Most Read Magazine in "Echo Park" La
Roman Korol stood outside Saint Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Echo Park on Sun and fought tears as he thought of his family members in his native Ukraine.
Dressed in a traditional Ukrainian shirt stitched with blue embroidery, the 24-year-quondam said he felt overwhelmed past the violence that has torn through Ukraine since Russia launched a total-scale invasion of its neighbor on Thursday.
"I'm stressed and sorry," Korol said, wiping his eyes as his wife held their son.
The shirt, he said, was a gift from his grandmother — the kind worn on special occasions. Now he wonders whether his eight-week-one-time boy volition ever meet her.
"It'due south heartbreaking to meet him go through this," Karen Korol, 27, said. "His whole family is in that location."
Nearly 40 people gathered inside the church Sunday morning and prayed in English language and Ukrainian for those killed during Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion, every bit well as the loved ones and compatriots who accept stayed in their cities and held their basis in an unprovoked war.
Father Vasile Sauciur shares information on local demonstrations in support of Ukraine after Mass on Sunday at Saint Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Los Angeles.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Four days after Putin began his large-calibration set on by air, land and sea, tens of thousands of Ukrainians have already fled westward, some crossing into Poland and Romania. But thousands more accept responded to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's call to accept up arms to button back against the Russian blitz in what is Europe's biggest ground state of war since World War II.
Although the Ukrainian diaspora in Southern California is small-scale compared with communities on the E Declension and the Midwest, enclaves across the state continue shut ties, customs members say. The Golden Land is home to roughly 112,000 people of Ukrainian descent, according to U.S. Demography Bureau data, many of them amassed in the Bay Expanse, Los Angeles and Sacramento.
On Sun, some in the congregation wept every bit their pastor spoke, the smell of incense hanging thick in the air.
Members of the Ukrainian community and parishioners gather for Mass at Saint Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Los Angeles.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Roman Korol recited a prayer for Ukraine, one that asked for God to protect and anoint his home country. Equally he spoke the third verse, he thought of his family unit. Tears roughshod downward his cheeks.
"I tin't really do much," he said. "I am helpless other than spreading the give-and-take."
Roman Slobodynskyj never thought he would meet Russian federation invade a sovereign Ukraine.
"It'due south terrible. Yous can't define it in any other manner," said Slobodynskyj, 82, who moved to the Usa when he was 9 years old. "This is the reason our parents fled."
The service was busier than a normal Dominicus prayer, Slobodynskyj said. Cars filled the lot beneath, some parked in tandem to brand room for the larger crowd.
"At that place's a proverb in Ukrainian: When at that place are troubles, we go to God," he said, grinning.
His wife, Maria, said she was happy to pray for Ukraine, but added that it would take "not only prayers, simply weapons," to help.
"I'k grateful our parents aren't hither to run across it," she said. "We're blessed they won't have to relive it once more. But we have to show our children. We can't allow information technology become. Let's hope it ends with this generation."
At the end of the near iii-hour service — one that ran longer than usual "considering we accept a great crisis" — Male parent Vasile Sauciur delivered an impassioned sermon and questioned Putin's motives, wondering what goal would be worth the lives lost in war. He rested his fingertips confronting his temple as he spoke.
Father Vasile Sauciur, middle, and subdeacon David De Jesus hold a Mass at Saint Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
"This is not but almost Ukraine. This is about the civilized globe," he said. "Unfortunately, we were left on our own. God is with us, and that is most important."
The pastor compared Ukraine and Russia to the story of David and Goliath, casting Ukraine as the underdog who, though small, has "the correct middle."
"We have what information technology takes to be victorious," Sauciur said, his voice booming.
Exterior the church, Yaroslava Skokova sat in the sunlight as the sounds of parishioners chanting prayers flowed out the building.
"We didn't expect this from Russia," said Skokova, who left Kyiv, the Ukrainian uppercase, with her hubby in 2017. "I cry every day. I tin can't sleep."
Her cousin, she said, all the same lives in Kyiv and is now in bomb shelters with her husband and children. The get-go nighttime of the attack, Skokova said, her cousin slept in a hospital.
"2 women gave birth there," the 33-year-one-time said. "Now our children are born in the Metro and in flop shelters."
Subdeacon David De Jesus, right, lights a candle for a visitor before Mass at Saint Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Before prayers, Michael Zlidenny reached for a jar of coffee in the church building'southward kitchen, his hands shaking slightly as he put several spoons' worth of grounds into a filter for the parishioners who had still to arrive.
Zlidenny, who first moved to New York with his family earlier eventually moving to California, called Ukraine "the tum of Europe" and derided Putin as a madman.
"The only thing nosotros can practice is pray," the 83-year-erstwhile said with a quivering vox. "At that place's not much we tin do. We're too old to go and fight."
Paul Micevych, president of the church's board of assistants, said he was still in shock.
"I thought we're in the 21st century, but dealing with something like this.... This is an 18th or 19th century majestic grab of land," he said. "Russia is recolonizing Ukraine."
The son of Ukrainian immigrants, Micevych said Ukrainian identity has always been a central function of his life. He attended Ukrainian school as a child, and has traveled to Ukraine nearly a dozen times — both to visit and to provide help. Many in the diaspora are "Ukrainian at heart," he said.
"I'one thousand heartbroken," Micevych, 68, said. "I accept friends there. The younger ones take taken upward artillery, and they're doing what they tin can."
His friends closer to his age aren't leaving either, he said. They refuse to exit the country and land they hope remains free.
Source: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-02-27/ukrainian-americans-pray-for-loved-ones-sunday-service-in-echo-park
0 Response to "Most Read Magazine in "Echo Park" La"
Post a Comment