by Canon Tony Dickinson, Chaplain at the Church of the Holy Ghost, Genova (Diocese of Europe)
On Ash Wednesday I picked up my mascherina and my Green Pass and headed off to the Church of Nostra Signora Assumpta and St Zita to pray for the peace of Ukraine with ecumenical sisters and brothers. It was not the first event for peace in Ukraine. There had been two marches on the day of the Russian invasion and a church-sponsored march from Santo Stefano, where the Ukrainian congregation meets, to the Cathedral. The Ash Wednesday prayer, however, was by far the largest.
Santa Zita may not be the biggest church in Genova, but because of its octagonal shape it has greater capacity than any of the city’s three big basilicas. It was full, with people standing three or four deep around seven sides of the octagon. On the eighth side was the sanctuary, where there were singers, readers and ministers from many different traditions, including the Ukrainian priest and both clergy from the Russian congregation at San Giorgio.
There were two glimmers of hope in the gathering darkness.
The senior Russian priest, whom we have not seen at ecumenical events in recent years (on orders from Moscow) has signed his congregation up for the Genoese Churches’ joint declaration against the war. Much of the credit for this belongs to the Waldensian pastor in the city centre. He drafted the declaration and, by patient diplomacy, persuaded the Russians to sign up to it.
The Ukrainians themseves have been heroically coordinating local relief efforts, alongside the official protezione civile, and sending aid to Ukraine. At the beginning of March the Ospedale Evangelico Internazionale, on whose board of management I sit, packed a small truck with medical equipment of all kinds, from ventilators to sterile gauze, and sent it off north-eastwards.
There is a sizeable Ukrainian community in Genoa, although not as big as those in Milan, Rome, Bologna or Naples. Prime Minister Mario Draghi recently announced that Italy has so far received about 24,000 refugees from Ukraine. The final total is expected to be somewhere in excess of 400K, possibly even 800K. That comes, it should be noted, on top of the continuing influx from Africa via Lampedusa.
The latest total for Ukrainian refugees arriving in Genova is around 250, most of whom are reported to be staying with family members already in Italy. Others are stopping over en route to family or friends in France and Spain. In addition, 300 offers of accommodation have been received, most of them fairly short-term (two or three months), with about thirty making open-ended offers. Genova voted a few years ago for a maverick right wing populist “Lega” mayor, but still has a huge capacity for solidarity with the oppressed and exploited.
The International Rescue Committee (an aid agency headed by former UK Foreign Secretary, David Miliband) has calculated that Italy receives roughly 40% of all refugees arriving in EU territory. Many of the churches are engaged in supporting refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants who have been settled in the city by the Italian authorities. Alongside secular agencies, the Catholic archdiocese, several religious orders, the Comunità di Sant’Egidio and Caritas Genova are providing food and accommodation. Waldensians are part of the international project providing humanitarian corridors for Syrian refugees. Baptists and various Free Evangelical and Pentecostal congregations work with rough sleepers and other street people. They provide “meals on the street” in the spaces outside the central Brignole Station. The Anglican Church, almost all of whose congregation are migrants of one sort or another, runs a food-bank and clothing bank, the latter supplemented by occasional donations from crew members of some of the super-yachts with whom we struck up a relationship when they were trapped in Genova by the early waves of the pandemic.
The Diocese in Europe is directly involved on both sides of the front line. There is serious concern for the diocese’s congregations in Kyiv and Moscow. Christ Church Kyiv is without a chaplain at the moment and one of the churchwardens has been ordered out of the country by his own government. The situation is similarly grim at St Andrew’s in Moscow, where the assistant chaplain and the chaplain’s wife have been airlifted out, and the chaplain, Malcolm Rogers, may have joined them in exile by the time you read these words. The diocese is running a Ukraine appeal jointly with USPG: https://ukraine-emergency-appeal.raisely.com
The editors are very grateful for a fresh perspective on the war. Many Christians and others in the UK are longing to offer help to its victims, including accommodation for refugees. The UK Government has announced a scheme, full details of which should be available very shortly.
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