Fr Oleh, a Salesian on the front line “out of love”

Svitlana Dukhovych and Gabriella Ceraso – Vatican City

Military chaplain since 2014, teacher and Salesian Fr Oleh Ladnyuk it is told from the front where for years it has shared the hard experience of the war with the military. He tells us what drives him and what helps him about his past experience and the “miracles” he witnesses every time he has managed to escape death under gunfire and bombing.

It is love that pushes a priest to stay in this situation: having military experience certainly does not hurt because – he says – the danger is everywhere and you need to understand the psychology of those around you to help the soldiers and not be in the way. And then you need a state of mind ready to see death and suffering, overcoming yourself without sinking into pain, indeed trying to establish a good relationship with everyone. The Salesians are facilitated in this, Fr Oleh explains to us, drawing on his experience in the Oratories, including Italian ones. In fact, it is here that you get used to meeting everyone without distinction:

The challenge of facing suffering

A good habit of Salesians is also physical fatigue, which does not hurt in war and also the psychological formation we are used to. This is our preparation – he explains to us – but the challenges are not lacking first of all that of how to overcome suffering. They ask me-he confesses- “How does faith not prey?” And they tell me they see God in me. “For me – he adds – this is the challenge”.

A great support for those who, like Fr Oleh, are at war, is the knowledge that they are not alone and that there is a community that prays, that hopes, that helps them. “They call me, they also write to me from Italy” and the miracles of prayer can be seen, at least in the many times in which he was saved under fire and the roar of bombs thanks to the protection of Mary.

Bringing the Gospel to a land of war

What is the most important commitment today? The service calls Fr Oleh in these days to say Mass, to confess, to distribute Communion, more in the rear than on the front line. Then there is the activity required in hospitals and villages where many civilians still remain and attempts are made to evacuate them. In all his activity he confesses to us that he evacuated at least 500 people, but there could be many more, also because – he remembers – in the first months “I loaded my van with so many people and I didn’t count them”. The most touching and difficult experience was that of taking children away without their parents: “They entrusted them to me because they trusted me and wanted me to take them to safe places”. Fortunately, today they all found each other again.

Don Oleh

Then the experience with young people – he tells us – is the most difficult but also the one closest to Salesian spirituality. When they come away they don’t want to talk and I respect their silence, then when they enter our Salesian house, the barriers fall and they cry with me.