Aid to the Church in Need Pilgrimage to Ukraine
Greek Catholic seminarians from the Holy Spirit Seminary process through the streets of Lviv, Ukraine
5 September 2011 – 13 September 2011
Following the huge success of our two overseas pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela and the Holy Land in 2010, we were delighted to undertake a pilgrimage to Ukraine in late summer 2011.
Ukraine is a key priority for Aid to the Church in Need as its once-suffocated Church continues to recover from communist persecution. Pilgrims were able to visit vital projects and meet the people they are helping, as well as taking in the important holy sites of a land at the frontier between Christianity in the East and the West.
Pilgrimage Report
Friends and benefactors of Aid to the Church in Need have been to Ukraine to see for themselves how – with the charity's help – the Church has revived after experiencing some of the worst persecution of the 20th century.
Aid to the Church in Need's UK director Neville Kyrke-Smith, with chaplain Father Martin Edwards, led 25 people on a pilgrimage round some of the most important symbols of Catholicism in western Ukraine.
In the first trip of its kind, the pilgrims visited cathedrals, monasteries, convents, seminaries and other church communities in the capital Kiev, Lviv, Hoshiv and Ivano-Frankivsk.
Highlights of the 10-day trip included a service in Hoshiv's Monastery Church of the Transfiguration, visits to the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev and the Univ Studite Holy Assumption monastery.
The trip, which the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church helped to organise, included a visit to the UGCC's Holy Spirit Seminary in Lviv and two other seminaries in the region.
Seminarians singing for pilgrims at the Holy Spirit Ukrainian Greek Catholic Seminary in Lviv, Ukraine
As the pilgrims toured the area, they learned how Aid to the Church in Need prioritised help for Ukraine after the charity's late founder, Father Werenfried van Straaten, made secret visits behind the Iron Curtain which separated Soviet-dominated countries from the West.
Father Werenfried began to discover how hundreds of thousands of Eastern-rite Catholics in and around Ukraine were transported to Siberia's notorious Gulag labour camps, how many others were killed and how Church buildings were confiscated or destroyed with a major propaganda campaign against the Church.
As the Church began to recover after the demise of the USSR in 1991, Aid to the Church in Need helped train seminarians, provide Mass stipends for priests, support religious Sisters, build churches and provide Child's Bibles and other catechetical materials, as well as vehicles and other forms of transport for clergy ministering in remote areas.
In the years since 1991, the Church in Ukraine has recovered fast and the UK pilgrims learned that there were more than 1,000 men receiving formation in seminaries and religious houses.
In Ukraine there are now more than 2,000 priests and at least 3,500 churches and chapels.
During the pilgrimage, leading clergy thanked Aid to the Church in Need for its help stretching back decades.
At a Mass in the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Lviv, Latin-rite Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki of Lviv, told the assembled benefactors: "Thank you to all the staff and benefactors of Aid to the Church in Need. We assure you of our daily prayers."
And in a message, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kiev-Halych wrote: "For years, you have seen Ukraine and the people of Ukraine with your hearts – through your support of the rebirth and renewal of the persecuted Church.
"Today we welcome you and invite you to see with your eyes the witness of the resurrection of the Church in Ukraine."
Pilgrims being blessed with a holy relic
On returning to the UK, director Neville Kyrke-Smith described how one pilgrim on the trip had described being "amazed at seeing the Church, like a phoenix, rising from the ashes".
He recalled how a young priest from the monastery in Hoshiv said: "There are 12 monks here and our average age is 33...Thank you for helping to rebuild the monastery after the Soviets tore it down... and for training me."
Thanking Catholic tour company Pax Travel for helping to organise the trip, he added: "It was at times a tiring and demanding pilgrimage but spiritually it was very fruitful and immensely encouraging.
"Not only did the pilgrims gain a lot from it but it helped people in Ukraine to see the faces of those from Aid to the Church in Need who have stood by them in times of oppression and persecution."
And Lorraine McMahon, the charity's head of operations in Scotland, said: "It was a privilege to both represent and accompany Scottish benefactors visiting Ukraine – a country where the persecution and suffering of its people has now given way to a new start for the Church and its people.
"It was a moving experience to witness the strength of faith and a delight to see how benefactors had helped restore churches, fund seminaries and give the people of Ukraine hope for the future."
Portia Borrett, the charity's senior manager, who organised the Ukraine trip, said that she looked forward to welcoming friends and benefactors on the next Aid to the Church in Need pilgrimage – to the Holy Land in late 2012.