A volunteer with Caritas-Spes in Kyiv distributes food and drink to people who lost power in their homes due to Russian missile attacks.
can guide others toward solidarity, resilience and recovery. Last November, his center organized the School of National Consciousness at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv to promote identity and civic responsibility among young adults. The daylong program included a panel discussion, lectures and hands-on workshops. “We can have good schools and good universities, but if a teenager does not understand why they are there, even the best education will not bear fruit,” he says. “You have to show them: You can be a leader, you can change your country, you can be part of a larger process.” The center organized a similar day on the theme, “Inclusion Without Illusions,” in partnership with Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU), for educators, psychologists and resource specialists at St. George Cathedral in Lviv on 16 January. The aim was to equip those responsible for inclusive education to stand with the vulnerable and to respond to their needs. Dmytro Sherengovskyi, 38, vice rector for outreach and social engagement at UCU, says faithdriven education must be tangible beyond the theology class in disciplines that appear purely secular. At the university, based in Lviv, faith-based values also permeate campus life through volunteering, communal living, formation programs, and the steady presence of prayer and liturgy, he adds. “What matters here is not only what you study but how you then live and act,” Mr. Sherengovskyi says. “That is what forms a person.” UCU has more than 2,500 students across 12 undergraduate and 18 master’s programs. The private university receives no state funding and is sustained through donations and tuition.
100 YEARS OF HEALING & HOPE
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ACCOMPANYING THE CHURCH
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n the Cathedral of St. George in Lviv — the spiritual heart of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church — more than 500 people lingered after Divine Liturgy on 17 January for a rare chance to experience the comfort of sacred silence under the daily weight of war. Most were teachers from across Ukraine, who had traveled to Lviv for a conference on inclusive education. The liturgy the next day highlighted outstanding educators. In the crypt below lie the tombs of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky and Major Archbishop Josyf Slipyj, both of whom promoted a vision of the church as a school of responsibility, and education as a long-term strategy, for a principled society. With few Catholic schools in Ukraine, this vision has inspired members of the local church, including the Rev. Yuriy Karvatskyi, to start educational initiatives that engage the wider society. Father Karvatskyi, 31, cofounded the Father Yulian Dzerovych Educational Center of the Archeparchy of Lviv in 2017. In partnership with public schools, the center cultivates educational spaces where spiritual formation and professional growth converge with the aim of integrated human development. “We saw a chance to offer more than professional training, to accompany the person as a whole, not in their functions, but as a human being,” he says. “Education is not only about lessons. It’s a triangle of parents, teachers and children,” he continues. Father Karvatskyi speaks of the need for leaders in Ukraine who