“On February 24, 2022, we were given three days. But today is the thousandth day of the great war.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
The thousandth day of the great war. Many today try to look back and see how we lived these thousand days.
Yesterday’s shelling of Odessa, as a result of which at least ten people died; more than 200 missiles and drones that hit Kyiv and other peaceful cities of Ukraine on Sunday morning, November 17. The tears of Maksym Kulik from Kryvyi Rih and Yaroslav Bazylevych from Lviv, who in one moment lost their closest relatives due to enemy strikes, the daily funerals of the dead from Zaporizhzhia to Uzhgorod and from Sumy to Kherson — all this testifies to the tragedy of this time.
This is a thousand days of blood, death, pain, destruction and destruction. On February 24, 2022, the unjust Russian aggressor brought death and destruction to Ukrainian land. But even in that dramatic moment, and now we do not stop believing that God is with us. Our hope is in God, and from Him will be our victory.
That is why this period is at the same time a period of great hope for the Ukrainian people. A thousand days of hope!
Our hope is not an empty feeling. We experience that Jesus Christ, God who became a man, is present in the body of the suffering Ukrainian people. He is once again sentenced to death, tortured, killed. He allows himself to be imprisoned. It is He who goes into captivity with the Ukrainian military. He is among those who have gone missing. It was He who was wounded. However, He conquered evil, sin and death, and rose from the dead.
We have hope because we believe in the resurrection. The Great War is a thousand days of experience of the presence of the power of the resurrected Christ in the body of Ukrainians. The resurrection, the fullness of which we await, is already pulsating in our veins today. We are a people who rely on the power of the resurrected Savior and experience this power every day in our personal history.
There have been times in our history when it seemed that our roots and culture would be destroyed. Let’s remember the year 1240, when the Tatars destroyed Kyiv. At that time, the only surviving building was the Cathedral of St. Sophia, which houses the famous mosaic of the Mother of God of Kyiv, Oranta, which became a symbol of our resilience and hope.
We experienced similar tragedies later, too, during the conquest of Ukrainian lands by the Russian Empire. Systematic persecution of the Church became part of this attempt to destroy Ukrainian identity. However, we persevered, and even in the darkest times, the Ukrainian Church and people found strength for revival.
Thanks to God’s strength, we are still standing, fighting and praying today. We hope in God’s strength, which is revealed even in our wounds, tears and grief.
How much hope was born in us during these thousand days! This is the hope of soldiers, volunteers, doctors, rescuers, fathers, mothers and children – the hope of those who share the last with the needy, raise the hands of the downtrodden, help those who are in extreme need and hopelessness.
Raising our hands to heaven, we pray for God’s people, who are destroyed every day, sentenced to death, who are wounded, and we say to the Lord: “Remember us!”. This is our call to freedom.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Lord called us to believe that our freedom is not a dream, but His will. And we live in this reinterpretation of God’s people in the history of our country. As Hryhoriy Skovoroda once said, the culture of our people is “Easter” — founded on Christian hope, which always remains “confirmed.”
On February 24, 2022, we were given three days. But today is the thousandth day of the great war. And we, witnesses of hope, firmly affirm: Ukraine is wounded, but not conquered. Ukraine is tired, but it stands and perseveres!
+ SVIATOSLAV