By Brandon T. Bisceglia
The audience listens with lit candles during a March 6 vigil for Ukraine outside Milford City Hall. Photo by Robert Criegh.
About 100 people gathered in front of Milford City Hall on March 6 in a show of support for the people of Ukraine.
The audience held candles and bowed their heads in prayer as local politicians and faith leaders called for peace in the eastern European nation that was attacked without provocation on Feb. 24 by Russia, and where millions of people remain in precarious circumstances as the invasion has dragged on.
The entire delegation of state legislators whose districts cover Milford joined together for the event, along with mayor Ben Blake.
Rabbi Alvin Weinhaus of Congregation Or Shalom speaks during the March 6 vigil for Ukraine at Milford City Hall. Photo by Steve Cooper.
State Sen. James Maroney, one of the first speakers, said that a few months ago many people might not have thought much about Ukraine. Now, he said, “the whole world knows about Ukraine.”
“We know about their indomitable spirit. We see their will. And we see the bravery with which they’re fighting for their freedom,” he said.
Rabbi Alvin Weinhaus of Congregation Or Shalom in Orange – himself the son of Holocaust survivors – delivered a prayer for peace, calling the war a “moral darkness” that had once again descended on Europe.
“Lord, let your spirit enter the heart of a leader bent on conquest of his peaceful neighbor,” Weinhaus said, referring to Russian president Vladimir Putin. “Cause him to realize the error of his ways, so that he’ll forsake his diabolical plan.”
Rev. Angel Sanchez of Gateway Christian Fellowship church in West Haven said that he had visited Ukraine in 2018 and remembered walking some of the same streets that are now under siege.
“As I look over the Facebook pages and pictures of some of the people that I spoke with in the last years are posting pictures of things that are so hard to believe, so hard to see, so hard to understand.”
Blake said that Milford was joining the world community in praying for an end to the violence.
“It’s gathering like this that remind us all that we are part of a shared community – a shared humanity,” he said.
State Rep. Kathy Kennedy, who organized the vigil, thanked the audience for coming out to stand in solidarity with Ukrainians. She held up a sunflower, noting that it was Ukraine’s national flower and a symbol of peace.
With members of the crowd cradling candles, Kennedy read an English translation of Ukraine’s national anthem. When she got to one prescient line, she asked the crowd to repeat it with her.
“We’ll lay down our souls and bodies to attain our freedom,” the crowd repeated with her.