UGCC cleric afflicted with COVID-19: Our people didn't pass a humanity test

UGCC priest Vladimir Vashchuk. Photo: sos.pravda.com.ua

The priest of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Vladimir Vashchuk, who serves in the church of the Most Holy Theotokos in Chervonograd, Lviv Region, spoke about how he became the first to be infected with the coronavirus in his city. The interview was published on May 27, 2020, by the Ukrainskaya Pravda publication.

Speaking about whether there was any negative response to his diagnosis, he noted, “I don’t know how my neighbors reacted, I practically did not communicate with any of them and I did not read the media. I didn’t keep track because I really didn’t want to, there was no need. I was in a state when you are fighting for your life, but there are only death toll reports around you.”

However, describing the attitude of others towards the sick, which he had witnessed, the priest said, “our Ukrainian people have failed to pass the humanity test. This is the biggest disappointment.”

“My parents and my family live in the village, so local residents steered clear of them, although they had been isolated for two weeks, and I had no contact with them because I see them very rarely,” the cleric said.

He added, “The nurses in the hospital who come from the villages almost cry: “You know, they say, we are like lepers in our village. Our fellow villagers bypass us, they throw stones at our houses, into the yards.”

The priest said what the quarantine and coronavirus had changed in his life: “Any disease changes a lot. You evaluate lots of people around you in a new light: those who supported you in the most difficult time; those who were in the sidelines; those who wrote some negative comments. These three weeks were special for me ... I made a point of not getting ahead of events, running ahead of life, but living and enjoying every day instead.”

As reported by the UOJ, earlier residents of a village near Kiev threatened to burn a house of a nurse, suspecting her of catching the virus.

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