Yuri Bilinsky, New Pathway – Ukrainian News.
On 18 April, Major Serhiy Volynskyy (Volyna), Commander of the 36th Separate Marine Brigade, published an appeal to Pope Francis, asking him to help save people hiding in the bunker beneath the Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol. The letter reads as follows (translated by Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group https://khpg.org/):
“Your Holiness, Pope Francis!
I am not a Catholic, I am Orthodox. I believe in God and know that light always overcomes darkness.
I have not seen your addresses to the world and have not read your last statements. I have been fighting for over 50 days under total siege and all that I have time for, is the fierce battle for each metre of the city surrounded by the enemy.
I am a soldier, an officer who gave my vow of allegiance to my country and I am willing to fight to the end. In spite of the greater power of the enemy, in spite of the inhuman conditions on the battlefield and the constant artillery and rocket fire, the lack of water, food and medicine.
You have, perhaps, seen a lot in your life. However I am certain that you have never seen what is happening in Mariupol, because this is precisely what hell on earth looks like.
I do not have enough time to describe all the horror that I see here every day. In bunkers at the factory there are women and children, including new-born infants. They are suffering hunger and cold, under the fire of enemy aviation each day. Every day there are people dying and wounded, because there is no medication, no water and no food.
I am appealing to you for help, because the time has come when it will not be by prayer alone. Help to save them. After the bombing of the Drama Theatre, nobody has any trust for the Russian invaders. Tell the world the truth, evacuate the people and save their lives from the hands of the Satan who wants to burn everything alive.”
Since this appeal, several sources have confirmed that there are women, children, including infants, and elderly people among the civilians hiding in that bunker.
There has been a number of appeals by the Ukrainian commanders located at Azovstal for a military operation to break the enemy lines or to evacuate the civilians using diplomatic means. The latest appeal by Major Volyna came on April 20 when he said that that could be his last address and asked to use a “procedure of extraction” and evacuate everyone from the bunker, including 500 wounded soldiers and hundreds of civilians, among them women and children, to “a third country”.
On April 21, an appeal under a hashtag #children_of_Mariupol appeared in the Ukrainian social media:
“Yesterday, russian terrorists once again deceived them [children hiding in the Azovstal bunker] by disrupting the “green corridor”. Non-humans can’t be trusted.
Today, Kadyrov promised to take by storm Azovstal by noon – it's scary to imagine what awaits these children !!
DON’T BE SILENT !!!
Look into the eyes of these children and don’t be silent! They can't leave you indifferent, if YOU have a heart!
DON’T BE SILENT !!!
Demand that politicians stop the atrocities against children: the Russians have stolen their childhoods and are trying to take their lives.”
NP-UN turned to the Most Rev. Bryan Joseph Bayda, CSsR, Bishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy Saskatoon and Apostolic Administrator sede vacante of the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Toronto and Eastern Canada, to make sense of this situation from the Catholic Church’s point of view.
Bishop Bryan Bayda
NP-UN: It is difficult to discuss the particulars of the situation around and in the Azovstal bunker where the Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are located under heavy bombardment because the situation is fluid and at times unclear. What is a general approach that the Church would take in this kind of situation?
Bishop Bryan Bayda: I, Bryan Bayda has not discussed this with other bishops but I'm speaking as a bishop. In this situation, it is difficult to figure out what is taking place there right now.
I try to have a disposition that I don't want to lie to anyone. But I am a human being and perhaps I will lie to somebody. There's a human nature of wanting to do good and a human nature of weakness and not doing good, as St. Paul says in Scripture.
When we apply that to this war’s situation, the disposition is to have the ability to go to Scripture and make comparisons with the Psalms. Do I find myself surrendering to the evil of other people as Jesus did before Pilate and those who crucified him unjustly? I could identify with Mary the Mother of God and a few others who are at the foot of the Cross when Jesus is unjustly crucified, tortured and murdered.
