One of the Church’s central tasks is to nurture people’s spiritual growth. The Congregation of St. John Bosco has made this its defining mission. The Salesian fathers are always among young people, attentive to the needs of their brothers and sisters in Christ. They were the first in Ukraine to run summer camps for children and have opened several Catholic educational institutions, among other initiatives.
This year, the courtyard of the St. Dominic Savio Oratory at the Church of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God in Lviv is just as lively and cheerful as in previous years. Since May, the site has been hosting a "Holidays with God" program featuring activities and games for children, as well as evening prayer gatherings.
There's a clear emphasis on sports here — right beside the walls of the Church of the Protection stands a mini-football pitch. And on the wall, an intriguing inscription catches the eye: "Good Christians — Honest Citizens."
Father Taras Mylyan, a Salesian priest who heads the St. Dominic Savio Oratory and serves as chaplain to the "Pokrova" amputee football team, explains that this is one of the founding principles of St. John Bosco, the Salesians' founder. When we met, Father Taras was still wearing a tracksuit, having just come from spending time with the children. And it's the children we begin with.
"We gather with the children at three locations: on Lychakivska Street, on Medovoi Pechery Street, and on Hlynianskyi Trakt. That's how it's been since May: in the evenings we pray to the Mother of God, then have games and activities. In May alone, more than 300 children took part in the camps at these locations. Over the whole summer, the Oratory at the Church of the Protection alone has five week-long camps planned, reaching about 800 children and involving 52 activity leaders. Every session has its own theme. This year, for instance, our activity leaders also served as catechists — not just the priests," says Father Taras Mylyan.
"For us Salesians, the heart of spirituality and upbringing is being present with those in our care. It's about presence, about accompaniment. This is the foundation of St. John Bosco's Preventive System of education. Being with children, with young people — that's what shapes personality deeply and meaningfully. A presence that isn't commanding but constant prevents many problems before they arise. Children learn self-regulation and how to manage their own behavior."
Many parishes are now running "Happy Holidays with God" programs — a time for spiritual formation, catechesis, and games near the church. They're led by priests and activity leaders, young people who undergo special training. The presence of trustworthy adults shapes these boys and girls. Through play, workshops, physical activities, team-building, skits, bansy (short group dances), and the word of God, the children learn and grow.
"The idea for these camps came to Ukraine in 1991 with Father Vasyl Sapeliak, Bishop Andriy Sapeliak, and Father Vasyl Korol. When the first young men began coming to the Salesians and expressing a desire for consecrated life, it was these three who started forming and teaching them. We were sent for formation to Italy and Slovakia. And I — you might be surprised — was sent near Moscow; the Salesians had a formation house there too. They came to serve in Ukraine after the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church emerged from the underground."
Father Taras explains that everything the Salesians do today traces back to 19th-century Italy. Poor young people, children, and teenagers had no access to education and wandered the streets, often exploited as cheap labor. The future saint John Bosco (1815–1888) lived through a similarly difficult childhood himself — he lost his father as a small boy and was raised by his mother alone. As a child, John had a strange dream in which he saw a man dressed in white, who told him, "I will give you a teacher. She will teach you how to transform boys through love." That teacher was the Blessed Virgin Mary. Bosco understood his calling and lived it out for the rest of his life.
"St. John Bosco had several paths open to him. One was to become a tutor for a wealthy family, have a comfortable income, and live a quiet life. Instead, he chose something else: taking boys off the street and pulling them out of forced labor. Imagine trying to do that — you can't just tell a boy, "Come, let me tell you about God." Especially not a street kid. So Don Bosco did it differently. He was out walking one day and saw some boys gambling. He grabbed their money and ran off toward his own field. The boys wanted to beat him up — he'd stolen their bread money! But instead, Bosco suggested… they play football. And that's how the first "Happy Holidays" camp was born — the first oratory."
Don Bosco built play into his educational method. Even as a boy, he learned tightrope walking and magic tricks so he could hold his peers' attention long enough to tell them about God. After a game, he could recite, word for word, a homily he'd heard at Mass. In other words, from his earliest years, the future saint's calling was already fully present in him.
"Bosco also understood that playing with children wasn't enough on its own. He began investing in education, and that's how Salesian schools, gymnasiums, colleges, institutes, universities, and extracurricular centers came to be. He knew young people needed to be taught not just religion but a trade so that they could earn their own living. Back then, that meant things like printing or tailoring. Bosco learned these trades himself because Salesians also had to be able to do what they taught their students. That principle is still alive today: if we're running a camp with children, we need real, firsthand experience ourselves. And beyond philosophical and theological training, most Salesians also hold degrees in education and psychology."
In Ukraine, the Salesians began their camps and holiday programs by training activity leaders. In the 1990s, these were university-age young people, eighteen and up. Today, most activity leaders are teenagers starting from age 14. Training runs year-round, covering the basics of developmental psychology, religion, and catechism, as well as first-aid courses.
"This year at the Church of the Protection, the training was led by my fellow brothers, along with former activity leaders who came back to help. Sister Kateryna Molochii, a Redemptorist, taught psychology as she is a professional psychotherapist. Team-building sessions were led by Taras Kosar, a former activity leader of ours who now serves in the military; he also organized several sessions on psychological resilience. And of course, prayer is a constant part of our life together — we encourage young people to be practicing Christians. Naturally, we can't expect everyone to have perfect knowledge, since the children come from all kinds of families. But our main task is to help them grow in faith. And the young people are watching us."
Beyond the chance to develop leadership skills, activity leaders also get to rest — including an off-site camp in the Carpathians and a trip to the youth festival in Medjugorje. According to Fr. Taras, these serve as a form of thanks and encouragement for their continued growth.
