As soldiers replace civilians in his front-line town, Father Kester says Mass for both.
KOSTIANTYNIVKA, Ukraine — Father Vitalii Kester’s Sunday routine is not what it used to be, before war drove most of his congregation away and he started wearing army pants beneath his robes and splitting his day between one Mass at church and another with soldiers on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine.
Kester didn’t pause. The sunlight fell across his robes in stripes because boards have been nailed over the windows, not to protect the church from the Russians who are steadily closing in on the town, but from the Russian-sympathizing neighbors who already surround them. He took off his embroidered gold robe and left the church in an olive drab cassock, marking his shift from parish priest to army chaplain. He was preparing to take the sacrament to the troops.
“Without electricity, we can manage, but without water, it’s going to be a catastrophe,” Natalia said. The couple have been determined to stay through four months of war, but she is watching the Russians approach. Referring to a town 24 miles away, she said, “If they take Avdiivka, that will be our last call to leave.”
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