Ukrainian embassy hosts Mass for peace in Rome on Russia-Ukraine war’s third anniversary

The Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome. / Credit: Hannah Brockhaus/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Feb 24, 2025 / 15:35 pm (CNA).

Feb. 24 marks three years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a major escalation of a war that began in 2014, and it was marked with a day of prayer announced and organized by the Ukrainian embassy to the Holy See in Rome, according to Vatican News.

The Pan-Ukrainian Day of Prayer included a Mass for peace at St. John Lateran Basilica, presided over by Cardinal Baldassare Reina, the pope’s vicar for the Diocese of Rome, and included Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches and former nuncio to Ukraine.

During the Mass, the prayers of the faithful were read by the ambassadors of Chile, Poland, Lithuania, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, and Hungary, while the dean of the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, Ambassador George Poulides of Cyprus, read the first reading from the Book of Sirach.

Thanks to mediation by the Holy See, two Redemptorist priests of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church — Father Bohdan Geleta and Father Ivan Levytsky, who were arrested on Nov. 16, 2022, by Russian forces — were released on June 28, 2024.

In a meeting organized with the participation of Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, apostolic nuncio to Ukraine, Geleta said he was able to endure the pain thanks to his faith in God and the offering of his suffering to “save his enemies” — although he admitted that this resolution was “very difficult in an environment of brutal contempt for the human person, where one has the constant feeling of being in a place of death.” 

Geleta said that God helped him to resist, adding that he was “very tormented by the fact that other prisoners who did not know God could not bear everything and there were cases of suicide and other painful things.”

“All this will remain in my memory and I will never forget those groans, those agonies, every type of mistreatment,” he said. “But I also dedicate it for the salvation of others, to testify that only God can sanctify us if we take a step from darkness to light.”

The two priests were the only civilians among 1,800 prisoners in the war prison. Geleta said he was able to hear confessions and even able to hold short prayers in the mornings and evenings. 

Kulbokas said these are signs of humanity in a terrible situation and that “this dialogue here between us is a dialogue of prayer.”