Report on UCU’s Activities during the War: Month 2

From February 24 to April 24, the Ukrainian Catholic University contributed $2.37 million to Ukraine’s victory in the war with the Russian occupiers.

Two months ago Russia began a full-scale invasion of sovereign Ukraine. Another two months have passed of the full-scale war, the war that started eight years ago. Another thirty days of never-ending prayer, hard work, and struggle. Another thirty of boundless pride for Ukrainians and the UCU community. Another thirty of infinite gratitude to our friends and philanthropists worldwide – to all those helping us hold the line with their sincerity and implicit faith in our victory!

Many did not believe Ukraine would last more than a week, yet it has been two months already, two months of heroic resistance: Ukraine is proving to itself and to the world that it will win this unjust war started by Russia eight years ago.

“Never before had the world united around an issue as it has around Ukraine. Ukraine has united Europe, which has developed lots of cracks over time. North Atlantic friendship has strengthened. Surprisingly, even in Washington, Democrats and Republicans actually agree on something. In the 21st century, with the belief that there is no truth, where a dictatorship is subjective, suddenly, people give their lives for something. For values… It made the whole world think there was something worth living for. That there is something worth giving your life for. I believe it will be a transformational moment for Ukraine, Europe, and the entire world,” said Bishop Borys Gudziak, President of UCU, Archbishop-Metropolitan of the Philadelphia Archdiocese of the UGCC.

It should be noted that during the first month of the war, Ukrainian Catholic University allocated $1.18 million for volunteer and humanitarian aid during the war. In the second month of full-scale hostilities in Ukraine, the university contributed $1.19 million to charity.

Read also: Report on UCU’s activities during the war: $1.18 million – the university’s contribution to Ukraine’s victory during the first month

Humanitarian Front

From March 24 to April 24, the UCU Volunteer Center, with a permanent team of 80 people, received and distributed aid from 5 trucks, 12 vans and five cars from Ukraine, France, Poland, Romania and even Australia! We received 50 pallets of food from the Austrian retailer Kastner Gruppe. Also, with the help of Meest Express, we received humanitarian aid from the United States and Canada.

The UCU Volunteer Center processed 230 requests from the military, volunteers, hospitals and civilians in need. We have sent more than 30 tons of aid to more than 40 settlements, including Kyiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv, Mariupol, Donetsk, Luhansk, Okhtyrka, Odessa, Zaporizhia, Vinnytsia, Cherkasy, Dnipro, Volnovakha, Rubizhne, Zhytomyr and others. 

In addition, 2,200 sets of thermal underwear, 3,000 balaclavas and 1,500 bandages (buffs) were ordered, which now keep our defenders warm.

UCU students are implementing a unique project to produce thermal batteries for the military in partnership with the Lviv Candle Manufactory. These thermal accumulators help serve our protectors as body warmers and light sources. Since the start of the project, students have made and transferred 6685 thermal accumulators. Their production took 1.2 tons of paraffin.

During the war, the “United Ukraine” organization, which has been operating at the Ukrainian Catholic University since 2016 and is known for its cultural and educational projects (e.g. “Theater to the East”, “Rejoice Together”), reformatted its work on humanitarian aid. UCU graduates, who are the coordinators of this initiative, in cooperation with Lviv entrepreneurs and volunteer centers, have independently delivered 5 aid trucks to Kyiv and Kharkiv: protective equipment, hygiene products, food, medicines, and things for children.

The student organization TeploDiya, whose mission is to take care of the homeless, prepares and distributes food for about 80 people in need in the center of Lviv every Monday. TeploDiya also held the Easter Feast initiative and organized a Sunday Easter breakfast for 55 residents of the UCU shelter in Khutorivka.

Active volunteering and other student initiatives at UCU continue. During the second month of the war, students wove 4 camouflage nets, wrote more than 300 letters of support to the military, baked 165 kg of pastries, and conducted workshops for children forced to leave their homes because of the war.

