The Rev. Vasyl Sendeha was traveling Wednesday to the consistory of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA in New Jersey for the annual Metropolitan Council meeting. It was right after he landed in Newark that he learned of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“It was really a shock and hard to believe, trying to gather my thoughts and call my family,” Sendeha said. “I couldn’t get in touch with my father for a while for some reason.”
Sendeha, of Saints Peter and Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Palos Park, found himself watching videos, joining chats and reviewing eyewitness posts. He was trying to make sense of reports that the attack was large scale and far reaching as he waited to get in touch with his father, who lives on the western side of Ukraine.
“Finally, I was able to get him through Facebook Messenger audio,” Sendeha said. “He confirmed he heard the explosions nearby, and I just couldn’t believe that it reached the western part of Ukraine. Everybody thought the western part of Ukraine would be safe.”
Sendeha tried to press on with the meetings as the news unfolded. Meanwhile, his wife, Olenka Levko-Sendeha, was back in Palos Park with three children when the news broke. One is too young to truly understand what is happening, she said, but the teens understand it as well as anyone can.
“It was absolutely horrible,” Levko-Sendeha said. “The boys were outraged. They tried to understand, but there is absolutely no understanding. It’s just incomprehensible.”
Levko-Sendeha grew up in the Ternopil region of western Ukraine, but her parents moved the family to the United States in 2000 to “look for a better life for us.” She still has cousins, nieces and nephews in Ukraine, facing long lines for gas, medicine, food and household essentials.
“They are OK, but (there is) panic that’s created by people because everyone is trying to survive,” Levko-Sendeha said.
She has kept the church open day and night, with a lot of people visiting. Her husband said roughly half the church’s 130 parish families still have relatives in Ukraine.
Many of those in Ukraine are sheltering, but that can be tough in bigger towns, or for those who live in condos or apartments where there are a lot of people but not enough places to hunker down, Levko-Sendeha said. Their relatives in the U.S. are understandably rattled by the stories they are hearing.
“They’re looking for a place to pray,” Levko-Sendeha said. “They’re praying because, right now, especially with us or the people that are not on the front lines, that’s the best they can do is pray and keep their families safe.
“We’re praying for peace and that somehow this will end. … It’s just unbelievable. I never thought I would live to see something like this.”
Parishioner Mary G., who asked that she only be identified with her last initial because of concerns for her family’s safety in Ukraine, said that the Palos Park church has played a big part in her life since she moved here from western Ukraine in 2009. She was not as religious “at home,” but in addition to the spiritual elements the Ukrainian Orthodox Church serves as a connection to the old country.
“When you go to church here and have a service in your own language, it’s kind of like being home,” she said. “The service is exactly the way you had it at home. I do believe our church plays a huge and tremendous role for our Ukrainian society here.”
Wednesday evening, Mary said she was about to go to bed when she learned of the invasion. At first, she wasn’t sure what was really unfolding after what has been eight years of armed conflict in the country following the annexation of Crimea by Russia.
“After talking about the possibility of having this war for so long and actually having that war for the last eight years, you get used to it that everybody talks about you,” she said.
She said after she went to bed, she received a text message for the mother of her child’s classmate saying she heard what was happening, and prayers for Ukraine.
“I’m thinking she probably just means this talking for the past few months, but I’m thinking, ‘That’s kind of strange that it’s after 10 she would text me about it,'” Mary recalled. “I checked online again and everybody was saying that everything at once was being bombed.”
Mary’s mother, cousins and other family live in Ukraine. Her mother moved out of her town and into a village with her friends, where they are hoping things will not be as dangerous. Mary — who first came to the United States on a student visa and then returned twice before graduating, getting married and staying — said it is tough hearing the news about Ukraine while living in Burbank.
“You feel like you’re here just standing on your head,” she said. “It’s just unbearable pain and you cannot do anything.”
In addition to being away from his family in Ukraine, Sendeha said it was hard to be away from his parish as the invasion started. Parishioners were reaching out about a prayer service, and he eventually held one Saturday after returning to Palos Park.
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“We do trust in God and his protection,” Sendeha said. “We hope that the truth will prevail and that Putin will be exposed for his lies and things he has done to justify his invasion into Ukraine.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested Ukraine is part of Russia, an attempt to dismiss the former’s identity as an independent country and an idea with which Sendeha, Levko-Sendeha and Mary all took issue. While Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union before the socialist state’s collapse, it was never part of Russia, Sendeha said.
“It has its own history, its own culture,” he said.
Both Levko-Sendeha and Mary said people too often conflate the two simply because they are neighbors.
“Yes, you have some similarities with customs and traditions, but it’s a different language, a different country,” Levko-Sendeha said. “They are two separate people.”
Mary said that misidentification is a particularly hard pill to swallow for Ukrainians, who are proud of their identity and want to hold onto it.
“Even if he kills all Ukrainians, I’m sure our nation will come back and we will still get, at some point in history, our independence back,” she said. “We are not Russians — never was and never will be.”
Ukrainian heritage can be found in Chicago’s southwest suburbs. Over the years, many Ukrainian immigrants have moved to Chicago’s aptly named Ukrainian Village neighborhood, and five Ukrainian Orthodox churches remain there. But Saints Peter and Paul Ukrainian Orthodox moved to Palos Park in 1976. Sendeha said that new immigrants have continued to settle in Palos Park, Orland Park and Palos Heights.
“They are very supportive of one another,” Sendeha said. “Even before there was a threat to Ukraine, people of the same background like to socialize.”
Ukrainians in the Chicago area gathered Sunday at Saints Volodymyr & Olha Ukrainian Catholic Church in Chicago for prayer inside and protest outside. Sendeha said the leadership of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has been appealing to the United States to show as much support as possible.
“So many innocent people have already died in the eastern part of Ukraine,” Sendeha said. “We’re talking about 14,000 people since the turmoil started when they annexed Crimea and entered the eastern parts. Now, we’ve already heard of casualties. So many people are perishing for no reason.”
Levko-Sendeha said the rich and oligarchs have already fled the country. The conflict will hurt the young families of Ukraine, who did not ask for this fight, most of all.
“They’re not the ones who are attacking,” she said. “They’re trying to defend their land, their people, their future.”
Bill Jones is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.