Toronto’s Ukrainians responded Feb. 19 with prayers in front of the Ukrainian consulate. About 500 protesters gathered on Lakeshore Boulevard in Etobicoke to sing the Panachida for those killed that day.

“They say 26 dead. We don’t believe that number,” said Ukrainian Canadian Congress Toronto vice president Peter Schturyn. “It’s probably going to be in the hundreds as they’re counting bodies. They’ve already found one in the river.”

Whatever the discrepancy between official and unofficial counts of the dead, everyone agreed that the next day was even more violent, with another 50 killed and hundreds injured in clashes between protesters and police.

The sudden escalation in violence after months of mostly non-violent protest is solely attributable to the paranoia and blinkered vision of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, Canadian Jesuit Father David Nazar reported from Kiev.

“There is no plan, ideology, vision of a higher good or any ideal that is driving the president and his buddies,” Nazar wrote in an e-mail to The Catholic Register.

The proof is in the almost random but consistently violent and underhanded response to the protests from Yanukovych, according to Nazar.

“It was publicly stated by the minister of internal affairs, who controls the police, that there would be no storming of the Maidan (Independence Square) and no state of emergency, despite leaked rumours,” Nazar wrote. “While all the parliamentarians were in session, incredibly, an attack began.”

Seven time zones and 7,500 kms from his home in Kiev, Yevgen Denysov is living in anguish as he watches events from Ukraine.

“It’s really tough right now to just sit at my desk and work,” said the engineer who has been living in Toronto for four years. “I can’t get my mind straight, especially the last two days. It’s impossible."

Denysov is in front of the Ukrainian consulate nightly banging a drum to lead the Toronto protests. The revolution in Ukraine is about more than constitutional reform and new elections, he said.

“It’s way deeper than politics. People have been repressed — before by the Soviet Union and since independence still nothing has changed,” Denysov said. “Teachers don’t get salaries. Old people don’t get pensions. People can’t find decent jobs. My friends who have graduated and are engineers and economists, they are forced to work in stores, or loading trucks. It’s beyond politics.”

From his perspective on the streets of Kiev, Nazar sees the protests as a struggle for the soul of the nation.

“I have never been in a country where there is such a devotion to the soul of the nation,” Nazar wrote. “Perhaps because so much suffering has taken place here — so much blood spilled, so much repression — one person’s suffering becomes everyone’s.”

Sharing the pain of others is deeply ingrained in Ukrainian culture, said Mary Dubyk, holding a Ukrainian flag across the street from the Toronto consulate. It’s been a year since Dubyk’s last visit to Ukraine and she never imagined the political crisis would devolve into gunfire in the streets.

“This is a shock for everybody, that the government has taken arms against its own people,” she said.

For Dubyk, the most important part of each evening in front of the consulate is singing the Panachida, the Ukrainian prayer for the dead, before any speeches or political chants.

“That’s part of our culture. We remember those who have died,” Dubyk said.

For Ukrainians there’s nothing strange about starting a protest with prayers and having priests, deacons and nuns present to pray with the people, said Schturyn. In Canada, Ukrainians simply wouldn’t be who they are without their Church, he said.

“Before we had anything else, we built churches,” Schturyn said. “Our priests have often been community leaders. It works hand in hand.”

In Ukraine, young Jesuits studying for priesthood have been volunteering to patrol the streets, reports Nazar.

“They simply walk around neighbourhoods where there might be risk to some buildings, for example the Russian Consulate in Lviv, banks owned by members of the president’s party, major store chains owned by members of the president’s party. This is extremely impressive — a civic pride and sense of responsibility in place of the police.”

All three major churches in Ukraine are now calling for the government to negotiate with protesters. While the Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches have been on protesters’ side from the beginning, last week the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, aligned with the Moscow patriarchate, broke its silence and spoke out against the government.

“The Church offers a voice of balance and restraint, a voice against evil and a voice for peaceful resolution through dialogue,” Nazar said.

Pope Francis’s prayers for peace in Ukraine are greeted as anything but pro-forma acknowledgement of the situation.

“It was headline news everywhere and repeated often in telecasts,” Nazar said.

One way or another, change is coming to Ukraine, he said.

“So what to do? Wait for a peaceful resolution?” Nazar asked. “After yesterday’s shootings, attacks and public lies, what options do people have?”

“I will tell you this — as of now, people are already changed,” said Denysov. “What has happened is a huge change. This is not going to go unnoticed. People have seen what this dictatorship can do. People have seen what Yanukovych can do. They don’t recognize him as president any more. He is not a leader.”