Report on the Charitable Activities of

St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral,

Metropolitan Washington

by Olha Matula, Fund Coordinator of the Fund for Assistance to Ukraine

Collected Donations 1990-12/31/04

The Sisterhood of St. Olha was organized soon after the founding of our parish (in 1949). Its first president was Maria Odarchenko.

The mission of the Sisterhood is to foster the growth of the parish, to take responsibility for the decorative ambiance of the church, and to help our neighbor. Having freed themselves of the wrenching post-war DP camps and arriving in this blessed land of Washington, our women fervently threw themselves into the work before them, not only struggling to provide for their own families' food and shelter but also remembering the poor and the infirm who were not able to emigrate and were left behind in the DP camps or in Germany's homes for the aged. Although the sums of money were meager, the Sisterhood helped these people to the best of its ability.

In time our assistance expanded to our countrymen in Brazil where the living conditions of the newly-arrived refugees were far more difficult than here. Under the presidency of Sophia Krawec and the assistance of Orysia Novosivska, Halyna Birovets and Halyna Stepanenko, our Sisterhood regularly sent clothing and financial assistance to our families in poverty and gave special assistance to a student, regularly sending her a scholarship. We also sent a donation in care of Bishop Jeremiah to the building fund of the future seminary in Brazil.

With the coming of Glasnost - a time when the borders of the Soviet Union were weakening and contacts with Ukraine becoming less problematic - our Sisterhood responded to requests for help from many people in Ukraine and sent 45 Bibles and other religious publications to many individual recipients.

In 1989 when word arrived of the rebirth of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in Ukraine and new parishes independent of the Moscow Patriarchy were being formed, we responded to their acute need for theological texts in the Ukrainian language as well as for music, prayer books, vestments and other church objects. We even sent a brand-new censer and altar cross.

During the presidency of Olena Varvariv we forwarded our first two large packages of clothing and treats through our Sister Halyna Maksymiuk, who personally delivered them when she traveled to be present at the coronation of the first Patriarch of Ukraine, Mstyslav I. All of the items were given to the orphanage in the town ofVolodarka (near Kyiv) caring for orphans of Chemobyl and to the Ukrainian Orthodox Brotherhood of St. Andrew and its president, Volodymyr Kotelnytskyi, who was later brutally murdered by the enemies of the Ukrainian Church. In addition, certain items were also delivered to the president of the Ukrainian Sisterhood Hanna Kovalenko, including 200 prayer books, $735 collected for the children ofChemobyl and forwarded through the Union of Ukrainian Orthodox Sisterhoods in the USA, and $1,700 for the support of Rukh.

In 1978 we took under our wing the family ofOleh and Valia Mylko, who were newly arrived from Ukraine. Our church helped them with their shelter and living needs.

Dr. Ihor Masnyk helped arranged medical treatment at NIH for several persons who were then brought from Ukraine to Washington for those treatments. They included Oles Tymoshenko, Nadia Nazarenko, Olia Velykodnia (who underwent hip surgery), and little Yavdoshka Koroza. Our Sisters actively assisted them financially and with other needs, and served as translators for them.

In 1990 the Sisterhood established the Fund for Assistance to Ukraine and elected Olha Matula as Fund Coordinator.

In June 1991 Sophia Krawec was again elected president. We continued our work, full of enthusiasm, and sent vestments and theological texts, and copied and sent church music and monetary donations to various newly-formed parishes in Ukraine. Our Sisterhood regularly helps our less fortunate countrymen in Ukraine: orphanages, schools, students, dissidents, pensioners, youth organizations, and patriotic publishers.

A total of $80,108 was collected between 1990 and May 31, 2004. (A table listing collected donations by year can be found at the end of this report.)

In addition to providing financial support the Sisterhood also collects and sends to Ukraine used clothing and shoes, toys, books, treats and food. In the period noted 614 packages were sent, weighing a total of 25,600 Ibs.

In keeping with the 1992 resolution of the annual meeting of the Sisterhood, all donations from the Sisterhood's collection plate on the first Sunday of every month are dedicated to assisting orphans and the ailing in Ukraine. Some donations arrive from other parishes. Artist Katerina Krychevska-Rosandich donated several valuable paintings painted both by her and her famous relatives. And a new, emotion-filled tradition became rooted in our parish when people began to make donations to assist the less fortunate in Ukraine in memory of their departed loved ones, or when participating in a memorial dinner.

Funding also comes from paintings, embroideries and souvenirs purchased during our bazaars and festivals. Our Cathedral is dedicated to the victims of Chemobyl and for that reason our assistance is frequently directed at orphans, Chemobyl victims, families with many children, and pensioners who find themselves in difficult circumstances. Our assistance is ongoing. We regularly sponsor students through Smoloskyp; ailing dissidents; and orphans through the Organization of Ukrainian Orthodox Sisterhoods (OUOS) and the Organization for the Assistance of Orphans (Maria Yovyk). We help orphans; schools; artists; the Lesya Ukrainka Museum; the only Ukrainian school in Yalta, "Prosvita," in the town of Khmelnytskyi; and individuals who find themselves in tragic circumstances needing such help as prosthetics for the arms of young Yurko Skliarenko in Kyiv and Vasyi Saluka in Ivano-Frankivsk (through OUOS) and the recent victim of an automobile accident who lost both legs, young Oksana Korsun of Kherson. We have sent several wheelchairs and assist several parishes.

A large proportion of the collected funds has been donated in small amounts to hundreds of families struggling with health problems. Our assistance reaches over 50 locations in cities and villages that are primarily in southern and eastern Ukraine.