UCU also actively cooperates with the “Ukrainian Educational Platform” charitable organization providing protection and security equipment. Notably, during this month, in cooperation with the Ukrainian Educational Platform and the Center for Volunteerism and Protection, we provided food supplies to liberated cities and those on the front line.

Many students and university staff are involved in other humanitarian initiatives outside of UCU. In particular, working at the Lviv Volunteer Kitchen; assisting children of migrants in shelters, schools and institutions for children with disabilities; volunteering in geriatric boarding houses and shelters. About 60 students are involved in initiatives in their communities outside Lviv.

“UCU students are actively involved in volunteering during the war. We launched a flashmob, “Step by Step to Victory”, on social networks, where they can share stories of volunteering and tell about their projects and initiatives. Each of these cases is not only inspiring but also is another small step towards our common victory. In addition, this initiative aims to show the geography of volunteer activities, the scope of our students’ involvement, and how we can help them or simply be there,” said Orest Tsebenko, coordinator of the “Volunteer Laboratory” of the Dean’s Office of Student Life.

“I am volunteering because people are what matters the most,” says Khrystyna, a third-year student in the Sociology program. “I give food to people at the platforms and support them as much as possible. Helping someone means helping yourself to live through this pain.”

You can read more about our students’ volunteering here: http://surl.li/bwhho

More stories “Step by Step to Victory” https://ucu.edu.ua/en/cat/moving-to-victory/

Medical Front

The Center for Volunteering and Protection and the “Wings of Hope” Charitable Foundation continue to be key partners of Ukrainian Catholic University in providing medical and tactical goods to both military and civilians throughout Ukraine. In cooperation with these organizations, from March 24 to April 24,  the center managed to provide vital medical supplies and equipment to hospitals and medical units amounting to 839,900 USD in cities such as Dnipro, Lviv Truskavets, Odesa, Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Kropyvnytskyi, Zaporizhia, Kharkiv and others.

In particular, the center purchased 8 V.A.K. devices and containers for vacuum wound therapy and tactical medicine: 3,000 compression bandages, 18,780 hemostatic compression bandages, 4,450 tactical turnstiles, and 4,645 first aid kits.

About 3 tons of medical supplies were delivered to Ukraine thanks to the international organization “Rotary International” and representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora in Australia, with the assistance of Qantas. Essential items such as turnstiles, Israeli bandages, hemostatics, surgical instruments, etc., also came with this consignment.

Together with the “ZDOROVI” agency, 35 medical monitors were received from the Philips Charitable Foundation and donated to hospitals in different regions of Ukraine. We transferred more than 350 walkie-talkies to the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine. 

In cooperation with the University of Eichstätt, the UCU Volunteer Hundred managed to purchase a large amount of insulin (250 liters) for migrants in the Lviv region and other regions of Ukraine. In cooperation with Caritas Ukraine, Support International, the parish of St. Volodymyr in Munich, and air carriers, private volunteers in Poland provided insulin free of charge while maintaining the temperature regime at the disposal of the Medical Department of the Lviv Military Administration. 

Upon individual requests, the UCU Student Volunteer Center formed and sent 915 boxes of vital medical supplies, 20 wheelchairs, more than 270 individual IFAK first aid kits, 1,338 turnstiles and 622 hemostatic bandages. Among the recipients were NGO “Hospitallers”, Shalimov’s National Institute, hospitals in Kryvyi Rih, Vyshgorod, Kharkiv, Dnipro, children’s dispensary and regional medical center in Chernihiv, Mykolayiv maternity hospital etc. 

In cooperation with volunteers of the project “3D Printing for Ukraine”, a volunteer group of UCU students, graduates, and teachers of the Faculty of Applied Sciences organized the production of quality turnstiles using 3D printers. They were tested by foreign experts and Ukrainian soldiers in the field and received positive feedback. Volunteers are now working on scaling the production. 

Ukrainian Catholic University is open to cooperation and assistance to teams that were forced to evacuate from the war zone and need space to continue their activities and cooperate with those organizations that came to help Ukrainians during the war. Thus, international teams of medical specialists Rubicon and SMART Medical Aid, including teams of the All-Ukrainian Resuscitation Council and Rapid Aid Liaison Group, started their work on the university premises. 

