We kicked off the 100th anniversary year of our parish by saluting our Greek Catholic Martyrs during the Soviet era.
First, we showed a video from Aid to The Church in Need, called Emerging from the Catacombs, which conveys the history of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and its martyrology and persecution during the Soviet era and later, its emergence from the Catacombs in the 1990's.
After the video, Maria, one of the members of our parish, gave her testimony this past Sunday. about her experience as a Greek Catholic worshiping in the underground church during the Soviet era in Ukraine. Maria had several relatives who were priests, who were in gulags, tortured or killed. Her father, too, although not a priest, was in a gulag for roughly the first 11 years of Maria's life. She gave her testimony and took questions.
It was a most edifying session. We invited guests and had a few people outside our church come.
