Culture & Community | Dwight | Music | Arts & Culture | News From The Pews | Ukraine
Lucy Gellman Photos.
Blooms of cedar and myrrh filled the church, drifting up toward the vaulted ceiling. In the pews, parishioners sank to their knees, some weeping as they prayed. Near the back, two children waved tiny Ukrainian flags, the blue and yellow blocks of color soft in the light. Father Iura Godenciuc approached the altar, prepared to preach the gospel of forgiveness. Above him, a stained-glass portrait of St. Michael took it all in, his eyes ablaze as he lifted the scales of justice in one hand.
It was a day when forgiveness might have seemed difficult for parishioners at St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church at 569 George St. And also a day, as many of them later said, when the audacity to hope felt within reach.
On the eve of Lent and the fourth day of Russian bombardements of Ukraine, Godenciuc brought the gospel of Matthew to back-to-back Sunday masses at St. Michael’s, the George Street house of worship where he has ministered for 19 years. As Ukranians across Connecticut—and the globe—woke to news of friends and family journeying toward the Polish and Romanian borders, making molotov cocktails in Kiev, and taking shelter in metro stations, he comforted hundreds of parishoners with ritual and prayer.
If you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, he recited in Ukrainian as light streamed in through the stained glass windows. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
It’s a passage that feels especially timely this year, he said in an interview after the service. In the Ukrainian Catholic church, Lent begins at midnight on the final Sunday before Ash Wednesday—that's this week, for anyone who is keeping track. Each year like clockwork, he reads Matthew 6:13 through 6:21 to prepare the church for the coming days of sacrifice, including a special service for those who have passed on.
In the coming weeks, that will include not only friends and family members who have died this year and in years past, but those killed in unprovoked attacks that have shaken the Ukrainian community to its core.
Born in Romania to Ukrainian parents, Godenciuc began his work ministering to fellow Ukranians in Romania, and then came to Stamford two decades ago as a missionary priest. His work brought him to New Haven, a city that he now considers his adopted home, in 2003. Sunday, he awoke thinking of not only his church family, but also the friends and family still in Ukraine, several of whom are unsure of whether or when to leave their homes. While his brother and sister live in the United States, he has cousins still in the country, including several taking shelter in the subway stations in Kiev.
By 10:30, a crucifix glimmered oxblood red from the back of his gold vestment as approached the congregation and lifted his hands, palms facing toward the sky. From a loft at the back of the church, the choir released a flock of songbirds in Old Slavonic. In the pews, parishioners sported blue and yellow buttons that read “I’m Proud To Be Ukrainian,” flower-studded hairpins, and brightly embroidered shawls and vyshyvankas.
From just a few dozen people, attendees grew to over 100 by the end of the 80-minute service. Godenciuc focused on the Divine Liturgy, just as he has every Sunday for the past 19 years. As he called out in a low, undulating voice, the choir responded a cappella from above, their voices strong and steady as they peeled into harmonies and wove in and out of each other. Somewhere outside on George Street, a car alarm pierced the bright morning, and the choir continued to push through 80 minutes of liturgy undeterred.
Amid news reports of the continued invasion, a sort of tenderness rolled through every part of the service, from scripture and sacred song to Godenciuc’s final closing of the gold-painted royal gate that separates the altar from the apse. Gold and green thread still glowed from pennants of Jesus and the saints that stood at the front of the church. From a mosaic, a stern Virgin Mary shimmered in her red and gold robes.
As the choir began to sing again from a loft above, Godenciuc watched as a line for communion stretched to the back door. One by one, parishioners tipped their heads back, accepting drops of holy wine from disposable spoons that have become a pandemic-era rite.
Just before the end of the service, a parishioner presented him with a bouquet of roses, wishing him a happy upcoming birthday in the next week. As the choir burst into Mnohaya lita—"Many Years”—it appeared that both of them were trying not to cry.
“We thank you for your prayers,” he said just before he reached the end of the service. They were the first words of English he had spoken in over an hour. “We thank you for your support. May God bless you, and may God bless our country.”
“A Battle To Defeat Lucifer”
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro: “And that’s what we are in a battle to do, is to defeat Lucifer.”
Godenciuc, parishioners and a handful of students from New Haven’s Ukrainian School followed services with a coffee hour turned rally, speakers’ voices rattling through a hall that is attached to the church. Standing among Ukrainian flags and homemade signs that read “Stop Putin,” “Stop Russia Now!” and “Hands Off Ukraine,” local, state and federal officials pledged to support sanctions on Russia and military aid to Ukraine.
They included U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Gov. Ned Lamont, and New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker.
“Without American leadership, today Ukraine would be in much worse shape,” said Myron Melnyk, a member of the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America and the head of New Haven’s Ukrainian School who became the master of ceremonies. “And we’re confident that with the ongoing support and the assistance, Ukraine will survive.”
Drawing responses that included applause, hushed silence, and shouted audience questions, speakers jumped from sanctions on Russian oil to the National Defense Authorization Act to the expulsion of some Russian banks from SWIFT (the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication), to the fortitude of faith itself.