Training sessions on providing home medical care were held for students from UCU and two other higher education institutions in Lviv. Certified instructors of the All-Ukrainian Resuscitation Council and teachers of the Faculty of Health Sciences of UCU were involved in the training. 

UCU has organized a 2-week training course for volunteers – physiotherapists, and occupational therapists, who will later be able to work in the Ministry of Health and military hospitals in Lviv, which will take an active part in the rehabilitation of wounded military and civilians across Ukraine. 70 volunteers have been trained already. 

“We initiated this training because we are well aware that there will be great demand for volunteer help from physical therapists and occupational therapists. There is already significant demand for specialists who must be ready to work hard physically and morally. We rely on our specialists and will make every effort to give them the maximum quality knowledge,” says Oleh Bilyansky, Head of the Master’s Program in Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy at UCU. 

These initiatives were implemented thanks to the established cooperation with the Stepan Gzhytskyi Lviv National University of Veterinary Medicine and Biotechnologies and Ivan Bobersky Lviv State Physical Culture University. 

Media Front

During the second month of the war, Ukrainian Catholic University issued two statements to the world community about Russia’s aggression against our country and 43 news articles about the current situation in Ukraine in English. We actively communicate and share materials about the war in Ukraine with our donors, academic partners, and friends worldwide, calling on them to support Ukraine – Stand with Ukraine!

The university actively works on the website https://warinua.ucu.edu.ua/ launched during the first days of the war. It is where videos, materials, and articles in English about the war in Ukraine are published. UCU teachers and staff continue to be actively published in various media. In particular, during the second month of the war, various materials were published in such media as CNN (Bishop Borys Gudziak, Myroslav Marynovych), Time (Yaroslav Hrytsak), The Economist (Fr. Andriy Zelinsky), The Pillar (Anatoliy Babynsky), “Zbruch” (Anastasia Shiroka, Oleksandr Zaitsev, Roman Kechur, Yaroslav Prytula, Myroslav Marynovych), “Your City” (Yuri Pidlisny, Fr. Mykhailo Dymyd, Yaroslav Hrytsak, Maxim Timo), “Zaxid.net” (Anna Turchynovska), “Novoe Vremya” (Sofia Opatska, Yaroslav Hrytsak, Myroslav Marynovych, Bishop Borys Gudziak), “The Ukrainians” (Oleg Romanchuk). UCU spokespersons can also be seen on national TV channels, i.e. Hromadske, Priamyi, Espreso, and others.

“Today, freedom of speech in Russia is trampled, and the scale of lies is outrageous. In fact, now they follow the same Soviet method, reinforced by the latest communication technologies. Therefore, people cannot always see the difference between lies and truth. That is why Russian mothers are proud that their sons are dying for “the liberation of humanity from the Ukrainian fascists.” As we can see, in Russia, this totalitarian trauma of deception has not been overcome but embraced and used as a weapon. Whereas in Ukraine, compared to the communist era, freedom of speech is thriving,” said Today, Myroslav Marynovych, UCU Vice-Rector.

Together with “The Ukrainians”, Yaroslav Hrytsak launched the podcast “Answers about the War”. Hundreds of materials on current war topics, the Church, and religion were published in Ukrainian and English by the Religious Information Service of Ukraine (RISU).

International media such as CNN, Time, The Observer, The News Station, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Economist, The Pillar, Ekai, ABC 7 Chicago, Public Discourse, and the Chicago Tribune mentioned UCU’s activities during the war.

The project dedicated to collecting personal stories – “Short Stories from the Great War” – is gaining momentum. As part of the initiative, the Information Department team and volunteers collect stories of people forced to flee the war and those who now work on the homefront and help the Ukrainian army and displaced persons.

“The project “Short Stories from the Great War” is our personal front and contribution to the struggle of Ukraine. With these stories, we help spread information about the situation in Ukraine, particularly about those forced to flee or now help the front. As an academic community, we are well aware of the turning point in Ukraine’s history and the importance of preserving the eyewitnesses’ testimonies. After all, there is a lot of talk about politics, war tactics, strategy and economics, but not about ordinary people, while there are millions,” said Olena Dzhedzhora, the project’s producer and historian and UCU lecturer. 

