Joseph Sabino Mistick: The power of faith, family and pierogi

Next week, as they have done nearly every week for decades, the women of St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church in McKeesport will gather around long tables in the church basement to make pierogi.

Their fingers will move quickly and precisely, shaping small balls of potato and cheese, a filling church member Greg Waligura has prepared and refrigerated at 5 a.m. so it will set by the time they need it. Placing the filling in the center of small discs of dough, some days as many as 25 women will pinch the edges and place the pierogi on trays.

Each tray of three dozen will go to the kitchen, where Roman Polnyj boils them, bathes them in butter and onions, and packs them in one-dozen containers for the church’s mostly regular customers.

At least three of the women are in their 90s. The church’s “pyrohi project” is a family tradition for grandmothers, mothers and daughters, according to Barb Stanoszek. “My baba and my mother both made pierogi for the church, and I joined the group eight years ago when I retired from banking.

“We catch up with each other, reminisce about the past and those who are gone. We laugh and sometimes cry together. We don’t talk politics. It’s about community and our culture and our faith,” she said.

The women of this Ukrainian church and other churches have made pierogi through good times and bad. And last week was not good. Feb. 24 was the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Ukrainians in the “old country” marked the day by visiting the graves of fallen soldiers and loved ones.

A dozen leaders from Europe and Canada visited Ukraine to show solidarity with the Ukrainian people. As European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, “In this fight for survival, it is not only the destiny of Ukraine that is at stake. It’s Europe’s destiny.”

“Three years of resistance. Three years of gratitude. Three years of absolute heroism of Ukrainians,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said to mark the occasion.

No American high officials attended.

In a stunning betrayal of American support for Ukraine, President Donald Trump and his aides met with various Russian officials — without Ukrainian officials — to discuss terms for ending the war. As a prelude, Trump repeated the Kremlin lie that Ukraine started the war, calling Zelenskyy a dictator.

Also last week, the United States voted with Russia, North Korea, Belarus and other Moscow-leaning countries against a United Nations resolution that condemned Russia for invading Ukraine and demanded the return of Ukrainian land that was seized by Russia. That dishonors every American family who lost a loved one fighting for freedom in World War II.

The week was capped Friday by a crude performance by Trump and Vice President JD Vance at a White House meeting with Zelenskyy that was greeted with cheers in the Kremlin. It may as well have been choreographed by Putin.

The Ukrainian people have already survived the horrors of World War I, the insanity of Josef Stalin’s deliberate famines and the brutality of the Nazis in World War II. Now, Putin and Russia are again testing Ukrainian strength and faith. That faith will be hard to shake.

As Polnyj explains it, pierogi sales “once provided a little extra money for our churches, a chance to do a little more for our neediest parishioners.” But with church attendance and donations down everywhere, churches rely on pierogi sales to “keep the doors of the house of God open. We need that.”