With more than 100,000 Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s eastern border, parishioners of St. Constantine Ukrainian Catholic Church in Minneapolis are closely following the news, asking for prayers and staying in close contact with family members and friends in Ukraine.

Founded in 1913, the parish has 345 members from 167 registered families, said Taras Pidhayny, 43, parish treasurer. Forty-one percent were born in Ukraine, 25% have parents who emigrated from Ukraine and 9% have grandparents who emigrated, he said. The other 25% are either descendants of earlier immigrants or are non-Ukrainian.

Even with the Russian troop presence, parishioner Halyna Shymanska, 50, said she is “not too fearful” for relatives who remain in Ukraine because they live in the western part of the country. If that changes, she said, she and her husband, Oleksandr, would find a way to bring family members to the United States.

“But I still believe and pray and hope that things will not get that (bad),” she said.

Born in 1972, Shymanska lived her first 19 years as a citizen of the former Soviet Union. Without even moving from her hometown of Ternopil, she lived in the sovereign nation of Ukraine when it declared its independence in 1991. She emigrated in 2019 to the U.S. with her husband and their three children.

In 1992, Shymanska served as an interpreter for Judi Spencer, a Minnesotan who visited Ukraine as president of a humanitarian agency, when Spencer explained a diversity visa program to Shymanska’s family. Her mother applied and won the chance to emigrate, and she and her husband left Ukraine in 1997.

Later, her parents submitted Shymanska, her husband and children to an immigration program set up for married children of U.S. citizens. That’s how Shymanska’s family moved to Minnesota in 2019.

“My family … had an opportunity to experience a ‘different-than-surviving’ style of life and followed that route,” said Shymanska. “God opened that door for us and we accepted it.”

When Moscow was the capital of the USSR, she described its economy as “developed socialism,” with all banks’ money concentrated in a central bank in Moscow.

When the USSR split up in 1991, the bank kept civilians’ money, she said. “Common people lost everything.”

Her parents lost their savings. They lived through days that they weren’t sure they’d be able to buy food, she said. Inflation was so severe, “people making millions of whatever currency we had then weren’t able to afford anything but food.”

Father Ivan Shkumbatyuk, a native of Ukraine and pastor of St. Constantine in Minneapolis since 2019, also has family in western Ukraine. Father Ivan, 41, is married with two children; Ukrainian Catholic priests can marry before ordination.

Speaking through a parishioner-translator, Father Ivan said residents do not see the troops at the border as a big surprise because they know what Russia is capable of. The biggest surprise, he said, is the amount of Russian military moved to the border, which is larger than in the past.

“But life keeps going,” he said. Ukrainians were afraid in 2014 when Russia invaded the Crimean Peninsula, he said, but they got used to it and carried on with their daily lives. Ukrainians pray a lot, he said, and talk among themselves about what’s going on.

“They do listen to news, but you never know who to believe or not believe,” he said.

Asked whether he expected Russia to invade Ukraine, Father Ivan said that without discussion between Russia and Ukraine, no one knows what the other one is thinking or planning.

About three weeks ago, parishioners participated in a Zoom session at the church hall with a Ukrainian Catholic priest, a friend of Father Ivan’s who serves as a chaplain with the Ukrainian military. The chaplain told them, “They are not afraid,” Father Ivan said. “They have God on their side. They just don’t think it’ll happen. But they’re prepared, they feel the military is well prepared — more so than they were in 2014.”

Father Ivan said his relatives discuss the troop presence, but they are weary of talking about any pending invasion or war.

From the Zoom session, parishioners felt a stronger spirit of people helping each other in Ukraine, Father Ivan said. “More activity, more enthusiasm to get together, be ready for it if there’s an invasion. They feel more prepared to do what it takes.”

Asked what Catholics and others can do, Father Ivan first said “pray.” It’s also valuable to educate others about what’s happening in Ukraine, he said, and contribute financially to humanitarian efforts when possible.

“The most important part is that the truth comes out,” Father Ivan said, adding he sees any news insinuating that Ukraine is the initiator behind current tensions as propaganda.

About 10% of Ukraine’s population is Catholic, according to Pew Research data published in December 2018. Parishioners who recently spoke to The Catholic Spirit said most Catholics live in western Ukraine.

Shymanska remembers, as a child, visiting her grandparents’ village and seeing no church. Her grandfather showed her a building that was built over a destroyed church. “The Communists did that,” he told her. The church was rebuilt following Ukraine’s independence. The church built in her grandmother’s hometown was not destroyed but was locked and no one was allowed inside. It reopened after the fall of the former Soviet Union.

Her grandparents had religious icons in their home and taught her to pray, she said. But she was not supposed to disclose her beliefs at school.

The only force that could stop President Putin from invading Ukraine, Shymanska said, is “the world” — other countries and their leaders — and probably sanctions.

“Otherwise, he would be in Kyiv,” she said. “But that’s my country and I love it and I miss it. And I do not want Ukrainians to die because of some terrorists.”

She said Putin wants to invade more parts of the world but then “does not develop anything.” “They just cut a piece of pie and let it go bad,” she said. They may militarize what they take over, but never develop it economically, she said.

