杏MAP导航

By Kielce Gussie

One of the youngest bishops in the world serves in an area that has been wracked with violence for the past three years: east-central Ukraine, covering Donestk, Luhansk, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia.

In an interview at the international headquarters of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), 45-year-old Greek Catholic Bishop Maksym Ryabukha reports half of his exarchate – the eastern Christian equivalent of a diocese – remains occupied by Russian forces.

Life near the front line

Life in the Exarchate of Donestk remains challenging, as Bishop Ryabukha describes how the area is just 18 miles from the front line. “People leave their homes at night, in fear of being crushed to death, and go to sleep in the countryside by the lakes,” he says. They live with these experiences each and every day.

Residents of the town of Bilozerske board a bus to evacuate a strike in Bilozerske, Donetsk region   (AFP or licensors)

What’s worse, the bishop shares, “is seeing that the world remains silent while civilian areas are bombed and people are killed.” He says they feel helpless and that the rest of the world has not really responded to the horrors of the conflict. Bishop Ryabukha explains that they find hope in God and seeing daily life “from the perspective of Heaven”.

A bishop on wheels

The war has changed the way the bishop lives out his ministry. “I am a ‘bishop on wheels’: always visiting parishes to see my people, going into their homes, and that allows me to see the depths of human life.”

Ukrainian firefigters extinguish fire in a residential building at the site of a Russian drone strike in the town of Bilozerske, Donetsk region   (AFP or licensors)

As a result of the ongoing conflict, the number of parishes in the exarchate has drastically reduced: from more than 80 to 37 active ones. The rest have been closed, occupied, or destroyed. The laws of the occupation have forbidden “any affiliation with the Catholic Church, either Greek-Catholic or Latin rite”. Consequently, the bishop explains, “it is very difficult to provide any sort of ministry there” and his “exarchate no longer has any priests in these territories.”

Worse than the bombs is being forgotten

It’s been 1,266 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Bishop Ryabukha says the worst thing is not the bombs. “It’s the feeling of being forgotten, feeling alone, or of being of no value to anybody.”

But despite this, he shares that in the occupied territories, there is a special bond between Christians. “They feel part of one Church: in support; in personal encounters; when they share their dreams and hopes; when they pray together, even though it is very dangerous, and they cannot do so publicly.”

Mons. Maksym Ryabukha traveled to Rome with a group from Ukraine to partake in the Jubilee of Young People

Another positive aspect the bishop recounts is that through the challenges, vocations to the priesthood remain. There are 19 men in the seminary, which Bishop Ryabuka describes as a large number for the exarchate.

The Bishop, finally, shares how encouraging it was to be in Rome for the Jubilee of Youth with a group from the exarchate and to hear so many people, including 杏MAP导航 Leo, express their solidarity with Ukraine.