine.
Ihor: I was also born into a family where Christian values are paramount, so I went to church from an early age. Even in my early childhood, I was very interested in religion.. I have to say that my great-grandmother played the most important role in that.. I loved to talk to her and listen to her. She told me about Ukrainian traditions, the Second World War, sang me songs and taught me many poems. I loved her very much.
I often told him about my plans and what was going on in my life. She passed away three years ago. I wanted to preserve my memory of her, so I wrote a book about my great-grandmother. There I collected our common stories, stories of the wartime and her daily life, and much more.
However, as I grew older, I no longer thought of becoming a priest. I didn't even mention it anymore. I started studying at the Faculty of Journalism and then I worked as an announcer in a Christian radio station. It was there that I began to study the subject of religion in a different way. I started to read the Bible, I studied the details of the liturgy, the rites and more: it was a time when I reflected on why I believe in God.
And being here in Rome is a dream, a unique opportunity that I took advantage of. I remember praying a few years ago to come to Rome, to learn a lot, to be formed here and to gain new experiences that will be the basis of my future and present life.
A colleague specializing in Russian and Ukrainian languages, cultures and politics at Holy Cross has explained some of the issues of the war and the reasons for the conflict. What do you think about it?
Bohdan: In my opinion, Ukraine is far away from Russia in terms of mentality and values, but close geographically, so Ukraine has often suffered violence from different Russian regimes.
Our values in Ukraine are freedom, democracy, equality, value and dignity of human life.The Russian people have been known for their hard work and love for their homeland. In Russia, however, these concepts are very vague and throughout its history have been taken advantage of by neighboring nations.
Moreover, the fact of being ruled by an absolute monarch, makes the Russian people identify very much with the figure of an autocrat, who can be the tsar as well as the current president. In other words, they have lived under dictatorship all their existence.
This is also why in Russia propaganda works so well in the field of information, which distorts the truth so much, so the vast majority of the population only sees lies on television and does not interfere in the actions of their leaders.
Although we are seeing that these days many people in Russia are taking to the streets to demonstrate against the war, and at great danger. There have been thousands of arrests of peaceful demonstrators opposing the invasion.
Bohdan: Yes, the Russians and the whole world are coming together against this global terrorist mentality.
Russia, in fact, had already attacked Ukraine in 2014 because of its imperialist ambitions, culminating in the annexation of Crimea. It seems that its goal is the restoration of the Soviet Union and the establishment of its empire in Eastern Europe. This, then, is something that is now happening with Ukraine and is going to happen with other countries.
Ihor: I agree with what Bohdan said about manipulation of the masses. There has always been in Russia this form of manipulation both in front of Russians and the whole world. Sometimes it is successful. Now, fortunately, the Russians and the whole world have found out what is going on and the killings that are taking place.
Russia has used powerful propaganda in Ukraine. Most Ukrainians have been living on this propaganda for a long time. The Russian government says that we are not a nation, that a separate state of Ukraine does not exist and never existed. However, six days ago, when the war started, all Ukrainians and the whole world could see that this is not the case.
Russian governments have been promoting the Russian language in Ukraine for a long time. That's why all Ukrainians understand Russian. For example, I have never studied it, but I understand it well and speak it fluently.Why? Because I heard it on TV since I was a child.
There was almost no Ukrainian language on TV. Russian was also spoken on the radio, Russian music was played. Our language was not considered and for us this was terrible.
Ihor Bazan is 24 years old, a seminarian of the Greek Catholic Church and is studying Institutional Communication at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.
"I've been in Rome for six months now, studying, and I have to tell you that right now everything is very difficult. I didn't run away from the war. But still, my thoughts are with Ukraine and with my friends who are fighting. I feel anxious for my home, my people and my country. I bow my head and knees before God.
He explains that the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has played a very important role in the preservation and development of their culture, faith and thought of the Slavic peoples since the beginning of Christianity.
And we are also seeing that there is a difference between the east and the west of the country....
Ihor: That's right. The west of Ukraine is more pro-Ukrainian, i.e. more aware of its own national identity, while the east is the opposite. This problem goes back to the tragedy of the Holodomor.
For our readers who do not know it, we explain that the Holodomor (Гололодомор in Ukrainian and Russian) has been one of the great genocides of the 20th century.
