March 8-15, 2025

Fastiv, 8.-15.3.2025

Praised be Jesus Christ!

This week I would like to write about what our immediate prospects will be, about what we will do in the near future. A few words about our icon painting workshop, which is currently accepting its first participants. This icon painting workshop will be part of the range of rehabilitation services that we intend to resume after a three-year break. We are currently setting up various rehabilitation rooms in our social center, where displaced families who were evacuated from the war zone have been living for a long time. Our center has become a shelter for them.

We strive to create a space of hope and restoration, where the Lord will heal the wounds of all those who have suffered from the war: the families of our military, families who have lost their loved ones, families who live in the war zone, front-line cities and towns.

Sister Daniela Radomska OP can tell you more about the course itself. To summarize briefly, I can share with you that this course will help you meet God and yourself, because there is a lot of silence around. But you can also meet something beautiful – this space in which you will find yourself goes beyond the boundaries of our human understanding. As Saint John of Damascus said: “Icons are windows from which saints look, as from eternity.” We believe that this workshop will become a healing for the hearts of many.

As usual, this week we helped our Defenders: we provided beds and also distributed humanitarian aid of first necessity for the Chernihiv region. This time it was intended for the families of fallen servicemen. Also in the front-line Kherson, lonely elderly people and those who are most in need of support now received in-kind assistance.

This assistance gives people in difficult war circumstances hope and deepens the understanding that they are not alone, that someone is standing by them, someone remembers them, and most importantly – prays for them.

Thank you, friends and benefactors, for your support! We don’t know the names of many of you, but we are with you in prayer every day.

Fr. Mykhailo Romaniv OP