Suburban Ukrainian community members concerned for family overseas

As news of the Russian invasion of Ukraine broke, Fox River Grove resident Helen Horbenko heard from her niece who spent the night hiding in an underground parking lot as bombs went off nearby.

Her niece lives in Lutsk, about 80 miles south of the Belarus border and about 230 miles west of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Lutsk was one of several cities shelled by the Russians as its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began Thursday.

“This is horrifying news,” said Horbenko, whose parents are Ukrainian and is in touch with family overseas. “I’m devastated, as many Ukrainians around the world must be now. How can this invasion be allowed to happen now?”

Fear and disbelief characterized the reaction among many in the Chicago region’s sizable Eastern European community Thursday.

While Cary resident and second-generation Ukrainian American Olga Byc said most of her cousins in Ukraine lived in the countryside, farther out from the fighting, it still was a scary moment.

“Today they are safe,” Byc said. “Tomorrow is another story.”

The attack is an assault on democracy, John Jaresko, parish president at St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral in Bloomingdale, told the Daily Herald.

“This is all part of the [former] Soviet playbook,” he said. “They’ve bombed power plants and airports. They’re going to try and block people from getting out and make them all pay with their lives. It’s just unconscionable.”

Jaresko said he spoke by phone Thursday with the head of the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, and the situation is dire.

“He’s in hiding,” said Jaresko of Bloomingdale. “He’s got a target on his back, and he can’t get out because everything is blocked. We feel helpless.”

St. Nicholas of Myra Orthodox Church in north suburban McHenry added two special prayers on Thursday in addition to its regular services: a prayer for the departed and a special prayer for Ukraine. The latter was suggested by the bishops in Europe of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, of which St. Nicholas is a part.

The bishops, in an official statement released Thursday, said the situation was “much more complex” than the “extremely one-sided picture” reported in Western media, but said they nonetheless “follow with sadness and deep concerns the events unfolding in Ukraine, and pray for the quick end to the armed conflicts.”

About 80% of churchgoers at St. Nicholas in McHenry are of Ukrainian descent, including the priest, church warden Sergiy Orzhynskyy said. Orzhynskyy is originally from Odessa and his parents still live there.

Following the services, Archpriest Vladimir Kovalchuk, who was born in Ternopil, said through a translator, that it was important for him to remind people of the importance of peace, at least among each other.

“My role as a servant of God is to remind people that we will be judged after this life,” Kovalchuk said. “Now is a difficult situation, but during our whole history, this is not a unique situation unfortunately.”

Another parishioner, Ukrainian-born Maria Nevzhynska, she was shocked and in disbelief over the day’s news. Nevzhynska said her general perception was that Russia was not going to go to war so quickly, and while they were targeting military installations, civilians nearby were in danger.

“Across the street from military centers are houses,” Nevzhynska, “We’ve been staying home, watching news, calling other friends about what we can and how we can help.”

Other churches in the Chicago suburbs, including the Immaculate Conception Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church in Palatine, also held vigils Thursday evening.

That church’s leader, Father Yaroslav Mendyuk, was among several community leaders, city officials and hundreds of residents who gathered in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village neighborhood earlier Thursday afternoon for a protest and to petition for international support.

“It was moving,” Mendyuk said. “People are crying, and we are trying to support Ukrainians, there and around the world.”

Mendyuk said Ukraine was a very peaceful nation and he feels the invasion represents a betrayal as Ukraine made concessions after the fall of the Soviet Union in order to secure its independence.

For Byc and Horbenko, the news this week contains echoes of their parents’ stories of World War II, when Germany invaded Ukraine.

“They were grabbing children right out of the fields,” Byc said. It was her parent’s understanding, once they were put in concentration camps, that after the Jews were killed, Ukrainians would follow.

“My mother had nightmares forever,” Byc said. “When I was younger, she would wake up screaming. Eventually she calmed down, but she never forgot.”

Byc’s family eventually migrated to the Chicago area in 1958. Byc said the Ukrainians who settled in the Ukrainian Village – there now are more than 50,000 residents with Ukrainian ancestry living in the greater Chicago area – were very proud and even protective of their culture.

“At that time, nobody knew what Ukrainians were,” Byc said. “It would drive me crazy when they would say, ‘You’re Russian.’ Back then, that was a reason to start a fight.”

Now, as Ukrainian independence is threatened once again, Byc described Vladimir Putin as a Hitler-like figure who will not stop at Ukraine. She believes Poland and other Slavic countries will be in Russia’s crosshairs next.

“It’s just so sad, it’s not fair,” Byc said. “My eyes are swollen shut from crying.”

Although Byc said that she and her friends are Americans and have a very active social life, their heritage is something that “stays in our heart” and she has raised her sons to speak, read and write Ukrainian even as they are even further assimilated into American life.

Mendyuk hopes that the Ukrainian community’s patriotism will engender support from their neighbors and America overall.

“I am a U.S. citizen. I love my country,” Mendyuk said. “Ukrainians are faithful citizens of the U.S. We are grateful to be here and to live by the principals of freedom, and we want to share this principal with the whole world. We are praying tonight.”

• Daily Herald reporters Russell Lissau and Jake Griffin contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: This article was updated Thursday evening to correct the town the Rev. Vladimir Kovalchuk is from. He is from Trenobil.