“Without American leadership, today Ukraine would be in much worse shape,” said Myron Melnyk.
DeLauro, herself the child of Italian immigrants, remembered growing up attending a different St. Michael’s—St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church in Wooster Square—and feeling comforted by the fierce archangel after whom the church was named. During Sunday’s Ukrainian mass, her eyes fell on a stained glass image of St. Michael in battle, brandishing a sword as he triumphed over Lucifer. She studied the shafts of light pouring through his body as she waited to receive Communion.
“And that’s what we are in a battle to do, is to defeat Lucifer,” she said. “[We are] all here, for our beloved Ukraine, praying and praying for the Ukrainian people. Like 9/11, this is an attack that is an unprovoked war of aggression on a sovereign nation. It is a violation of international law. It is an attempt to snuff out democracy.”
Blumenthal, who announced that Melnyk would be his guest at Tuesday’s State of the Union, pointed to the fact that President Vladimir Putin’s violation of human rights is not new—that “Ukranians have been fighting this war for eight years.” Calling the Russian president "a KGB thug" without a soul, he vowed that tougher sanctions on Russia, including on foreign oil, were coming as early as Sunday.
“How long do we have to wait!?” yelled someone in the audience. Near the front, a few friends murmured about renewables.
“They should be imposed right away,” Blumenthal responded.
“People are still dying right now, as we speak,” the person responded. “I just spoke to them.”
Top: Stephanie Tomaszewsky with her children, William and Melania, and Nicholas, Zoryana and Larysa Czerepacha Persano. Bottom: Parishioners close the rally with the Ukrainian national anthem.
That anxiety resonated with many of the parishioners who stayed to talk long after remarks had ended, and politicians had left the building. As her kids played in one corner of the room, Oxford resident Stephanie Tomaszewsky recalled growing up as the daughter of two immigrants from Lemkovyna, who had moved to New York in search of a better life. They found it, in Long Island and Manhattan respectively, before ultimately making their way to Connecticut.
As a kid, she attended Ukrainian school in Hartford, and went on to study under Ukrainian ballerina Roma Pryma-Bohachevsky, founder of the storied Syzokryli Ukrainian Dance Ensemble. Now a mother herself, Tomaszewsky sends her kids William and Melania to the Ukrainian School St. Michael’s runs in New Haven. Even as she spoke, Melania—named lovingly after her grandmother—giggled and skipped about in a flower crown with long, flowing bright ribbons. It added a burst of hope in the darkness.
“I think like a lot of people, I’m emotional,” Tomaszewsky said. “I just try to show my pride and let people know that we’re everywhere.”
She added that she believes the attacks on Ukraine could have been prevented with earlier intervention. An hour before, she had entered the church sporting a blue and yellow scarf that her grandmother knitted for her years ago. As she spoke, it hung around her neck like a bright pendant. The same grandmother can remember the German-Russian war of 1961, the images still vivid in her mind. “History repeats itself,” she said.
Beside her, Larysa Czerepacha Persano spoke in gentle, sweetly firm Ukrainian with her young children Nicholas and Zoryana, just as they do at home. The child of Ukrainian immigrants, Persano grew up in West Haven proud of her heritage, from lessons at Ukrainian School and at home to the folk dancing that she’s now passing on to the next generation. While her immediate family lives in the United States, she worries for her cousins, two of whom fled Kiev in the wake of attacks on their city. Another, speaking to her from Lviv, had spoken about the scale and proximity of bombardments. It had left Persano shaken.
Bethany resident Halia Lodynsky: “I call it Putin’s war."
Across the room, Bethany resident Halia Lodynsky checked in on what seemed like every friend and fellow parishioner, nodding as she listened to stories and their concerns, planting cheek kisses tenderly on her closest friends. A mother of three, the child of immigrants, and teacher at the church’s Ukrainian School, Lodynsky said that her faith has helped her get through the past several days. Her job, where she works on a unit at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital, also gives her comfort.
“I don’t really sleep,” she said in the hall, where she is more frequently referred to as Pani Halia as a term of endearment. Last night, she got the news that her cousin’s son was called for Ukrainian military service. He leaves Monday, she said, beginning to cry. In a session with her students on Saturday, she scrapped pre-existing lesson plans and drew a map on the board to explain NATO.
“They were scared,” she said of her students, who are eight and nine years old. “They know there’s a war, but they don’t really know what it’s about.”
“I call it Putin’s war,” she added, pointing to the thousands of marches in global solidarity that have sprung up, including in Russia. “No one wants this.”
The church helps her hold on to hope. Sunday morning, she fixed bright fabric flowers in her hair to symbolize the optimism with which she tries to live, even as grief and anxiety creep in. When the gathering ended in the Ukranian national anthem, she sang with every ounce of her body, just as she has for decades.
“I have big faith,” she said. “Big faith. It’s even stronger now.”
For more from the coffee hour and rally, listen to the video above. The church has a link to how to help at its website; here is a newsletter full of suggestions from historian Timothy Snyder.