Bay Area Ukrainians Pray for Peace at 'Willow Sunday' Service in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) -- Ukrainian families in the Bay Area came to Saint Michael Ukrainian Orthodox Church in San Francisco on Sunday to spend part of the holiday weekend to pray for the safety of their family and friends in that war zone and an end to the conflict.
"The biggest task for us here is to pray every minute and every day and pray together," said Yana Parubets, a Burlingame resident.
On the same day that many countries in the western world celebrate Easter, Ukraine marked Palm Sunday in its calendar. It is also called Willow Sunday and includes the tradition of receiving pussy-willow branches blessed at the church.
While Ukrainians at the service in San Francisco could practice their faith freely, they spent much of their time thinking about those back home who may not be able to reach a church safely or who live in a part of the country where their church was destroyed.
"Every Ukrainian is just the same as every American. We love freedom. We support democracy," said Yuliya Voskobiynyk, a San Francisco resident. "We are one with the democratic and free world and we need the support of the free and democratic world."
San Mateo County board supervisor David Canepa attended the service and spoke about the struggle people in Ukraine are facing in their country. He called the actions by Russia genocide and said it would be unimaginable to think of such violence in the U.S.
"People who just like you and I were paying the bills, working their jobs -- now their world has been turned upside down," he told KPIX on Sunday.
It was a union of church and state, where people came to pray peacefully for an end to the war and the effort to save their freely elected government.
"We need to fight for democracy. Without support -- without fighting for democracy -- it will not have a chance to survive," said Volodymyr Borodaykevych, a San Francisco resident.
