“On October 31, the presentation of the book “I will go where no one wants to go” on the history of the revival of the penitentiary ministry of the UGCC took place,” the Information Department of the UGCC reports.
The authors of the publication were presented by Fr. Oleg Nestor and Fr. Kostyantyn Panteley (the third author, Fr. Roman Garandja, was not present). The pages of the book tell about the prison chaplaincy of the clergy of the UGCC.
During the presentation, Father Kostyantyn Pantelei noted that “the book is evidence that I did not dream, I did not pray to God, I did not ask for such a mission. I would never want to cross the threshold of a prison in my life. But when I went there, I was not alone.”
He shared that he looked for motivation in the Holy Scriptures.
“I understood that the Church was also authentic in the time of terrible repressions, when priests and bishops, not of their own volition, found themselves under a heavy blow of torture, wandering, humiliation and the hard fate of a prisoner. When I started this service, to which the Church called me in the person of the most blessed Lubomir, at the beginning I could not even imagine what I would do there,” said Fr. Konstantin Pantelei.

He added that “fate opened the way to prison through service in Caritas, where I saw the example of Ihor Onyshkevych and a whole group of service to mothers who ended up in prison.”
The father was also inspired by the example of Ms. Marta Blihar, “who herself as a UPA liaison with the nickname “Bzhilka” was imprisoned, spent more than 10 years in severe captivity in Siberia, and for her, the experience of prison was a natural continuation of volunteer pastoral care of the laity.”
“When I took the first steps in writing this book, gathering authors, we saw together how difficult it is. This first part reveals to us the prehistory of modern current pastoral care, the latest that we are experiencing today,” said the co-author.
Vyacheslav Kogut, the director of the prison mission in Ukraine, was also invited to the presentation of the book. After the event, he shared his impressions: “How good it is when chaplains write about the service of the Church in terms of personal experience. It will be a good example for followers and history.”

Photo: Information Department of the UGCC, Vyacheslav Kogut.