So far, the volunteers have managed to record about 40 interviews, with 9 already published in Ukrainian and English. The project’s media partners are the media platforms The Ukrainians, Espreso.TV and Reporters, which also publish these stories. 

UCU students also work actively on their own media projects: Frontier, Parkova UCU, Politclub UCU, and Ukrainians: Identity in Dignity. 

25 new videos have been released on the official YouTube channel of the university (5.97 thousand subscribers). The UCU team continues to prepare nearly all content in Ukrainian and English. We would like to single out our efforts on the spiritual information front. Thus, Father Yuriy Shchurko, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Theology of UCU, publishes daily theological reflections on topical issues of war. During the second month of the war, 9 new videos were released on Father Yuri’s YouTube channel, and new material appeared daily on Living by the Word. 

“Without prayer and understanding of God’s Will, without immersion in the Lord and finding strength and protection in Him, all our activities for victory will be nought but the realization of our human plans and building on the sand. Therefore, let us pray to the Lord at all times and trust Him to grant us peace and long-awaited victory,” said Father Yuriy Shchurko.

Teachers of the UCU Center for Foreign Languages ​​continue to actively work on translating media materials of the University and its partners and publications for social networks. It should be noted that since the beginning of the war, such social networks of UCU as LinkedIn, Twitter, partly Facebook, and YouTube have been conducted in English. The Center for Foreign Languages ​​actively works on the daily translation of materials. 

The initiative of Maria Tytarenko, a lecturer at the UCU School of Journalism and Communications, is actively developing together with university graduates and students and volunteers, https://post-to-stop-war.in.ua/. Every week the team generates important messages and visual information about the war in Ukraine in 11 languages! 

Academic Front

The university has fully resumed the educational process. It continues to search for new educational resources and opportunities to expand the offer of training courses for its students and other Ukrainian students affected by the war.

Responding to UCU’s initiative within the UCU Open University, DePaul University provided an opportunity for more than 100 UCU students and Ukrainian universities affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine to join 42 free online courses. This training involves receiving academic credits and a certificate upon completing the course.

“We are immensely grateful to DePaul University for the unique opportunity to teach students of UCU and other Ukrainian universities,” said Dmytro Sherengovsky, UCU’s Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs and Internationalization. “This will help universities fill the gaps in the educational process caused by the war and allow students to enrich their academic experience by accessing the best educational models in the United States.”

Students of Sumy State University (one of the higher education institutions located in the zone of active hostilities and whose students cannot continue their studies at their university) have taken up the opportunity offered by UCU and joined the online courses.

In these trying times, the University of Notre Dame in Australia demonstrated its solidarity with the Ukrainian people, including students, faculty and staff of the Ukrainian Catholic University, by making a generous donation of $100,000.

The participation of the joint team of the Ukrainian Catholic University and the National University “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” in the world conference “National Model UN” in New York, USA, which took place on April 2-11, was significant for Ukraine and our university. This event went down in history as the first live participation of Ukrainian universities in the UN World Model since its founding in 1927.

“Being aware that our front is the consciousness of the world’s youth, we used every minute of our stay, every corner and every platform to talk about brutal Russian aggression. And we received significant support and a special award from the UN National Model, which had not been given to any team before. We earned gratitude for the significant and visible participation of the Ukrainian delegation,” said Halyna Protsyk, team coordinator and lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences. UCU International Academic Relations.

In cooperation with its partners, the UCU Institute of Ecumenical Studies launched an educational initiative aimed at the global youth community. The Institute holds online meetings for university communities and students worldwide, allowing UCU students to share their own experiences of the war and talk about how students abroad can help Ukrainians to survive and win. More than 700 people from 25 countries took part in these events.

A webinar organized by the International Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU) with Sofia Opatska, Vice-Rector for Strategic Development at UCU, and Volodymyr Turchynovsky, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, became an efficient platform for communicating with the international community to provide up-to-date and truthful information about the war in Ukraine.

