Ukrainian priest on Russia’s war and stained glass by Ukrainian Canadian

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It was a military chaplain from the Royal Canadian Air Force who first told Ihor Shved, a priest from a small town west of Lviv, Ukraine, that the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in Winnipeg was looking for a new priest.

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“I said I’d try,” Shved said. So he moved here with his young family after an exploratory visit in 2016.

It was then that he saw for the first time the stunning stained glass works by the famous Winnipeg-based Ukrainian-Canadian sculptor and glass artist Leo Mol, including the nativity scene depicted. Facing south into the sunlight, it illuminates the Cathedral of St. Vladimir and Olga, named for the ruler and her grandson, who are collectively credited with bringing Christianity to Kievan Rus’, which began in the 10th century in Kyiv centered empire. Priests in this Eastern or Byzantine tradition, so named for the Eastern Roman Empire, whose capital Constantinople or Byzantium existed much longer than the Western capital of Rome itself, are not permitted to marry after their ordination, but married men may be ordained as priests. Shved has a son, 19, and a daughter, 17.

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The National Post traditionally celebrates Christmas with a stained glass window chosen from the wide variety of stained glass art found in Canadian churches. Over the years there has been an Inuit nativity scene with Mary and Joseph in parkas and the baby in a caribou skin; a Rocky Mountain and Prairie scene with the baby lying on wheat and watched over by elk and deer on the Bow River; and one entirely reconstructed from shards of windows from European churches destroyed by the war.

Never before has it been so spiritually close to an active gunnery war or humanitarian catastrophe that has sparked a charity drive as large as that of Father Ihor and his parishioners, including many of the 12,000 Ukrainians who came to Manitoba this year.

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One woman, a single young mother, stands out in Shved’s memory because she seems comforted in investing her time and effort in helping newly arrived people.

“It helps them when they feel useful,” he said. “It’s something that challenges us, but something that renews our community.”

The result is that his cathedral is even more alive than he found it, with a daily service filled with Ukrainian Catholics praying the rite of their homeland while charitably supporting it from afar and forging new charitable alliances with other faith traditions, including especially the Anglican.

This is the paradox of Christmas in wartime. For Ukrainians it will be a particularly poignant one, emphasizing hope and joy despite so much sorrow and despair.

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“I believe nothing can take away our joy and we should celebrate,” said Shved.

In 2017, when Shved moved to Canada, things weren’t so close. In Ukraine, the security situation was grim but not apocalyptic. More than two years had passed since the Euromaidan revolution and the Russian invasion of Crimea, and the fighting was deadlocked and static. Open war seemed far away. He expected to return after a few years.

“Right now I have a feeling that one day I’ll go home and finish my service at the church[in Winnipeg]but who knows,” he said.

By March of that year, war was imminent and the invasion was more brutal than many had predicted. It only got worse as Ukraine assembled a shockingly effective defense. Today, Shved’s immediate family is mostly safe in their small town near the Polish border. His sister is a teacher and his brother-in-law works for the energy company. His father is too old to fight. But among the families of his former community, people were killed, captured. Many of his friends are suffering.

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“To be honest, we expected something to happen,” he said of those uncertain days before the invasion, when even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly expressed skepticism about it. “We didn’t expect it to be on a large scale, but we expected it.”

When the air raids began, he went straight to the cathedral and invited people to pray. “The next day we formed a committee and started thinking about how we can help,” he said.

It started with money, but soon a shipping container was filled with goods. He had charitable contacts to help with distribution in Ukraine. A special Christmas mailing was sent out recently.

“It means a lot to us,” he said.

In an interview, he points out that the words in the stained glass nativity scene mean “God Eternal Is Born,” a Christmas carol. He notes that Mary is turned away from Jesus as a sort of human obeisance, consistent with the Old Testament idea that you cannot see the face of God, but also that she is turning towards the people as if to say that this is for She is. a birth in a dark place, now full of light.

“It’s going to be an unusual Christmas,” he said. “My heart still beats in Ukraine.”