Easter in Ukraine

The Black Madonna of Czestochowa

Just before the joy of Easter broke upon us, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, far from Russian bombardments in Ukraine.

In an interviewed on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Nehammer said that Putin thinks he is winning the war in Ukraine despite heavy military losses and the fruitless non-stop bombing of Ukrainian cities. Putin certainly has left his mark on Ukrainian cities, and will continue to do so as long as Ukraine’s military cannot close Ukrainian air space to what can only be called urban carpet bombing.

More bombing in Bucha and Mariupol, for instance, can do little more than disturb the rubble of Putin’s carefully chosen targets.

There is not a single military man in Connecticut, from Private First Class to General, who would not tell you that whoever controls the skies in a war also controls ground offenses, however brave and resolute the resistance.

 “We have to confront him [Putin] with that, what we have seen in Ukraine,” said Nehammer.

What the entire world has seen in Ukraine are corpses. According to an Associated Press (AP) report, Nehammer “also said he confronted Putin with what he saw during a visit to the Kyiv suburb of Bucha, where more than 350 bodies have been found along with evidence of killings and torture under Russian occupation, and ‘it was not a friendly conversation.’"

A noble Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s terror regime is lost on Putin, who calculates that nobility, honor and patriotism can be sufficiently answered by more frequent remote bombing and deadly trip wire devices placed after strategic withdrawals in refrigerators, the trunks of cars and under corpses his troops have left behind in Bucha and Mariupol.

“In the Kyiv region,” The AP reported, “authorities have reported finding the bodies of more than 900 civilians, most shot dead, since Russian troops retreated two weeks ago.”

President Joe Biden and other Democrats continue to tout the efficacy of sanctions, much appreciated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. But both Presidents know that sanctions are neither offensive nor defensive weapons of a kind Ukraine needs to prevent a successful Russian invasion of Mariupol, for weeks Putin’s terrorist playground. Should Mariupol fall to Russia, Putin will be able to construct a land bridge from Russia to Crimea, surrendered to Russia during the administration of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden without so much as a whimper.

Even U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal believes Ukraine may not be able to survive Putin’s latest attentions unless the United States is willing to supply the country with air power that will allow Ukraine to recover its Russian occupied skies.

Newly returned from Poland, Blumenthal recently told New Britain Polish-American and Ukrainian American leaders, “If I have one plea to the president of the United States, it is provide more air defense to the people and the brave freedom fighters of Ukraine. The anguish and grief in their eyes is heartbreaking and harrowing. It was one of the most moving moments of my life to talk with them - we spent the whole day at the border crossing where just hours before the Russians bombed the town just 12 miles away.”

There are many Ukrainian churches in Connecticut. Two weeks before Easter, my wife Andree and I visited a Ukrainian church in Hartford and after mass had a brief talk with a priest who hails from Lviv, a city in Ukraine that has not yet been entirely rubblized by Putin, whom the priest likely regards, somewhat charitably, as the Judas of Christian Orthodoxy.

Diplomacy is fine, but it has not saved a single Ukrainian life, we were given to understand. Ukrainians are hopeful believers in the promises of God.

We spent Easter – Holy Saturday actually – in a church in Vernon my wife sometimes calls “the Polish church.” There the choir seems to call us from Heaven itself, and a representation of Poland's most well-known icon, the Black Madonna of Czestochowa, hangs just to the left of Christ on the cross.

When Mary, here portrayed sorrowfully near the cross, presented Jesus in the temple, she was told that, however joyful the moment, a sword one day would pierce her heart.

Simon clasped Jesus in his arms and, recognizing his divinity, said “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”

And then Simon, turning to Mary, said, “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” 

There are forebodings of despair everywhere in the testimony of the Apostles and the Fathers of the Christian Church. Over and against them all, my Ukrainian priest reminded us, stands the towering promises of God that we Christians celebrate at Easter.

Christ meets Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb and asks, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?”

Supposing Him to be the gardener, she pleads, “Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have laid Him, and I will take Him away.”

Jesus said to her, “Mary!”

She then recognizes Him.

“Rabboni!”

“Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’ Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken these things to her.”

Later, the first word the risen Christ brings to his disciples, cowering as usual in fear, is “Peace be with you.”

But His is not peace “as the world knows peace. These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation.  But be of good cheer -- I have overcome the world.”

A sword cleaves my priest’s heart. In Ukraine, the streets flow with blood and tears. My Ukrainians, the priest tells us, forget nothing, remember everything, and live in hope.