CLEVELAND — At the Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist, together they pray for Ukraine, led by the head of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese, Bishop Edward Malesic.
"It should outrage you," Malesic told 3News. "It outrages me too that human beings continue to treat each other with such hatred and violence."
Praying for the end of the violence, and with all the suffering going on in Ukraine, the bishop in a one-on-one interview says he knows "good" will come out of all that evil.
"We look at the crucifixion, which was a horrible thing," he said. "Yet the Lord pulled the resurrection from it."
Father Volodymyr Hrytsyuk, from the local Ukrainian Catholic Church, joined Malesic on the alter. As a Ukrainian American, his father and most of his family are caught in the middle of Vladimir Putin's war.
"We are paying the price for choosing to follow our God-given rights to live in freedom on our lands," he explained.
And because in America we have choices, the bishop says to pray for Ukraine, and even Putin.
"I want Putin to have salvation too, and the way to do that is to turn to our Lord Jesus and become a person of peace," Malesic said, encouraging parishioners to open their hearts, wallets, and homes to help those in a war zone. "The Lord always answers our prayers on the Lord's time, or not how we expect."