When that happens, I have to ask myself, where is Jesus in this situation? Well, Jesus dwells in each of us, in every single victim that is being tortured and killed right now. Jesus is also dwelling in every single human being that is an aggressor, from the lowest foot soldier to the commander Putin. Every one of them is a child of God, my brother and my sister in Christ. The worst oppressor and the most helpless victim. This is the prospective that I bring to the war. This is what Scripture teaches me and what Christ has taught me. We are challenged during the war to try and make sense of the unbelievable beauty and dignity of the human being. And yet, at the same time, how that can be so derailed and so twisted by the evil one. You can listen to “an eye for an eye” or you can listen to Jesus on the Cross who says about his aggressors, “Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing.” I have a free choice during this horrible, unspeakable, unbelievably tragic war and the utter suffering of the next human being who has never done anything to deserve this, to be with them because that's what God wants us to do, to the extent that I can, in prayer.
At the same time, how do I intercede before God for my brother in Christ who is dishing out this unbelievable evil? I might not want to kill somebody but if I'm in a situation where I have to defend an innocent person, I don't know, what I would do to defend them. Would I pick up a gun or would I stand in front and take a bullet?
I think of the martyrs before us, of many martyrs in our Church. Being here in Canada, I've been given that distance and grace to think about it. I'm not there in Ukraine and I can’t judge anyone who is there, even the aggressors. Because that's not my job, as much as I would love to. My vocation, as much as I understand it, is to try to be like Christ. God is all-merciful and understands everything even beyond our comprehension. I ask myself, how can I be present in Your name for them, oh Lord, despite my very limited human mind?
Although we think that this war is limited to the here and now, to the unspeakable tortures and horrors that people are experiencing, we have to believe and profess, although it seems foolish, an eternal life with God. Everybody thought that Christ’s willful submission to the evil He underwent was crazy. And yet, the resurrection of Christ is not limited to this world. We celebrate the resurrection of Christ today, and according to Julian calendar, coming up this Sunday. It is a resurrection of love over hate, of patience over impatience, of kindness over anger. This is my vocation as a human being, as a man and as a bishop. And yet, I cannot judge anyone who is now in Ukraine, God is the ultimate judge.
I continue to advise people to take their mental confusion, when we can't make sense of the situation, to Letter of St. John Paul II on the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering. There is physical suffering, pain of the body, but there is also pain of the mind and soul. There is noble and meaningful suffering, like the one athletes endure so they can improve their performance. And there is absolutely unmeaningful suffering. And I direct people who are enduring their unmeaningful suffering to bring it before the Mother of God who stood there before the Cross and watched her son helplessly tortured and killed. The very essence of God is a relationship of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And that is what Mary demonstrated, she demonstrated presence, that Jesus was not alone when he died. In prayer, share with Her your feeling of helplessness and despair, and allow Her the opportunity to interpret your suffering in light of Christ’s suffering.
NP-UN: What do you think about the commander’s appeal to Pope Francis to help evacuate the civilians?
Bishop Bryan Bayda: The commander may want the Holy Father to help with evacuation and I think the Holy Father has been asking for that, to have safe evacuation routes. Is the Holy Father doing everything that he possibly can? Who's to say that? It’s certainly not my place to say if someone is rising to the occasion or doing everything they can. I don't know what other pressures are on the Holy Father. God has never asked us, ‘Go and judge thy neighbour.’ I am asking this of myself. Am I doing everything I can in this situation of war, making the right priorities in my life? Should I have gone to Ukraine or stay here and continue to administrate and lead my people to be more attentive in prayer and response, in collecting the money and humanitarian aid? It’s a personal decision like you have to make too, given your ability to bring attention through the media to a certain situation. And if you do what you are supposed to do, I think God rewards that.
NP-UN: What is the Church's teaching for this kind of situation? Based on the Church's teaching, what should this commander do in the situation of grave danger to civilians, among them children and infants? The police in these situations, at least in the movies, lay down their arms to avoid the immediate danger to civilians when those civilians are taken hostage. Should the Ukrainian soldiers in that bunker lay down their arms?
Bishop Bryan Bayda: I have never been trained about what or what not to do in armed conflict. My answer is, we are to express love. I can express love in different ways. Some are taking up arms to defend out of love, and some are not, out of love. I do know that we are supposed to do everything we do out of love. You can take that to the bank. If we do anything for the motive that’s not out of love, that certainly has to be questioned.
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