“As long as there are believers in the city, I will be with them. God and my faith will give me the strength to do so”, the Bishop of Kharkov-Zaporiyia (Ukraine), Bishop Pavlo Honcharuk, said to the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).
The eastern and southern parts of Ukraine is being attacked by the Russian army. Kharkov is the second-largest city in the country and is just a few kilometers from the Russian border. In recent weeks its industrial area has been the target of the bombing, leaving at least ten dead and 35 people injured. In addition, several suburban residential buildings have been damaged or destroyed.
The Bishop, who wears a helmet and a bulletproof vest over his cassock, said that the situation in the city is summed up in “shock and pain”, and that it is terrible “to see people, the elderly, the disabled, hiding in foundations”.
“I remember a girl of about five standing, petrified, in front of the dead body of a loved one in the street, unable to move. The feeling of terror, fear, and complete impotence hangs over everyone”, said Bishop Honcharuk, who in a video sent to the pontifical foundation described how one of the residential areas has been left.
“The settlement here was one of the most populated parts of Kharkiv (Kharkov), now everything is silence and destruction,” he said.
In the midst of this situation, the local Church continues to celebrate daily Mass and encourages prayer. In addition, “most days we try to reach the people in the bunkers with humanitarian aid. We load vehicles, drive through the seemingly deserted city and talk to people, comfort them,” he recounted.
On exhausting days, which go every day from nine in the morning to four in the afternoon, he carries out work that is “incredibly exhausting, physically and even more mentally due to the permanent tension”.