St. Martin Catholic Elementary School in Edmonton has so far welcomed 39 refugee students from Ukraine over the last two plus months since Russian troops  invaded their country.

Daria Prodan has been in Canada a month since she fled Odessa, Ukraine, for Bucharest, Romania, and then made her way to a new normal in Owen Sound, Ont., but her English is great. In an interview the confident 23-year-old chooses her words carefully, but rarely hesitates — until she’s asked about the Russkiy Mir (Greater Russia) concept driving Russia’s vast army over the border and into her country.

On May 15, Toronto’s Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Holy Protection will host the Unite for Ukraine: A Musical Benefit from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.

I have written that I am a man of conflicted faith. Yet though I lecture as a professor of political geography, I cannot but bear witness to Ukraine’s agony through the lens of my religion, the faith of my Ukrainian Catholic ancestors. To that I confess, wholeheartedly.

Singing Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem while Europe and possibly the world is at war isn’t a political statement, it won’t enlighten anyone about the causes of the war and the music proposes no solutions. But the humanity of voices raised to Heaven in sorrow and hope, in grief and consolation, must matter somehow.

If Pope Francis hasn’t named and shamed Vladimir Putin as aggressor and instigator of the war in Ukraine, it’s because the Holy See plays a long game in diplomacy, trying to bend the arc of history ever toward peace, the Vatican’s nuncio to Canada, Archbishop Ivan Jurkovič told an online academic conference on sustainable development that veered off into a discussion of diplomacy and Ukraine April 26.

Warning that the Russian Orthodox patriarch should not "turn himself into Putin's altar boy," Pope Francis also said he would like to go to Moscow to meet Vladimir Putin in an attempt to end the conflict in Ukraine.

All labelled and sorted, in bags and boxes, the Loretto College School chapel is crammed with stuff — all of it headed for Ukraine by way of St. Demetrius the Great Martyr Ukrainian Catholic Church in Toronto’s west end.

Ivan and Olga (not their real names) drive quickly through the street with their infant daughter Lesia. Their fears are realized as they encounter enemy soldiers with guns levelled. Ivan steps out in front of the car, his arms raised. He glances back at the family he loves. The soldiers open fire. Olga too is executed. We don’t know what happens to Lesia.

If the definition of “freedom fighter” is in the eyes of the beholder, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau beholds Ukrainians.

I was baptized a Ukrainian Catholic. My wife and I were married in a Ukrainian Catholic Church in Kyiv, and our children were all baptized in this faith as well. Our church has a Patriarch (i.e., a separate hierarchy from Roman Catholics), but we recognize the spiritual supremacy of the Pope. In Ukraine, the Ukrainian Catholic Church follows the Julian calendar which means Easter will be celebrated next week.

Fundraising to secure aid for Ukraine has been an ongoing passion and mission for Bilyana Coburn of Grande Prairie, Alta., for more than six years now. Most of the monetary contributions made by this Grade 5 teacher from St. Catherine Catholic School has gone to orphanages. 

As war and conflict rage during a prolonged pandemic, Christians prepare to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus who offered peace as a parting gift to His disciples. 

Michael Drul has been making  and selling pysanky — the decorative Easter eggs in the Ukrainian tradition believed to ward off evil — to raise funs for those affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The bodies in the street, the abandoned tanks, the blackened and collapsed buildings, the bewildered and exhausted survivors who speak and weep before television cameras do not merely tell us the news. This Holy Week the bulletins from Ukraine are teaching us about God.