Father Ihor Makar: I Have a Simple Request — For My Children and I to Play Near the Church

Fr. Ihor Makar from the Kherson region has returned to ministry and continues helping people after surviving shelling and sustaining injuries. In an interview with the Information Department of the UGCC, he shared how he endured the attack, his rehabilitation process, life and ministry in Kherson, his faith and hope in God, and the experience of occupation.

— Father, please tell us about the shelling and your rehabilitation after the injury.

— It happened on Theophany. The day before, my seminary brothers from the Drohobych Theological Seminary came to visit me. I had previously spoken with the seminary prefect about whether they could travel, knowing how risky it was due to constant shelling.

Despite the dangers, the students arrived, and we planned to celebrate the Divine Liturgy and bless the water in the village of Inzhenerne, located near the Dnipro, about seven kilometers from the front line.

We set off. On the way, we met a parishioner rushing to catch a bus to work. I stopped to greet her for the feast, and she mentioned hearing the sound of a drone. I didn’t pay much attention to it.

We stopped in the village of Zelenivka to pick up the deacon, and after driving about 300 meters, we saw a drone hovering over the road ahead. That meant we had to move fast.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t speed up because the road was slippery. A few seconds later, I heard an explosion, and window shards rained down on us. I pulled over and stopped, not even realizing at first that I had been wounded. We got out of the car—the boys were safe. They were sitting in the back seat on the right, because if they had been on the left, one of them likely would have been killed or injured.

At that time, the headman of our village drove up, came over and offered to take me wherever I needed to go. It was then that I felt something on my leg and realized I was wounded. I had so much adrenaline that I didn’t feel anything.

The starosta took us to the church, into the parish house. The boys stayed behind, and I called my parishioner, and we went to the hospital by bus. I called people and said that I would not come.

The car was badly damaged, broken—a lot of shrapnel penetrated it. Three wheels were completely punctured, as was the tank.

Truth to be told, in retrospect, everything could have ended much worse, but the Lord acts in our lives.

— Father, how do you feel now, how did your rehabilitation progress?

— As I said, a parishioner took me to the hospital because waiting for an ambulance would have taken too long. In Kherson, ambulances avoid traveling during shelling, as they risk coming under fire themselves. That’s why I didn’t even consider calling one and putting them in danger.

Upon arriving at the hospital, I was met by a surgeon and a parishioner I had spoken with that morning. They took me in, provided first aid, and attempted to remove the shrapnel. Thank God, the X-ray showed it hadn’t touched the bone. However, the doctor was unable to extract it.

Following protocol, they bandaged the wound. I lost consciousness during treatment, but since I could still walk, I refused hospitalization—hospitals are frequent targets of attacks, and the doctors working there are incredibly brave. I signed a waiver, and they took me back to Zelenivka.

When I arrived, people were still in the church. The seminarians were praying with them. I went in, greeted everyone. It was difficult, but I managed to perform the service and bless the water. We worshiped inside the church, but we couldn’t go outside anymore. Last year, we still prayed in the yard because many people gathered, but now, due to the constant attacks, people are too afraid.

As I was blessing the water, I suddenly felt something running down my leg. Looking down, I saw my bandage soaked in blood—the wound had reopened. I said nothing to the people, simply finished the blessing and sent them home. Then, I called the parishioner again, and we returned to the hospital, where I was rebandaged and strictly forbidden to walk.

The next day, I received countless calls. I learned about the shelling through the Internet. When the attack happened, the first thing I did was call Bishop Mykhailo Bubniy. One priest had also written to my wife, who was in Ternopil with our children. She was very worried. Then my family—my brother, Father Stepan—started calling. They wanted to come, but I refused.

I came to Ternopil by myself. I was admitted to the Ternopil Regional Hospital, underwent certain examinations and was advised that there should be no problems in removing the shrapnel. There is no equipment in Kherson—it was taken by the Russians. I was scheduled for surgery with general anesthesia. I was a little worried because I have diabetes, but when I was lying in the operating theater, before anesthesia, I wanted to see the anesthesiologist to discuss it. It turned out that the anesthesiologist was from Kherson. We had a good conversation and found out that we shared a lot of mutual acquaintances. He reassured me, said that we were already like relatives and that he would stay with me during the entire operation. It was so nice.

The operation was completed. It was successful because many people prayed for me. A lot of soldiers shared the ward with me. I mostly talked to them about God and how He works in war, because I can testify from my own experience. I was undergoing rehabilitation, but I had to return to ministry because people were left without a priest, especially during difficult moments of shelling. I had to be among them, to support them with prayer, faith, and a compassionate word, because they were waiting for it. They wrote a lot about how they were waiting for me. I could not stay for further rehabilitation, I saw that the wound was almost closed, God gave me life and decided to return to serve in Kherson.

— Tell us about your parishioners in Kherson: what has changed in your life, ministry, and parish since you were wounded?