“Crises reveal something truly human in people. We see those used to fighting each other now joining forces to help the country. Those who seemed indifferent are now actively engaged. We appeal to the Catholic educational community to support people in Ukraine and help us protect essential things. Things that are taken for granted in many countries – human dignity, freedom of speech, civil society, free market and private property,” said Sofia Opatska. She also formulated the five most common questions coming from foreigners, including academics, about the war in Ukraine. She offered answers aimed at debunking Russian myths and calling on the world community to support Ukraine.

UCU School of Public Administration held a series of online meetings with world-renowned diplomats, political analysts and experts (including Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University professor, American philosopher and political economist, Michael McFaul, US diplomat, head of the Institute for International Studies, Freeman Spogli, Professor of the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University). The UCU Institute of Leadership and Management has launched a Tactical Notebook: Raising Resources curriculum to help NGOs, charitable foundations, and other initiatives understand where and how to find resources to fight against the Russian invader and rebuild Ukraine together after securing victory.

Hospitality Front

All previously arranged UCU locations continue to receive and provide for internally displaced persons from different regions of Ukraine.

During the second month of the war, UCU Shelter on John Paul II Avenue, equipped to accommodate people with disabilities, became a temporary home for 118 people. Today, there are 162 people (volunteers, guests, internally displaced persons) on the premises of the Collegium on the campus on Stryjska Street.

Shelter coordinators arranged consultations for our guests with doctors from the “Zdorovya Poruch” (Health Nearby) clinic, the UCU Legal Clinic, and the Psychological Counseling Clinic. In UCU shelters, victims of the war receive social and psychological services, counseling, financial assistance, social adaptation, representation in the production of documents for people with disabilities who cannot cope with such a task, spiritual support etc.

In total, during the two months of the war, more than 700 IDPs from 19 regions of Ukraine and more than 75 different settlements, most of them from the war-affected areas, were housed in various UCU locations.

UCU continues to accommodate guests within its walls – representatives of organizations coming to Lviv from abroad and from other regions of Ukraine to provide various assistance during the war, volunteering and professional activities. Their representatives live on the UCU premises or use them for work. Among them are doctors and managers of the Rubicon team, journalists of National Public Radio, members of Project Hope, employees and journalists of Social TV channel, SMART Medical Aid, Kharkiv School of Architecture, “Hair for Share” – a social project helping children with cancer, British Council in Ukraine, Council of Information Strategies, Ukrainian Educational Platform, Academy of Public Broadcasting, foreign volunteers involved in humanitarian aid, etc. In total, more than 20 different organizations and 55 guests were accommodated at UCU during the second month of the war.

During the Easter holidays, UCU hosted the “Easter Together” event, organized annually by the UCU Student Brotherhood in the East or South of Ukraine. This action aims to unite people around the tradition of celebrating Easter. This year, in times of the war, it was decided to hold this event on the campus of UCU. More than half a thousand people attended “Easter Together” in two days. Among them were Ukrainians from the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine who temporarily reside at UCU locations. Anyone could join the Easter egg painting workshops, join the traditional folk entertainment and write messages for Ukrainian soldiers.

As part of the event, more than 300 Easter baskets were collected for the military of the 59th motorized infantry brigade and the logistics company of the 80th brigade. 

“The Resurrection of Christ is a celebration of the manifestation of life, which is certain to overcome death. At the Ukrainian Catholic University, we have the space to rejoice in this news together. Therefore, we need to remind ourselves of this and celebrate Easter even in such trying times, no matter how difficult it may be,” said Iryna Didych, UCU student and coordinator of “Easter Together”. 

Spiritual and Psychological Front

The Deanery of Pastoral Affairs at UCU oversees daily liturgical practices and memorial services for those who died during the war, as well as spiritual care and conversations with immigrants living in UCU shelters. Priests, sisters and seminarians of the Lviv Theological Seminary of the Holy Spirit are engaged in spiritual care. 