Even if the number of victims is counted, it could have been the largest, since, between 1932 and 1933, it caused the death of millions of people. The term derives from the Ukrainian expression moryty holodom (Морити голодом), which combines the Ukrainian words holod (hunger, famine) and moryty (to kill, to starve, to exhaust), and the combination of the two words emphasizes the intention to cause starvation on the part of someone.
In the second half of the 1920s, Stalin decided to initiate a process of radical transformation of the economic and social structure of the Soviet state, with the aim of founding a fully regulated economy and society.
Ukraine, together with the southern Russian territories on the Black Sea, after World War I, however, had confirmed its agricultural vocation. In fact, it was considered the breadbasket of the Soviet Union. And yet, according to the regime's plan, the wealth produced by agriculture was to be reinvested entirely in industry, the new engine of the planned economy.
Therefore, Stalin ordered that the land be unified into agricultural cooperatives (Koljoz) or in state-owned companies (Sovjoz), who were obliged to deliver the products at the price fixed by the state. For the process to be fully carried out, the land and all production had to pass under the control of the state.
With Ukraine having a long tradition of individually owned farms, small agricultural entrepreneurs (kulaks) constituted the most independent component of the local social and economic fabric and, together with their peasants, did not want to submit to Stalin's imposition.
The dictator ordered, with a very coercive and violent action, the "collectivization" and "collectivization" of the company.deskulakizationThe "land grab" of the Ukraine and other regions of the Soviet Union, through the end of private property and the physical elimination or deportation (to Siberia and the Arctic regions) of millions of small peasants.
These extreme measures were taken during the "Second Revolution" or "Stalin Revolution" between 1927-1928. Then, in the years 1932-1933, government measures were implemented to bring the surviving population to its knees by means of a "programmed" famine that ravaged the affected territories in the same period.
In fact, and these phrases give goose bumps if we think about it today in the face of some of Putin's statements, Stalin said several times: "Ukraine is today the main question, being the Party, and the State itself and its organs of the political police of the republic, infested by nationalist agents and by Polish spies. So we run the risk 'of losing Ukraine', a Ukraine which, on the contrary, it is necessary to transform into a Bolshevik fortress".
"To eliminate the kulaks as a class, the policy of limiting and eliminating individual groups from kulaks...] it is necessary to break the resistance of this class with an open struggle and strip it of the economic sources of its existence and development".
All of this is described very well in a Canadian film titled "Bitter harvest" from 2017.
Ihor: That's right, the Holodomor killed about 8 million Ukrainians, who starved to death during the Stalinist regime. This was in eastern Ukraine. After this great tragedy, Russia moved "ethnic" Russians to this part of Ukraine to replace the millions of starving Ukrainians.
This is typical of revolutionary, socialist, communist regimes. It was also done by the French revolutionaries in Vanda, by the Soviets in Moldavia and Georgia (see the issues of Transistria and Abkhazia) and in Kazakhstan, by the Yugoslavs, with Tito, in Istria...
Ihor: Yes, a tragedy. And after that, the period of global Russification began. To this day, this problem has affected Ukraine. Therefore, I can say that the propaganda of Russia worked, which in this sense is the most powerful country in the world. Russia is attacking Ukraine because Putin has said that he wants to regain the Soviet empire, but that will never happen. We Ukrainians know well how to live in a totalitarian dictatorial regime. Putin's regime is no different from that of Stalin.
We can see this in the news today. We see the Russian army killing children, bombing schools and hospitals, burning factories and nuclear power plants. This is inhuman, this is a crime against humanity. This is the 21st century and in Europe: it can't happen anymore!
I am sure that Ukrainians will not be able to accept it: we do not want to live in a country that only invades and does not develop. Ukrainians' goals are the opposite of Putin's goals.
I don't think other people fully understand this, because they have never lived under this type of mentality.
But it is not fair that Ukraine always has to suffer, so we ask for special help.. We want to live our lives as Europeans, without the wars of conquest of foreign territories and massacres of other peoples for political ambitions. We want to be free. And we ask the world to free us from this darkness.
"The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has always been a bulwark of our identity. That is why the Russian and Soviet authorities have been destroying it for many years."
It is a very strong testimony, heartbreaking words, especially thinking that your friends and families are there at this moment, in Ukraine. Can you tell us more about it?
