Mennonites in Ukraine

Mennonite Heritage Village hosts prayer vigil

Sixty people gathered at Mennonite Heritage Village (MHV) in Steinbach, Man. to pray for peace in Ukraine. (Photo by Judy Peters/Steinbach Online)

On the cold evening of March 13, about 60 people gathered outside at Mennonite Heritage Village (MHV) in Steinbach, Man. to pray for peace in Ukraine. The museum, which commemorates the Mennonite people and their 500-year journey of migration, hosted the vigil to provide Manitobans an opportunity to grieve, pray and stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

Memorial created from unearthed Mennonite gravestones in Ukraine

Two Mennonite gravestones were pieced back together and restored for the memorial. (Photo by Max Shtatsky)

The Mennonite memorial will feature 15 of the 120-plus headstones that were recovered from the foundation of an old barn. (Photo by Max Shtatsky)

Local Ukrainians made the memorial possible through their hard work transporting and installing the Mennonite headstones. (Photo by Max Shtatsky)

The memorial is pictured being set up in preparation for its dedication on June 24. (Photo by Max Shtatsky)

Two years ago, a Ukrainian researcher began excavating the foundation of a dilapidated brick barn in Zaporozhye, Ukraine. Using shovels and picks, he began to unearth the rubble. Then he started to notice the German inscriptions on the broken stones. These turned out to be Mennonite gravestones.

Ukrainians witness amid suffering, hope

Seven women ages 16–22 were baptized at a nearby pool the day the European leaders visited Mennonites in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. (Photo by J. Nelson Kraybill)

This former Mennonite school served 130 hearing- and speech-impaired children at Tiege in the Molotschna region. When the German army swept through Ukraine, soldiers took the students out to a field and shot them. (Photo by J. Nelson Kraybill)

In a region of Ukraine that thousands of Mennonites left generations ago, two dozen of today’s Mennonite leaders from across Europe gathered for three days of fellowship in October 2018. 

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