~ by Dan Stockman and Chris Herlinger, Global Sisters Report
Catholic sisters in western Ukraine are safe, wrote Sr. Anna Andrusiv of the Sisters of the Order of St. Basil the Great though life in the border city of Lviv is reapdily changing because of the mass exodus of people from Ukraine.
“All the sisters are fine here in the monastery” in Lviv, the congregation’s main convent in Ukraine that is home to nearly 30 sisters.
Two other sisters remain safely in the city of Zaporizhia in the east, near Crimea, which has been the scene of years of fighting between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatist rebels.
Prayer for an end to the hostilities continue both day and night, Andrusiv wrote.
“Our soldiers say that our prayers help them,” wrote Andrusiv, adding that Ukrainians believer that ultimately, victory will be theirs.
“We will never give up, we will win!” she wrote. “I’m more that sure about it. God is with us. With His people.”
Leaders of a congregation with a long history in Ukraine, which asked not to be identified because of fear of retaliation from the Russians have been sending updates to the International Union of Superiors General [12] that the organization has posted to its website
Sisters in Croatia, Poland and Romania are ready to take in sisters from this community in Ukraine if they are forced to leave.
“Sisters in Kyiv live in rather dangerous circumstances, but they have written that they are well,” the update said.
Mother Marcela Runcan, General Superior of the Basilian Sisters, wrote in a March 1 letter to the congregation’s sisters in Ukraine that the entire order is praying for them.
“War, hatred and murder are obvious and bold-faced expressions of evil. Evil is a devastating force that destroys life, relationships and the soul,” Runcan wrote. “Dear Sisters, let us continue our prayers for peace. This is a time full of terror, blood, tears and cruelty but it is already clear how courage, love, mercy, truth, mutual aid and kindness are manifested as bright lights in the darkness…Spiritual giants are born in the greatest of trials. Even at this time, the night of Gethsemane, and perhaps, Golgotha, the Lord leads us to the resurrection.”