IVANO-FRANKIVSK, Ukraine (AP) – Wearing a white biohazard suit, a face shield and a blue mask over his mouth and nose, the Rev. Yaroslav Rokhman …
IVANO-FRANKIVSK, Ukraine (AP) – Wearing a white biohazard suit, a face shield and a blue mask over his mouth and nose, the Rev. Yaroslav Rokhman is hard to recognize as a priest when he visits terminally ill patients at a Ukrainian care centre.
But his words still bring comfort to the dying.
Rokhman, a clergyman in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, is pleased just to be performing one of a cleric’s most heartfelt duties again. As the coronavirus pandemic’s grip slowly recedes in Ukraine, priests received clearance on May 22nd to resume religious services and to visit the sick and bereaved.
“Patients missed the support and spiritual care. They needed a priest. They needed to pray and talk,” he said while attending to patients at a palliative-care facility in Ivano-Frankivsk, a city 450 kilometres (270 miles) west of the capital of Kyiv.