—  The parish lives its own life, because although I am absent, they gather every Sunday for the Liturgy to pray the rosary, the Prayer for Ukraine-they are always present. If I am there, there are more people. But now, because of the shelling, especially by drones, people are scared. The Russians don’t look at whether it’s a military person or not—they target anyone. People are really fearful for their lives.

When I returned to Kherson, one woman called to check on my health and said that she would not come on Sunday because she was afraid. But on Saturday night she found out that I was coming, and on Sunday she was already in church, she really wanted to see me. Frankly speaking, I understand these people who do not attend the Liturgy. I don’t know what I would do if I were them. I am pleased to see everyone who comes, and I do not judge those who do not.

Faith in God after the beginning of the war, the occupation, prompted everyone to reconsider their lives and values. Before the war, there was a completely different situation with attending God’s temple: there were a maximum of 20 people on Sunday, and now there can be over 100.

— Father, please share about your ministry in the Odesa Exarchate.

— I have been serving in the Odesa Exarchate since 2005, when Bishop Vasyl Ivasyuk ordained me a deacon in the village of Pyatikhatky, Odesa Oblast, and later a priest at the Basilian Fathers’ Monastery in Kherson. He then assigned me to minister in the village of Antonivka. This year marks the 20^th anniversary of my pastoral service in the Kherson region. Throughout this time, I have remained in the same parish, never changing my place of ministry.

I am originally from the village of Shnyriv, Brody district, Lviv region, while my wife is from the Ternopil region. Responding to the call to serve as missionaries, we moved to the Kherson region.

Until around 2011, our house was just 30 square meters, with a kitchen and two rooms. The royal doors separating the rooms even served as the iconostasis. At that time, only two families were from western Ukraine—the rest were locals.

When I requested a plot of land to build a church, none of the relevant authorities opposed it. I spent about a year securing all the necessary approvals. Just as I was nearing the final agreement, the head of the village council—who did not understand who Greek Catholics were—refused to allocate the land. He later became a collaborator and now lives in Crimea.

One Sunday, we were forced out of our house. With nowhere to go, we purchased a parish house with a summer kitchen, where we held services. We renovated it, built a new bathhouse, and continued to pray there until February 24.

When the war broke out, I was in Lviv, serving liturgies at St. Andrew’s Church and raising funds for the parish in the village of Inzhenerne and the parish house in Zelenivka. As my wife and I were returning home, I told her we should fill up the gas tank because we had been warned that war was imminent. Though I didn’t fully believe it, God guided me, and I stopped at the gas station.

The war began the next morning. I heard distant explosions. A neighbor came over and said, “The war has started.” I looked toward the Antonivskyi Bridge, in the direction of Skadovsk and Crimea, and saw flashes in the distance. I realized it had begun.

Father Oleksandr Bilskyi’s wife called us from Bereslav, and we took her into our home. Since we had a basement, we initially thought we could wait it out there. But as I stepped outside and looked toward the village of Oleshky, I heard machine-gun fire. That’s when I suggested taking the children to the west and returning afterward.

We quickly packed our things and left with the children, crossing the Antonivskyi Bridge without trouble. Just two hours later, the fighting began there. If we had waited any longer, we would have been trapped—no one would have let us leave. And even if we had attempted to escape, we could have come under fire and died.

Antonivka was left paralyzed—without electricity, water, or gas. We had a solid fuel boiler, and a neighbor across the street called to ask if she could come into our house to light it, as it was freezing and they had to cook food over an open fire.

— What was the biggest challenge when the war broke out?

— The hardest thing was having no way to return. I was planning to drive children and go back, but the road there was closed for us for 7 long months.

I was worried that I had something to eat, drink, that I was warm and safe, and my parishioners were recounting the horrors they were going through, their children crying… My heart was breaking because I couldn’t help them. Then I developed contacts, transferred money in various ways to buy food and distribute it to the needy. We bought medicines in Ternopil and sent them through volunteers who stopped by Kherson.

Then we established a parish charity kitchen to support those who stayed behind for various reasons: people with disabilities, various illnesses—they needed help. Under the occupation, we also had a charity kitchen, which was run by a woman who was cooking at home. Being extremely terrified, she delivered food to people, because many of them did not receive pensions, or other payments, and there was no food. It’s horrifying to know that in the twenty-first century, someone can die from hunger.

— Tell us please about the destruction of the church in Antonivka.

— When we returned to Antonivka after the de-occupation, it was frightening to go there to serve. We had to call people. I was worried about their safety, because it was 300 meters between the church where we served and the Dnipro River.

From time to time I would stop by, deliver supplies, confess, and communicate. And then the drone attacks began—it was dangerous to go there. After serving in Zelenivka and Inzhenerne, I returned to Ternopil. On the way to Kropyvnytskyi, I received a call from a neighbor who was watching the parish house and church, saying that they were putting out a fire. It was very hot and everything started to ignite. When the Russians saw that people were putting out the fire, they started dropping explosives from drones. They dropped it on my garden—the fire reached the church. People managed to put it out. And on Sunday, a missile landed right in the church.