On April 11-14, spiritual retreats were organized for students of the Collegium in preparation for the feast of Christ’s Resurrection. On April 18-20, UCU clergyman Fr. Ihor Petsyukh conducted retreats for the entire university community and parishioners of the Church of St. Sophia – the Wisdom of God. 

During the second month of the war, the activities of UCU’s psychological “Counsel” took two major directions:

1) Counseling Services – which focuses on the psychological support of university students and guests, offering them 10 free sessions with a counseling psychologist. To date, 17 active consultants are involved in the counseling service.

2) The Advisory Crisis Service – which involved 10 managers and 64 consultants – UCU master’s students in psychology. The service activities are focused on helping adults going through a psychological crisis. 

During the second month of the war, consultants of the counseling service helped people with issues such as anxiety, panic attacks, increased fear, apathy, and family problems.

Said services are provided online and at UCU locations. Further information can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/consultingcenterucu/.

Employees of the Space of Hope Psychological Counseling Center of the UCU Institute of Mental Health also provided active counseling. Specialists conducted several training seminars on stress, stress response, psychological recovery skills, and first aid for stressful events with different audiences, including IT workers, priests, and students. They also provide crisis counseling and support to people who have survived or are experiencing traumatic or stressful events. About 100 meetings were held in various formats in two months of the war (offline, online, and over the phone). 

University psychologists conduct active educational work for a broad audience to expand their knowledge and skills of psychological self-help and adaptation to war. During the second month of the war, the UCU Faculty of Health Sciences and the Health Digest published 16 subject-related articles. In particular, there are a variety of materials that can be useful to a broad audience, including online meetings, lectures and talks on various psychological topics, interviews and articles on different media platforms.

Psychology students and teachers publish various recommendations on social networks to support psychological well-being and provide regular consultations to volunteer centers and services in Lviv, helping internally displaced persons and victims of war. They offered about 50 consultations during the war.

“I am sure we will heal the wounds of this war. We will not become a crippled generation that needs years to recover from post-traumatic stress disorder. We have both healing resources and lots of support. We will not just rebuild our country – we will revive it. We will be different, better. We will gain more depth, unity, wisdom, and humanity – the so-called post-traumatic growth that Shevchenko prophetically described: “There will be people on the land…”,” says Oleh Romanchuk, a psychotherapist and director of the UCU Institute of Mental Health and the Ukrainian Institute of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Cultural Front

Being aware of the influence of culture in forming quality social processes and the vulnerability of the cultural community during the war, UCU initiated a charity art plein air. It was attended by 11 artists forced to flee the war and temporarily move to the western part of Ukraine.

Its name has become an invitation to artists to comprehend and express today’s states, feelings, and experiences in a world that seemingly had no right to exist yesterday…

Experienced artists and students of art universities who came to Lviv from Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Mariupol, Horlivka and Volyn took part in the project.

You can view the results of their work here: www.ucuart-project.com

“Following the UCU plein air tradition, the artists have donated about a hundred of their paintings to the university. Most of these remain in the university’s collection or take their place at charity auctions. Gathered funds become great support in education for those students who need it, and this wartime plein air is no exception. It has become a powerful sign of mutual support for its participants and organizers. Today we help artists from central and eastern parts of Ukraine to express their experiences and states on the canvas by getting back to work, and they help us grow in understanding of beauty and creativity,” said Andriy. Kurochka, Head of the UCU Development Department.

The plein air was held in partnership with the NGO SaveCULTUREua.

The UCU School Theater “On Simon’s Pillars” actively continues its creative work during the war. The members of the theater group initialized the creation of the “Musical Troops”, which supports the fighting spirit in Lviv volunteer centers (video: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=775192436848590).

In cooperation with Lviv Radio, key excerpts from Clive Lewis’s “The Screwtape Letters” were recorded. Namely, texts broadcast on British radio during World War II.

