Perspectief 2015-28

2015-28 The Church and Reconciliation: 13 Reag eer Later, the priest and the parishioners were involved in helping the wounded victims of the February shootings in Kyiv. That concerned mainly the people from the Makariv region, among whom there were not only the Orthodox but also Greek-Catholics. For example, father Philaret encouraged his parishioners to help a Greek-Catholic young man from a neighboring village, who was shot in the eye and later went to Vilnius to receive special treatment. In Vilnius, father Philaret connected him with Orthodox and Catholic friends of the Lishnya parish. After the Russian annexation of Crimea, the parish supported Ukrainian territorial integrity. The priest was together with the locals of Lishnya in their desire to protect and preserve their homeland from a military aggression. However, there were also those in the parish, who were more critical towards Maidan and the Kyiv new power than towards the separatists, whom they considered victims in the conflict. Whatever the views, all of them prayed for peace in Ukraine, while father Philaret strengthened prayers with special night vigils. Whatever happened, he always repeated that any changes in the country should start from one’s own repentance, i.e. real changes in oneself. Starting from March 2014, some of the parishioners who had small businesses donated big sums of money to buy special shoes, flak jackets, different protecting equipment and medicine to support the Ukrainian army, which, especially at the beginning of the ATO, was in quite a miserable condition. The village choir, which is closely connected with the parish, organized several charitable concerts to collect donations to provide the mobilized soldiers from the region with protective clothes they lacked. 10 Many times parcels with food products and medicine were passed from Lishnya to the ATO zone. As a deputy of the regional Deputy Council and the head of its Charitable Committee, father Philaret took part in all sessions concerning the possible humanitarian assistance to the mobilized in the East and to the civilian population of that region. Moreover, he was directly involved in taking decisions on displaced persons and families from the East who moved to the Makariv region. The priest and some of the parish members frequently visited the displaced families and delivered food products and 10 One of them during the international Summer Theological University organized by St. Clement’s Center.