Bohdan: I spent a long time living and studying in Kiev, although I am from another region, and I can say that this city has become my home. There are very friendly and hospitable people. I have many acquaintances and friends from there. So now, in these times of war, I call them very often and write to them to know if everything is all right and I am very worried about their safety and life. The Russian army is now killing civilians and, as you are hearing, is trying to break into our big cities and overthrow the democratic government, putting their puppets in their place.
Ihor: I am from Lvov, my city is in the west of the country. In Ukraine, Lviv is known as the most patriotic city. This city is the most developed cultural center of the country, the one that best keeps tradition and faith.
Thank God, for now my family is safe. There have been no bombs in Lviv since the beginning of this war. But they are worried. Everyone has psychological stress.
And speaking of faith, how important is your Church, the Greek Catholic Church (which is in communion with the Pope and Rome) in the history of Ukraine and what is its role in the country?
Bohdan: The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has played a very important role in the preservation and development of our culture, of the faith and thought of the Slavic peoples since the beginning of Christianity in Kievan Rus'.
Our Church has always been and remains independent of political authorities. In contrast, the Russian Orthodox Church has a strong connection with the president, which sometimes results in censorship of the preaching of the Word of God.
During the persecution of our Church by the communist regime, people prayed underground or in the houses, in secret. Priests and bishops were ordained in secret because the communist authorities sent bishops and priests of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church to Siberia or shot them. The Soviet Union, and now its successor the Russian government, also see our Church as a threat to their dictatorship.
We have seen something similar also in Romania during the Ceaucescu regime, when the Romanian Greek-Catholic Church was the most persecuted by state communism, representing a real threat to the identity and specificity of the people.
Ihor: Yes, in fact the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has always been a bulwark of our identity. That is why the Russian and Soviet authorities have been destroying it for many years.
As Bohdan said, for a long time the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church remained in hiding during the Soviet regime. Priests of our Church were imprisoned, tortured and killed for recognizing Ukraine as a specific identity and being part of the Greek Rite Catholic Church.
How can we, and I am referring in particular to readers in Europe and Latin America, help the Ukrainian people in any way?
Bohdan: First of all with prayer, because only God can defeat this evil of war. In addition, if possible, readers can help through the Apostolic Exarchate in Italy, which has a bank account on its Facebook page where it is possible to transfer funds. Even in our parishes in Europe and around the world we collect food and other things and send them in trucks to Poland, and from there to Ukraine.
Thanks to each of you, and especially to CARF - Centro Academico Romano Foundation, for joining us and our people in different ways!
Ihor: The most significant help that can come from abroad is public demonstrations, prayer and financial assistance, when possible. Humanitarian aid is also being collected in many countries.
For example, here in Rome, it is already being done since the first day of the war. Many Italians and Ukrainians in Italy are supporting, also through sending or personally delivering, here in Rome, humanitarian aid to the Ukrainian Cathedral of St. Sophia. I myself am a volunteer there. I help sorting goods and other things, and we also load trucks delivering humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
To you, friends of Spain and Latin America, I sincerely ask you to pray for an end to the violence in Central Europe forever. Together we will stop the enemy of the world.
No to war in Ukraine! No to war!
Thank you very much to Bohdan and Ihor for their strong testimony. We conclude by telling our readers in Spain that they can also help through Caritas and Aid to the Church in Need.
For our part, here at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, we can only, thanks to the work of our benefactorsWe are committed to continue doing what we do, which is to educate our students from all over the world about the value of peace and dialogue.
Ours is a small universe, because here, crossing young people from all over the world, we feel a little more the problems and the needs of each one of them who tell us their stories.
And thanks to the tools and studies provided to them, we try to make them not only capable of communicating to avoid conflicts and wars like the one we are seeing now, but also to be able to rebuild humanly and spiritually the future of those countries destroyed by violence and fights among human beings.
Bohdan Luhovyi, 26, was born in the city of Bolekhiv. "Our values in Ukraine are freedom, democracy, equality, value and dignity of human life, hard work and love for the homeland. In Russia, however, these concepts are very vague and throughout its history they have taken advantage of neighboring nations," he explains.
Gerardo Ferrara
BA in History and Political Science, specializing in the Middle East.
Responsible for the student body
University of the Holy Cross in Rome