The theater also recorded works by Ukrainian poets with videos of Russia’s aggression used as the background and organized the translation of these works into various languages ​​for sharing among European communities. The goal is to draw the international community’s attention to the events in Ukraine.

https://youtu.be/E0LLJLGGN_s (German)

https://youtu.be/z9x-ugtqjuE  (English)

On World Theater Day, the first play in Lviv since the beginning of the war was staged. It was based on Taras Shevchenko’s “The Great Cellar” and took place at the Klymenty Sheptytsky University Church and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which also serves as a bomb shelter. The play focuses on understanding human salvation during the struggle against the Moscow invasions. In total, 6 performances took place over the month. 

Since the beginning of April, an art laboratory based on the methodology of the Parisian school La Coq, headed by Mykola Nabok, began its work, engaging students, actors and migrants. In total, more than 30 acting master classes were organized for UCU students, staff and guests.

The university choirs “Encounter” and “Eteria” express their faith in victory and optimism by singing and accompanying the University Liturgies. In April, they recorded a series of choral videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyGMuE2tLJQ) to lend prayerful support to the university community and parishioners. 

On Easter, 2 choral concerts of hayivkas (spring songs) were held for all UCU guests and migrants to promote Ukrainian traditions.

The choirs participated in a special service during Holy Week – Jerusalem Matins, performing unique songs inherent in Ukrainian and Greek liturgical traditions to better understand and nurture our East Byzantine tradition among young people. 

Ukraine is putting up a worthy and outstanding resistance to the Russian aggressor. Today, Ukraine is opening the eyes of the Western community, including the EU and NATO, to Russia’s true nature. Ukraine is helping the world to understand that Russia should be fiercely opposed, not persuaded! Since the beginning of the war, we have lost thousands of soldiers and civilians and witnessed tragic destruction – the aggressor bet on terror, massive missile strikes, and countless bombs… Yet we persevered. We stand our ground and will fight until we are victorious.

Myroslav Marynovych, Vice-Rector for Mission and Appointment of the Ukrainian Catholic University, Human Rights Defender, Dissident

“Today, Ukraine is like a big anthill, where each of us must carry our own straw. We must recognize that we do not know how to be consolidated in peaceful times, but in the face of great trials, the Holy Spirit grants us the ability to unite around a common cause. I want to thank you all for this ability to join your soul to national resonance. We truly are one big family, and we’ve shown how much stronger Ukrainian horizontals are compared to the Russian authoritarian vertical.” 

Natalka Klymovska, Vice-Rector for Development and Communications of the Ukrainian Catholic University

“We are infinitely grateful to our benefactors for being with us in these difficult times: with all of Ukraine and Ukrainians, with the UCU community. Thank you for believing in the victory of Ukraine and supporting us! We want to assure you that every dollar you donate is a step toward Ukraine’s victory in this unjust war. We recognize current needs, record them, check them, have reliable partners, and do everything to ensure your help is as efficient as possible. You could see the reliability of UCU’s partnership during these decades of cooperation, and now we are united like never before. Only together we will win. Be with us. Stand with us. Help Ukraine!”

Our philanthropic partners during the two months of the war:

Ukrainian Catholic University Foundation (USA)
Ukrainian Catholic Education Foundation (Canada)
Philadelphia Metropolitanate of the UGCC in the United States
Catholic dioceses of Germany
“Plast” (France)
CNEWA (Canada)
Renovabis Foundation (Germany)
Porticus
UNICEF
L’Uvre d’Orient
Ginger Foundation
Omelan and Tatiana Antonovych Foundations
University of Notre Dame (Australia)
Drs Timothy and Luba Flanigan
Catholic Peace Foundation (Hamburg)
McKinsey for Children
Hundreds of philanthropists from the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe
Arseniy Yatsenyuk Foundation “Discover Ukraine”

You can keep updated using the following resources:

https://ucu.edu.ua/ 
https://warinua.ucu.edu.ua/ 
https://www.facebook.com/UkrainianCatholicUniversity/ 
https://www.instagram.com/ucu_official/ 
https://twitter.com/UCU_University 
https://www.linkedin.com/school/ukrainian-catholic-university

Read also:

Since the beginning of the war, UCU has contributed $1.18 million to Ukraine’s victory