Parishioner Joe Kryschyshen, 69, said troops at the border are frightening because “you just never know.” Calling Putin “a master chess player” with background in the KGB, Kryschyshen said the government is good at hiding its intentions.

“Is this a bluff or is it real?” Kryschyshen said. “And for all the money they’re spending, it’s a very expensive bluff, if that’s what it is. Think about 150,000 troops to feed every day and everything that goes along with it,” he said.

“The sad thing is that Ukrainians have such a history of embracing freedom and democracy,” Kryschyshen said. Even in the days of Cossacks, he said, the Cossacks would elect their leader.

The Ukrainian Cossacks, a group known as fierce warriors, gained their independence in 1649. They were the first to use the word Ukraine to describe their territories and they remain a cultural touchstone for Ukrainians today.

Kryschyshen was born in the U.S. His mother emigrated from Germany and his father, sponsored by a professor from the University of Minnesota, immigrated to the U.S. from Ukraine after World War II.

Kryschyshen believes Putin may invade. “The last thing a guy like that wants to do is lose face,” he said. “I think he sees that the United States and China are the big boys and the Russians no longer are. And that really bothers him.”

Yet the Ukrainian people are more united today than they ever have been, Kryschyshen said. He cited a Ukrainian politician, not a supporter of its president, saying recently that “I’m with him and we’ll deal with our differences after all this is settled.”

Kryschyshen also postulates that with a new U.S. president, Angela Merkel no longer running the German government, and “some dissension in NATO,” Putin may see this as a good time to stir things up. But from what he sees and hears from others is that this may backfire, as NATO is stronger and the people in Ukraine are becoming more nationalistic than ever because of fears of what might happen.

Ivanna Klym, 46, was born in Ukraine and, with her husband, who serves in the U.S. military, found a home at St. Constantine. She especially feels at home every Thursday and Friday, when she comes to the church hall to make pyrohy, which are sold as a major parish fundraiser.

Klym said her parents live in western Ukraine and she talks with them nearly every day.

Russia is much larger than Ukraine, but people fight more strongly for their own land, Klym said. From what she hears, many Ukrainians believe “why should I leave my house? I’m going to stay there and protect it.”

“We need to pray,” Klym said. And she wants Putin to know “this is not the way we live in the 21st century.” Problems should be resolved differently than “invading countries and killing people.”

“You are rich men,” Klym said of Putin and his peers. “Enjoy your life. Go fishing. Why do you think about killing people?”

At St. Constantine, parishioners pray for peace in Ukraine and for Russian aggression to stop, Shymanska said. The evening of Feb. 16, parishioners could participate in a rosary for Ukrainian Unity Day either at the church hall or from home via Zoom.

At the end of Mass, the congregation sings a spiritual Ukrainian anthem — something that, with the massing of Russian troops, Ukrainian Catholic bishops have asked parishes to make a focus at Mass, Shymanska said.

“It’s like a prayer for Ukraine, so that it’s always remembered,” she said.

WHAT’S THE UKRAINIAN RITE?

While the Catholic Church is universal, it includes 23 self-governing churches, all in union with the pope, which are often referred to as “rites,” that include varying ritual traditions, customs and liturgies. The rite practiced by most Catholics in the U.S. is the Latin rite. St. Constantine in Minneapolis is a parish of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, which practices a Byzantine rite.

In 989, eastern Christianity took hold in Ukraine when Vladimir, prince of Kyiv, was baptized in the Christian faith. The Ukrainian Catholic Church originated with The Union of Brest in 1596, when bishops with the Church in Kyiv entered into communion with Rome. (Religious and political conflicts behind the Great Schism of 1054 resulted in the Eastern Orthodox Church of the Byzantine Empire in the east and the Roman Catholic Church of the Holy Roman Empire in the west.)

Liturgies used by Ukrainian Catholics, based on the Divine Liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great, are different from the Roman Catholic Liturgy as reformed by the Second Vatican Council. Yet Roman Catholics can attend Ukrainian Catholic services and receive the Eucharist — just be prepared to receive the Eucharist delivered by spoon into the mouth.

Another difference Roman Rite Catholics would notice is Ukrainian Catholics crossing themselves from right to left, not left to right, using the thumb and two adjacent fingers. Married Ukrainian Catholic men can be ordained as priests or deacons, but unmarried clergy may not marry.

PRAYERS FOR UKRAINE

On Feb. 12, the Ukrainian Catholic bishops of the U.S. called for a three-day prayer vigil “for peace and the conversion of the hearts of those who preach violence and escalate war.” The appeal was directed to Ukrainian Catholic faithful and “to all people of goodwill.” Among signers of the letter was Bishop Benedict Aleksiychuk of the Eparchy of St. Nicholas in Chicago, whose eparchy — similar to a diocese — includes St. Constantine in Minneapolis.

On Feb. 13, Pope Francis said the news from Ukraine is very worrying, adding, “I entrust every effort for peace to the intercession of the Virgin Mary and to the conscience of the political leaders,” then asked for silent prayer.