The Frontline Parish of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Welcomed New Knights of Columbus Members
On January 12, the Knights of Columbus initiation ceremony took place at the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church parish of the Maccabees Martyrs in Beryslav, Odessa Exarchate. During the event, 11 new brothers were accepted into the order to the degree of charity, unity, and brotherhood. The knights were initiated by regional delegate Ihor Divnych, chaplain of the Odessa Council Fr. Ruslan Ostafiy, and Grand Knight of the Odessa Council Vasyl Dyachenko.
This was reported by the press service of the Odessa Exarchate.
Father Oleksandr Bilskyi, rector of the Martyrs of Maccabees Parish and head of the Commission for Pastoral Care in Health Care of the Odessa Exarchate, said: “Today my heart is filled with quiet joy and deep gratitude to God. The dream that I have long carried in my heart has finally come true. At our parish of the Maccabees Martyrs in Beryslav, Kherson region, several men have officially become Knights of Columbus. But the truth is that their brotherhood and service began much earlier.”
The priest noted that even before formally becoming Knights, these men already lived in the spirit of knighthood: they helped people and distributed humanitarian aid that came through the Knights of Columbus in Ukraine. “They were with our people before the occupation, during the most trying times, and they remain with us to this day,” he added.
Notably, the parish of the Holy Martyrs of Maccabees of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Beryslav was founded in 2006. During the Russian occupation of Beryslav, the parish ran a soup kitchen where needy residents of the city received free hot meals.
Today, the city is under constant shelling by Russian troops, and therefore, church services in the parish are temporarily suspended. The parish priest, Fr. Oleksandr Bilskyi, occasionally conducts services for parishioners in Kryvyi Rih and the surrounding areas, where the faithful of the UGCC were forced to relocate from Beryslav.
Background
The Knights of Columbus is the world’s largest fraternal organization for Catholic men. The first council of the Knights of Columbus in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church was established on September 20, 2013, at the Patriarchal Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ and named after St. Volodymyr the Great. In 2019, His Beatitude Sviatoslav, Father and Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, appointed Bishop Mykhailo Bubniy, Exarch of Odessa, as National Chaplain of the Knights of Columbus in Ukraine.
The Knights of Columbus began their activities in the Odessa Exarchate in 2019. Currently, there are councils in Odessa, Kherson, Kropyvnytskyi, and Yuzhnoukrainsk.
The UGCC Departmrnt for Information
