It caps more than a month of prayers for their homeland at the giant Mississauga parish.

“We’re all Ukrainians. We do want to show our respect and solidarity with our brothers and sisters,” said Vlodko, a cantor at the church who declined to give his last name. “And in prayer, that’s the best solidarity we can show.”

The parish prayed for the spiritual unity of the nation — a concept Ukrainians call “yenest.”

“First comes the spiritual then comes the political,” said 17-year-old Bohdan, who also declined to give his last name. “If everybody is together spiritually, then it will come politically.”

Bohdan and his mother Maria both said they would like to be in Kiev, on the Maidan with the protesters.

“Mama will go too — to support them, to be with them,” said Maria.

Ukrainians hope they are witnessing the refounding of their nation, which was founded spiritually and politically with the Christianization of Kievan Rus by King Vladimir the Great in 987, said Bohdan.

While Canadian Ukrainians are hopeful, it’s hard not to be nervous as well, said computer engineer Ihor Panczenko as he exited the church.
“Even after the political is taken care of there still we be concern about the country’s financial position,” Panczenko said. “They still have financial obligations.”

Without Yanukovych it seems unlikely Russia will come through with $15 billion in promised aid, he said.

There is a pivotal role for the Church in Ukraine, said Panczenko.

“I’m hoping they provide a moral compass to guide the people, and not let emotions run wild,” he said. “Even for people here, we’re constantly having prayers and vigils for people who have lost their lives. I guess it helps people focus on what is important.”

Among the “heavenly 100” Ukrainians killed on Kiev’s Maidan while protesting against the Yanukovych government, Ukrainian Catholic University history lecturer Bohdan Solchanyk is being mourned in Canada and Ukraine. A 29-year-old veteran of the 2004 Orange Revolution, Solchanyk was an expert in Ukrainian electoral processes.

“It’s just not fair,” said St. Sofia Ukrainian Catholic School student Lukas Riectshin of the sacrifices made on the Maidan. “We just hope for a better future.”

In Toronto, prayers for Ukraine included prayers for the government and army. The Church has been very careful about any hint of setting Ukrainians against each other, said Vlodko.

“The only role the Church can take is what’s written in the Gospels, taking that route,” he said. “By taking that route you hope to eventually change how people think.”

A communist-era mindset of power-seeking, prone to corruption, has contaminated the political culture of the nation. While the Church does not want to be involved politically, it couldn’t turn its back on what was happening, Vlodko said.

“Finally, it came to the point where we said, ‘We’ve got to pray for these people. These are our people out there,’ ” he said.

In Ukraine a move by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kievan Patriarchate to drop prayers for the government and army after authorities tried to clear the square is seen as one of the keys to the fall of the government.

Ukrainian Catholic priests — who were told in January they needed permission to pray and hold services on the Maidan and then threatened with new legislation to control Church activity — continued to pray with and for the demonstrators. Ukrainian Catholic clergy also looked for opportunities to pray with the police, but were not given the chance, Canadian Jesuit Father David Nazar told The Catholic Register by e-mail from Ukraine.

Before Yanukovych was ejected from office and while protests still raged, Nazar called the confrontation 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.”

In Toronto, Ukrainians gathered nightly in front of the Ukrainian consulate to protest and be in solidarity with protesters in the Ukrainian capital.

“They say 26 dead. We don’t believe that number,” said Ukrainian Canadian Congress Toronto vice president Peter Schturyn as about 500 gathered in front of the consulate in the city’s west end Feb. 19. “It’s probably going to be in the hundreds as they’re counting bodies. They’ve already found one in the river.”

The Toronto protests began with the Ukrainian sung prayer for the dead, the Panachida. Led by Dormition of the Mother of God pastor Archpriest Roman Pankiw and Deacon Serhij Kasyanchuk of St. Demetrius parish, the prayer was sung slowly and with conviction.

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

Dubyk was out in front of the Toronto consulate nightly before the Yanukovych government fell. For her, the most important part of each evening was singing the Panachida, before any speeches or political chants.

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

Schturyn was confident both the Church and Ukrainians in Canada will have a role in shaping the country’s future. For Ukrainians there’s nothing strange about starting a protest with prayers or having priests, deacons and nuns present to pray with protesters, he said. In Canada, Ukrainians simply wouldn’t be who they are without their Church.

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

Within Ukraine, people’s expectations of the Church are great, said Nazar.

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