PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Veronika Matviienko opened Zoom to host a lecture for her students — a common occurrence nowadays, but this time was different. She had just fled war-torn Ukraine and found refuge in a Philadelphia church, along with fellow educator Alla Pukhtetska.
The two Ukrainian women traveled hundreds of miles, far too many by foot, to get to the Ukraine-Poland border. Then, they took the emotional trip from Warsaw to JFK International Airport to Saint Nicholas Eastern Orthodox Cathedral in Northern Liberties.
The congregation has a connection with Matviienko and Pukhtetska’s church in Ukraine, and it has been raising money to help them flee Europe. The bishop picked them up at the airport Tuesday night and brought them back to the facility, where living quarters were set up for them in the rectory.
“It took us nine hours to fly, and we were crying during the flight,” Pukhtetska said. “We were asking this continent, this peaceful continent, to let us fly and come and stay for a while [amid] bombing in Kyiv.”
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The journey has taken a toll on the two friends and colleagues. They are professors at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and decided to flee when the bombings worsened. Some of their relatives had already left the country, while others stayed.
They waited in extremely long lines to enter Poland. Mothers with children were prioritized, they said, while others waited for days on end. Countless tears were witnessed along the way; they watched fathers and husbands leave their families behind because they were ordered to stay and fight.
“Now being here in this safe place, we are deeply thankful,” Matviienko said, which Pukhtetska translated from Ukrainian to English.
Matviienko did not get much sleep on her first night, as she stayed up for her students in Ukraine. Pukhtetska got some rest but could not help but think about her own students, whose lives were upended.
“Their relatives were bombed in Mariupol, in Kharkiv, in Lviv,” she said.
Saint Nicholas officials are planning to help several more people from Ukraine, including a family with children, who are expected to arrive on Thursday.
As they continue to wait out an unwarranted war, the professors are trying to adjust to their new surroundings, praying that the bombs stop falling.
“Let God finalize this war as soon as possible,” Matviienko added.
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