Be the hands that help alleviate the suffering in Ukraine!

Urbi et Orbi Communications is on the ground now, helping “the least of our brothers”

In the midst of a full-scale war raging around them, countless Ukrainians are struggling to care for their families, scavenging for food and clothing, living in bomb-ravaged buildings.

Many have managed to leave the country to become refugees in other lands; but many more cannot.

These include families with young children, the elderly, children and adults with Down Syndrome…many who become invisible in “the fog of war” and yet need the most help.

Jesus said, “As often as you have done it to the least of My brothers, you have done it to Me.”

Truly, these suffering people are “the least of our brothers.”

We cannot let these most vulnerable people – all of them God’s children, but most of them also our Christian brothers and sisters – be left without help, and without hope.

Urbi et Orbi Communications is on the ground in Ukraine right now, with the latest project of our Unitas initiative: Friends of Ukraine and Russia.

Friends of Ukraine and Russia is using donations from people like you to enable native Ukrainians, led by our good friend Sergii Bortnik, of the Kyiv Seminary of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), to bring direct financial help to hungry families, the elderly and handicapped, the displaced and forgotten.

We first met Sergii in July 2017, when he picked us up in Boryspil airport in Kyiv as we were beginning our Urbi et Orbi Pilgrimage to Ukraine, Russia, and Italy. Over several days spent in and around Kyiv, Sergii was an incredible host and guide, organizing our stay in the Pecherskaya Lavra (the spiritual center of Orthodoxy in Ukraine) and visits with officials in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. As we got to know Sergii, we came to appreciate his down-to-earth personality, as well as his diplomatic acumen (he worked for many years in the office of Ecumenical Relations for the UOC, during which he spent time living in Germany, and he speaks four languages: Russian, Ukrainian, English, and German).

On the day of our departure, Sergii even invited us to his “dacha” in the Ukrainian countryside after our travel plans had been upended by multiple flight delays. We spent an entire afternoon with his family, eating fruits and vegetables from his garden and speaking with his sister, who has a child with Down’s Syndrome and is active in the Down’s Syndrome community in Ukraine.

Since our introduction to Sergii, we have met several more times and helped facilitate a visit to Rome where he met several Vatican officials working in ecumenical relations.

Sergii and the people that he works with are not a large-scale NGO; they are Ukrainian neighbors helping neighbors. With their assistance, we can bring hope in the midst of suffering.

Please help us in this work: be the hands that reach out to our suffering brothers and sisters in Ukraine today.

SUPPORT FRIENDS OF UKRAINE AND RUSSIA – DONATE NOW!