Kiev, February 12, 2018
Photo: The site of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church The Kiev theological schools and the community of an Afghan church have collected and handed over nearly 60,000 hryvnia ($2,225) to the families of soldiers who died in Afghanistan. The collection was given by the rector of the Kiev Theological Academy and Seminary Bishop Sylvester of Belgorod to the Chairman of the Kiev Committee for the Families of Soldiers Who Died in Afghanistan Tatiana Liskina on Friday, reports the site of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
Vladyka Sylvester noted that the Holy Resurrection “Afghani” Church, as it is popularly known, which functions as a memorial for the victims and veterans of Afghanistan, is under the prayerful communion and patronage of the Kiev Theological Academy. After the fall of Communism, the church reopened in 1991, with many parishioners who had lost family members in the nine-year Soviet-Afghan War, December 1979 to February 1989.
“The students of the academy and seminary, being young people, future clergymen, should acquire the habit of social activity and assistance to others. This church is a place of meeting for generations of those young men who have given their lives, or suffered physically—and many morally—in those terrible distant years, and now for the new, young generation that is studying in this church to correctly evaluate, to think correctly and render moral and, as able, material support to the previous generations, which did much to defend such important human qualities as courage, honesty, and integrity,” the archbishop said as he handed the collected funds to the committee representing the families who have lost their loved ones in Afghanistan.
For his part, the rector of the Holy Resurrection Afghani church and first provost of the Kiev theological schools Archpriest Sergei Yuschik noted that this year will mark six years of the prayerful guardianship of the Kiev Theological Academy.
“The church has been quite actively fulfilling its social work mission during these five-and-a-half years, as it is not only a shelter for veterans and for active solders to pray, but it’s also a church where social work is carried out, as for families of Afghanistan veterans, and support for soldiers in the Anti-Terrorist Operation Zone, and support for children in orphanages in the Lugansk and Donetsk Provinces. Today we have the gratifying mission of participating in social activities. We have gathered a considerable sum for our small church. We gathered and handed over nearly 60,000 hryvnia, which will be given to families of soldiers who died in Afghanistan before May 15,” the rector reported.
Committee Chairman Tatiana Liskina noted that the money is a significant contribution to the Church’s social work, in particular, with families who have lost soldiers.
Material assistance is offered to these families annually on the day of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which began on May 15, 1988.
