The embrace between Giulia Cerqueti and father Mykhailo Romaniv after the award ceremony.
by Lorenzo Rossi
“With sincere gratitude for an open heart full of love and for your constant presence alongside those who seek hope.” It’s the motivation with which the San Martino del Porres Charitable Foundation of Fastiv, Ukraine, awarded the recognition of “honorary ambassador” to Giulia Cerqueti, journalist by Cristian familya, which since the beginning of the large-scale war, in February 2022, has followed the conflict in Ukraine through the pages of the newspaper, telling in particular the daily life of the population, the stories of resilience of people and communities, solidarity, humanitarian initiatives, the action of the Church and charitable bodies such as the San Martino Center alongside the people.
They were designated “honorary ambassadors”. various lay and religious figures, Dominicans, volunteers, diplomats, collaborators, Ukrainians, Poles and from other countries, people who, with their commitment in different ways and areas, have contributed to supporting the social work of the Dominican Centre, in particular in these difficult years of war and suffering, during which the Fastiv Foundation has become an important reception center for displaced people and humanitarian assistance in the front areas.
Among those who received the recognition were Monsignor Vitalii Kryvytskyi, Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese of Kyiv-Zhytomyr, and Bartosz Cichocki, ambassador of Poland to Kyiv from 2019 until 2023. Among other things, Cichocki was a political scientist and historian with a profound knowledge of Ukrainian reality the only ambassador of the European Union countries to never abandon Kyiv after the outbreak of the large-scale conflict (when the other diplomatic representations, due to the insecurity in the Ukrainian capital, were transferred at a certain point to Lviv, in the west of the country, and to Poland).
The setting for the presentation of the awards was the celebration in Fastiv of the first twenty years of the charitable foundation, last November 3, the day on which Saint Martin de Porres is commemorated, Peruvian religious of the Dominican order (1579-1639), the first mulatto saint of the Americas, known as “Martin of Charity” or also “saint of the broom”, because he is generally represented with a broom in his hand, symbol of that humility and spirit of service to which the San Martino Center, directed by father Mykhailo Romaniv, inspires his work. The twentieth anniversary celebration opened with a religious service presided over by Monsignor Kryvytskyi. Among the concelebrants who arrived from different areas of Ukraine and other countries, Father Jaroslaw Krawiecprovincial vicar of the Dominicans in Ukraine, e father Luca Boviosuperior of the Consolata missionary community in Poland and national director of the Pontifical Missionary Works in Ukraine.
(In the photo above, Giulia Cerqueti, on the left, during the award ceremony with Father Mykhailo Romaniv, director of the San Martino de Porres Charitable Foundation of Fastiv, and Olena Furman, one of the teachers at the Centre’s school)
