Today, at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC held the Holodomor Memorial Service.

As Deacon Thomas Stadnik said, “The Service was held to commemorate the 86th anniversary of the Genocide of Ukrainian People by artificially imposed Famine during 1932 and 1933 at the command of the merciless Satanic sociopath and mass murderer Josef Stalin. After imposing a collective farming program, Soviet authorities confiscated all food and beverages and all livestock from vast stretches of Ukraine, leaving people literally to starve to death, while the facts of these events were covered up and denied by Stalin and his henchmen. Whole extended families died out in this horrid genocidal famine. Today we pray for all who died, especially those who have no one left alive to pray for them, and for those few who did survive and live with the terrible memory of that experience.

For those who have not heard of the Holodomor before, it is recommended that you see the recently released movie “Mr Jones”, about the Irish journalist Gareth Jones who visited Ukraine at that time and documented this horror.

The bishops of the Ukrainian Catholic and Orthodox communities presided.

Picture by Jennifer Stadnik

The 2019 Holodomor Remembrance in New York City will take place on Saturday, November 16

The bus trip is on “First Come, First Serve.”  Dyakuyu.

May Christ our true God, risen from the dead, place the souls of His departed servants, the victims of the Holodomor genocide, in the abode of the Saints, grant them rest in the bosom of Abraham, and number them among the righteous, through the prayers of His most pure Mother, of the holy, glorious, and praiseworthy Apostles, of our venerable and God‐bearing Fathers, and of all the Saints; may He have mercy on us and save us, for He is good and loves mankind.

Bus Itinerary Pickup

9:00 a.m. Corpus Christi School Parking Lot-581 Silas Deane Hwy, Wethersfield
9:30 a.m. Ikea Parking Lot (rear)-Brewery Street, New Haven
10:00 a.m. Senior Center Parking Lot, Exit 32, Stratford
12:00 noon Drop- off at St. Patrick Cathedral, Fifth Avenue
2:00 p.m. Holodomor Memorial Service at St. Patrick Cathedral
4:00 p.m. Pickup to return to Stratford/New Haven/Hartford

Cost

Adults: $40.00 per person
Students: $20.00 per person

To reserve seats today, please contact:

Myron Kolinsky: 860-563-4072
Ihor and Natalia Rudko: 860-537-4051
Ivan Kebalo: 860-299-6727
Halia Lodynsky: 203-494-6278
Christina Kowinko: 203-380-2892

Those who think deeply about the meaning of the commemoration of the Holodomor by necessity come back to the Gospel of Matthew where he says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.” Father Gregory Zubacz of the Ukrainian Catholic Mission Church in Fresno, California, said last year (2017): “Our hunger and thirst for the truth is why we have come together today, to demonstrate that the truth can never remain hidden, and to tell our story to the world. And by gathering here and doing so, we are plowing a field of justice in the world so that the seeds of true peace may grow for future generations to be nourished with. Where once was sown a bitter harvest may we now sow the seeds of hope so that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness may be satisfied.” The 1932-33 genocidal famine should not be a something to merely observe each year because “that’s what we do” but our observance is of the genocide is an opportunity to know and understand our humanity in light of our pursuit of truth and faithfulness to the Lord of Life. Only in light of a relationship with Christ does our desire for peace come true and lasting.