Archpriest Cornell Zubritsky sometimes hears the loud wailing of air raids thousands of kilometres away in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
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The sirens screech from the cellphones of congregants at the Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Edmonton.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of them have the air raid siren app on their phones here in Canada, and it will go off. They do that so that if it\u2019s their city, they get on the phone immediately to see if their relatives are OK,\u201d Zubritsky said in a recent interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor them, this is real. And then it makes it real for me because they\u2019re connected. They are fighting the war every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zubritsky said most of his 150-person congregation are immigrants from Ukraine. The church\u2019s membership declined during the COVID-19 pandemic but has grown again with families from Ukraine.<\/p>\n
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Monday marks three years since the Russian invasion. Tens of thousands have been killed.<\/p>\n
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About 300,000 Ukrainians have come to Canada on emergency visas since 2022.<\/p>\n
Zubritsky said some who attend his weekly church service have been\u00a0<\/strong>losing hope, and they don\u2019t want to hear him talk about what\u2019s happening in their homeland.<\/p>\n \u201cFor a few hours at least, they can come \u2026 and have a little bit of reprieve of the daily stresses of having your country torn apart,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t