WOMEN IN THE UKRAINE

Last week Pope Francis  offered special prayers for the people of the Ukraine in their present crises: “Please, no more war. I invite you to pray for peace in Ukraine and to do so often.”

“Let us ask the Lord insistently that this land may see fraternity flourish and overcome wounds, fears, and divisions.”He asked not to forget the more than five million people who died in Ukraine during World War II.

 

“Think that more than five million were annihilated during the time of the last war. They are a suffering people; they have suffered hunger, they have suffered so much cruelty and they deserve peace.”

To my mind, some of the most inspiring religious art today comes out of the Ukraine and is done by women, who truly express the plight of the suffering, yet glorious Christ.

According to John Kohan,  women have always been anonymous icon-makers, but “the new freedom to pursue individual styles and sign pieces has simply brought them out of the shadows and won them long-denied recognition.”

Their art visualizes the tie between medieval iconography and contemporary interpretations of the sacred. Their works have shared origins not only in Ukrainian spiritual culture but in their own lived experiences. 

These female artists are representative of the eastern European sacred art renaissance sparked by the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  The first of these is IVANKA DEMCHUK.

Ivanka was born in 1990 in Lviv. In 2012 she graduated  with a BA from the Lviv National Academy of Arts, Department of Sacred Art and in 2014  she received her MA degree.  She has had many art exhibitions in the Ukraine as well as Poland.

 

Perhaps the most prolific and my favorite is  LYUBA YATSKIV who was born in 1977 in Lviv, Ukraine. From 1991 to 1996 she studied in Trush Lviv State College of Decorative and Fine Arts, at the department of textile art. From 1996 to 2002 studied National Academy of Arts in Lviv, department of sacral art and since 2002 has been a lecturer there.

 Her icons are very balanced with poised forms and colors, but despite this harmony, one  feels great dynamism in her works, as if they move. They certainly move the soul. We learn to see Christ and His Mother in new ways.

Her major creative works have included: A series of Icons for the St. Faith, Hope, Love, and Sophia Chapel in Kotsiubynske, Kyiv region; Icons of the Iconostasis for the Church of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin of the Krekhiv Monastery of the Order of St. Basil the Great; Icons of the Sovereign tier for the St. John the Baptist Chapel in Lviv; and Icons of the Iconostasis for the St. Andrew Church in Dobromyl, Lviv region

In 2015 she secured a major commission to decorate the interior of the newly built Church of Sophia, Wisdom of God, on the campus of Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv.

May these women inspire all to greater prayer for a lasting peace for their people.