As Russian forces strike the city of Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine, seeking to drive further into the nation’s interior, an unusual calm prevails over one house, tucked behind a fence on a side street.
Inside, a small candle burns, suspended from the ceiling in a red votive glass – a sanctuary lamp, signaling the Heart that makes this a home for three Basilian Sisters who have chosen to stay with those they serve, even as Russian bombs rain down and Western aid ebbs.
The chapel is the center of this monastery, part of the Basilians’ Holy Trinity Province, and where the sisters – Bernadeta Dvernytska, Lucia Murashko and Yelysaveta Varnitska – steadfastly live out their vocations amid the decade-long war, which Russia launched in 2014 and accelerated with its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The aggression has been declared a genocide in two joint reports from the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights. To date, the International Criminal Court has issued six arrest warrants for Russian officials – including that nation’s leader, Vladimir Putin – due to the atrocities.
A few days after Russian troops stormed across Ukraine’s borders in 2022, Sister Lucia texted me pictures of her and her fellow Basilians helping those fleeing the attacks. The sisters opened their home to those who had lost theirs, providing food, clothing and shelter to a steady stream of refugees, whose numbers now total close to 10 million, with almost 4 million internally displaced in Ukraine and another 6.7 million seeking safety in other nations.
Since that first message almost three years ago, Sister Lucia has continued to share how she and the sisters bring Christ to, and see Him in, the suffering – including the Ukrainian soldiers, who come to pray with the sisters whenever they have the opportunity, especially on Sundays.
The Basilian Sisters also travel regularly to deliver aid to the soldiers, and to civilians still living in villages that Russia relentlessly targets.
Amid those missions, the sisters also dedicate long hours to catechizing children and youth – imparting to tender souls, seared by unimaginable violence and loss, the seed of a love that destroyed death. In May, Sister Lucia and some 10 adults – including Father Oleksandr “Sashko” Bohomaz, a Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest who was forced out of his parish in Melitopol by Russian occupation forces – even led 45 Ukrainian youth on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje, imploring Mary’s intercession for peace.
“This was a drop of water in the desert,” Sister Lucia told me over the phone while there, as the youth chattered and laughed in the background.
I’d finally hoped to make good on a repeated promise to visit her and the sisters in Zaporizhzhia when I traveled there in September as part of a group led by Metropolitan Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, who completed a 1,560-mile pastoral visit throughout Ukraine that regularly saw him within 30 miles of the front line.
Sister Lucia happened to be out of the country when we arrived, but Sister Bernadeta and Sister Yelysaveta welcomed us with a simple, serene grace – cooking meals for us, pouring refreshing glasses of homemade kompot, a traditional Ukrainian fruit drink, and (perhaps most astonishing to me) smiling and laughing with ease, despite the shadows of war.
Although they knew all too well the constant threat under which they were living, and had seen countless tears and scars among those whom they served, the sisters were like that flame in the sanctuary lamp of their chapel – constant, close to the Lord and to others, and giving light without the glare of self-interest.
During our last afternoon at the monastery, I headed to the kitchen for a final cup of coffee before the long drive to Kharkiv. Sister Bernadeta insisted on preparing it, and as she stood at the coffee maker, a little girl – one of the children who often visit the monastery – fluttered over and wrapped her arms around Sister’s waist. Smiling, Sister returned the hug, while keeping an eye on the coffee. A few minutes later, we were sitting at the table for an impromptu hymn-sing, joined by Sister Yelysaveta, and recording the performance on my cell phone as a kind of “wish you were here” postcard for Sister Lucia.
Shortly after I returned to the U.S. in mid-September, Russian forces began intensifying their attacks on the city of Zaporizhzhia, prompting several panicked texts from me to Sister Lucia.
“We are well,” she wrote after one strike in late October, but added that some of the sisters’ friends had been “very close to the damaged places.” She included several pictures of ruined homes and dazed survivors – and boxes of aid that the sisters had brought to the families.
Less than two weeks later, a Russian strike on Zaporizhzhia killed at least 6, followed by more attacks over successive days.
“I’m checking in again after the latest attack,” I wrote in my message to Sister Lucia. “Please let me know if you and the Sisters are safe.”
