Help to Repair a Solar Water Heating System for a Seminary in Ukraine

The city of Ushhorod lies within the Greek Catholic eparchy – or diocese – of Mukatshevo in West Ukraine, on the border with Slovakia. This area is more remote from the ongoing war and has taken in thousands of refugees.

The Greek-Catholic seminary here – named after the martyred Bishop Theodore Romzha, murdered in 1947 and beatified by Pope John Paul II in June 2001 during his visit to Ukraine – has been supported by ACN since its very beginnings. In fact, it was the first seminary to be rebuilt in Ukraine following the collapse of communism. There had, in fact, already been a building here before the Soviet era, but this was confiscated by the communists and was still not returned to the Church even after the end of communism. So, in the 1990s, ACN funded the construction of the new seminary and has been supporting the training of its priests ever since.

But now, the seminary has encountered a major problem. As the rector, Archimandrite Petro Pavlo Beresh, has told us, “After around 10 years of use, the existing solar water heating system in our seminary, where over 65 seminarians currently live and study, has become seriously damaged. Many parts of the system have rusted away, and it has now been out of use for several months. During this time, we had to heat water with electric heaters, with correspondingly high energy costs. We therefore need to repair or renew the entire system, so that we can once more provide the warm water the seminary needs in an efficient manner.”

We are planning to give $9,367 for the necessary repairs, so that the seminary can once again provide the warm water it needs without having to face such high extra costs.

438-02-19