History and Major Events in the Life of the Missionaries of Charity
in the Diocese of Kyiv-Zhytomyr (1991–2012)
In July 1991, the bishop and the Ecology and Humanity Association invited the sisters to help the victims of Chornobyl. Four sisters arrived in Ukraine on 14 September 1991, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
Blessed Mother Teresa visited Kyiv in 1986 after the explosion at the Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant. She attended and prayed at the liturgy and spoke with people in the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. When Mother Teresa was opening houses in russia, in the former Soviet Union, she promised Our Lady that she would name the houses after the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary. As the tenth house, the Kyiv house is therefore called “The Crucifixion”. When the sisters arrived in Kyiv, they had no house or apartment of their own and had to keep moving until May 1992. They served with love, visited families and met people experiencing homelessness. In 1992, they obtained their own apartment on Turhenivska Street. At night, because of the neighbours’ hostility, the sisters passed food to homeless people through the windows, sewed
and provided clean clothing for those in need, and continued to visit families, older people and hospitals.
In 1997, the sisters purchased their own house on Hvardiiska Street and continued their loving service.
The sisters’ community belongs to the russian Province, which comprises eighteen houses in the former Soviet Union, including the house in Kyiv.
Over different periods, 25 sisters have served in Kyiv. Today, the community consists
of four sisters. The missionaries have also been invited to other dioceses in Ukraine.
The sisters serve the poorest of the poor, regardless of caste, religion, nationality or race, offering everyone free and wholehearted assistance. Thus,
in Kyiv, they prepare food and serve meals under a canopy to 60–70 homeless people three times a week. They distribute clothing, medicines and other necessities. They visit families, people living alone, older people, homeless people at railway stations and patients in hospital.
Once a week, children from poor families come to the sisters’ house to learn English and catechism. The youngest take part in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, based on the Montessori method. Usually, fifteen to eighteen children attend.
The sisters have three vocations from Ukraine serving in Milan, Italy; Iceland; and Sakhalin, russia. Two more are undergoing formation in Poland.
2a Hvardiiska Street
Kyiv 03118