Communities of Sant'Egidio from Ukraine have met in Lviv for Andrea Riccardi's visit these days. After over a year since the beginning of the war, an assembly gathered more than two hundred people from Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk, but also from Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, Kiev. Places whose names have become familiar to us during this year being places of pain and destruction.
An opportunity to share the experience of the first year of the war, marked by a great humanitarian effort by Sant'Egidio, which has been supported by all the European Communities of Sant'Egidio, just as Andrea Riccardi emphasised. Sant'Egidio's welcome was a real response to despair for many displaced young people and adults. "My home was destroyed but with the Community I found a new home and a new family": thus some described their encounter with Sant'Egidio, which also motivated many to take part in caring for and helping the poorest.
Indeed, the proposal to take care of the weakest in a time of bewilderment, pain and fear of the future was for many young and very young people a perspective to spend their lives on.
At the meeting's conclusion, the Western Ukrainian communities donated a chalice and a Gospel Book damaged during the fighting in memory of the destruction of a church in the Kiev region.
Andrea Riccardi also visited a refugee camp on the outskirts of Lviv, where Sant'Egidio has set up a peace school for displaced children and an intense commitment to support families.