A neighbor called me, crying that a rocket had destroyed the church. At night, when she woke up, she would see the moonlight on the dome of the church, a cross—for her, it was a symbol of hope that this horror would end. The woman said that now, with the destruction of the church, her heart is empty—this hope was destroyed by the Russians. It was painful. I stopped and cried because I built it with my wife with my own hands. We lived there, and our children were born there. The house was damaged—almost destroyed too. I cried, but I told myself that if the Lord wills it, everything will be restored in time—the church and the people.

I had a small parish there, but people are already scattered around the world. However, we believe that everything will end, we will come back and rebuild everything. The church will look even more beautiful. What is paramount is that people believe more internally in the presence of God in their lives and His action.

— How do Kherson and its people live now?

— I recently watched a video about a volunteer from Kherson. She cooked porridge several times a week and took it to the animals in Antonivka. In the video, she is driven by a police car because her vehicle had also been hit by a drone. I counted two people walking along the road, as no vehicles can pass through—Russians fire at everything they see. The two people were carrying bags of food or water to take home.

Life in Kherson is ruthless because of the constant shelling. It affects not only the military but, mostly, the civilians. It’s extremely difficult to live in Kherson, but despite everything, there are children in Kherson and Zelenivka. Children are our future. They gather in bomb shelters and spend time there. In Zelenivka, for example, there are about 320 children, aged 0 to 17. They haven’t seen each other for four years due to COVID and the war. They haven’t attended any educational institutions for four years, and only through small centers or child-friendly spaces like our church can they meet, laugh, and play together.

There is almost no business left in Kherson, and it’s dangerous to operate one. For example, there were two bakeries, but they were destroyed. Bread is mostly brought in from Mykolaiv. Living there is extremely dangerous, but people still believe. If they didn’t believe, they wouldn’t live—they wouldn’t wait. Their faith helped them survive the occupation, and now they believe that God will not abandon them, that Ukraine will reclaim its territories.

We are especially worried about our left bank, where we have friends, acquaintances, and relatives. We watch the left bank from the right bank, unable to visit, to go to the graves of our deceased relatives and parents on the left bank.

— How do people find strength and solace during the war?

— Indeed, many people have found God, discovered God. I remember when a shell hit one parishioner’s house and tore off the roof. She said that at one point she and her mother saw the sky, yet they remained completely healthy, without a single shard, without a single injury. She views this as a God’s protection.

The older generation stayed in the city and believes that maybe tomorrow God will stop the war. There are people whose relatives are bedridden. Many people speak about evacuation, but everyone asks the question: where to go and how? We know the prices of apartments and salaries. Many people who left returned back to Kherson, to our village, because life is financially difficult.

People believe that it will not end today or tomorrow. Everyone believes that they will not die, that God will save them. Even the doctors, although they discuss what happened, how and where the shooting took place, keep their composure, believe that everything will be fine, that God remembers them and will not leave them. There are also those who are disappointed. We can’t convince them that everything will be fine, but we do our utmost to make it so.

I ask what will happen if the fighters give up and say they are leaving? Everyone answers: tomorrow the Russians will be here. But the defenders do not withdraw, and at the cost of their own lives they protect us, holding them back. That is, if they do not give up, then we should not give up either. We have to rise up and do everything together to defeat the enemy.

— Father, what, in your opinion, is the most important thing for a person during a war?

— The main thing is not to lose humanity, as Lubomyr Husar said. When he was asked what he wanted to be, he said that he wanted to be a good person.

During the occupation, many people did not lose their humanity; they shared what they had to support, comfort, and help each other. Eggs and wheat porridge were worth the price of gold. They shared them in order to survive… we must survive. Freedom brings its own costs, but during the occupation we were arming for each other, we were rooting for each other. As soon as the Russian soldiers entered the village, they would pass it on to everyone, and we were worried about each other, so that, God forbid, something would happen. That’s why it’s important not to lose human dignity during the war.

— Father, how do you see the future of our country?

— What is impossible for man is possible for God. Therefore, I would like to see the state of Ukraine as it was in 1991, geographically, but with a completely different mindset, so that it returns to God.

May God’s will be done, for He desires what is best for us.

— What is your biggest dream?

— A very simple one: I just wish that the children who come to our center could go outside, run around, and play near the church. That would mean the fighting has stopped and peace has returned. We all want to step outside without the fear that something might suddenly fall from the sky or that an explosive could be dropped on us.

I even celebrated Easter this year as I was leaving the church. People came out one by one. Just the other day, the Knights of Columbus helped us, and only five people left the church because, if the Russians see a crowd, a drone might drop explosives on us. So, I ask for just one simple thing: that my children and I can run around the church.

Locations

Exarchate of Odesa

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