Indianapolis church with ties to Ukraine raises money to be hand-delivered

INDIANAPOLIS — On the west side of Indy, Saint Athanasius the Great Byzantine Catholic Church is stepping up to help those in Ukraine.

It’s a Ukrainian/Greek Catholic Church and Father Bryan Eyman said the patriarch, or spiritual head of the church, is located in Kyiv.

Eyman has been to Ukraine a dozen times and has friends who are still there. His congregation also has about a half a dozen families who are of Ukrainian origin.

“These are people and places ... that I know very well," Eyman said. "Like me, they know people there, they have relatives there. This situation is very painful.”

Father Eyman’s congregation is stepping up to help in every way they can.

“We’re a small congregation and we’ve already raised a couple of thousand dollars to send. Every penny that we’ve collected is going to be directly used to help refugees," he said.

Donated money from the church will go to two places: the Knights of Columbus and to the bishop, who’s a part of the Byzantine Catholic dioceses of Parma in the Midwest.

He’s traveling to Ukraine with the money that this parish and other parishes have raised and will hand deliver it to people helping the refugees who’ve reached the farthest southwest portion of Ukraine.

When Ukrainian refugees arrive there, they receive food, shelter and transportation when they can.