Some former activity leaders chose the consecrated life. Most went on to build strong Christian families, and what the Salesian fathers planted in their souls is now bearing fruit. The experience of being an activity leader is also useful in fields that involve working with people — for some, it's helped in IT, for others, in running their own business. The world-renowned violin virtuoso Oleksandr Bozhyk, for instance, was once an activity leader too; Father Taras recalls how young Oleksandr would spend his days with the children and his nights practicing violin. TV host and actor Oleh Pryhoda started working with children when he was just twelve years old — he did remarkably well and still often takes part in children's events.
Following the example of their founder, Don Bosco, the Salesians continue to invest in education. One school they founded is the Sheptytsky School-Gymnasium educational complex, established in the early 1990s. It's now a municipally run institution, though the founders, the city, and the state still cooperate. The Salesians also once ran the "School of St. Sophia" Catholic lyceum. The fathers hope to found yet another school in Sykhiv.
Lviv is also home to the "Bosco" Vocational Education Center, which combines professional training, Christian formation, sport, and support for young people from vulnerable backgrounds. The center offers several fields of study, including IT, hospitality, and automotive repair. Father Taras Mylyan says their graduates find work very easily. In the same complex, the "Pokrova" family home houses around 70 orphan boys from across Ukraine.
Salesian educational institutions worldwide also train skilled communications and media professionals. Father Taras notes that even at the Oratory in Lviv, the strongest group working with the children is the SMM (social media) team. Volunteer activity leaders film the activities, write copy, and grow the social media pages — and they clearly enjoy it. There's also a professional journalism club running here.
"We hope some of these children will grow into skilled journalists who report the news responsibly. I'm convinced our goal shouldn't be raising as many monks and nuns as possible among young people, but rather helping a child grow in humanity, in reverence, in love for God and for others. Everything else is in God's hands. If He wants to call someone to consecrated life, that will happen on its own. Because in the end, this is all about a person's happiness. When a man loves a woman, and a woman loves a man, they're happy — even if they argue sometimes. In the same way, a true monk is someone who has hardships but is happy wherever God has called him."
Salesian-run Catholic schools also operate in Odesa, Zhytomyr, and Zaporizhzhia. The last of these was founded on the initiative of Bishop Maksym Riabukha, himself a Salesian. Of course, it would be easier to establish schools only in relatively safer places. But it's necessary to be with children wherever they are.
"There are still children in Zaporizhzhia. Their families don't want to leave their land. Even if there are risks, if it's possible to do good work locally, why not? What matters isn't just the building, but the system, the approach to raising children. Behind it all stands the name of St. John Bosco."
Tuition at these Catholic schools isn't free. But parents understand they're getting a different kind of education than in state schools, including the constant presence of priest-educators among the children and Don Bosco's living preventive system of upbringing.
"Nowadays, there's a police presence in state schools too, so that's also about safety. But in Catholic institutions, there's also accompaniment — for example, during breaks. The teacher doesn't hide away in the classroom or the staff room; they stay with the students the whole time — in the hallways and outside. It seems like such a simple thing, this Salesian trait, but it matters enormously for shaping a child's humanity, dignity, and ability to cope. Extracurricular learning is an important part of it, too. And our schools are always a religious environment—we never set aside prayer. We put real emphasis on extracurricular connection, which state schools have much less of: trips, camps, retreats."
A child's denomination plays no role in admission to a Catholic school. But parents and children need to understand there are certain things they're agreeing to — or else they'd have to forgo studying there. That means prayer, religious formation, and retreats. The quality of education is reflected in the admissions waiting list: not everyone who wants a spot at a Catholic school can get one, as demand exceeds capacity.
The Salesians don't shut themselves off from the reality we're living in. War is one of the greatest challenges and shocks facing our society today, and young people feel it too. At the Church of the Protection, they've found their own way to respond to the needs and trauma now affecting service members and their families — and that response is sport. There's a lot of it here, and for good reason: Don Bosco himself started with sport too.
For several years now, the Church of the Protection has had its own amputee football team (an adapted form of football for people with disabilities, amputations, or limb impairments: field players play on special elbow crutches without prosthetics, while goalkeepers have an amputation or impairment of an upper limb). Father Taras Mylyan, the team's chaplain, recalls how the idea came about. Soldiers return home with wounds and amputations, and their lives look completely different afterward — pain, rehabilitation, uncertainty about what comes next. How could they be helped? Most of the men had played football or loved watching matches. While in Switzerland, the Salesian fathers saw people playing football on crutches, and Father Mykhailo Chaban, the provincial superior of the UGCC Salesian Fathers in Ukraine, thought it would be worth bringing to Ukraine.
Coach Bohdan Melnyk, brought in to lead the effort, began putting a team together. They visited rehabilitation centers and invited veterans to try amputee football. At first, it seemed like an odd idea — people with serious injuries being asked to play football — but the service members agreed, and more and more of them wanted in.
"What condition is a person in after a severe injury? Exhausted, with phantom pain, sometimes even without the will to live. It's hard to stand on crutches, to start running, and to kick a ball. We brought in Dr. Oleh, a surgeon, and Roman, a rehabilitation specialist, and began working with the service members together. And football gave them a reason to start living again. Even in difficult moments, in crises, the coach never left them alone with their pain and problems. And after training, you can see it — their faces light up."
The whole system is built to care as fully as possible for the mental and physical healing of our defenders — no alcohol, regular training, a clear plan for work and recovery. All of it builds team spirit.
"And who stands behind these servicemen? Their wives and children. Football has helped veterans not just return to life but also keep their families together, since the wives and children have become part of the team's shared effort. They travel to tournaments and stay close to their husbands and fathers — that's also a form of healing. And beyond that, it's a ministry to the children who get to see their father as a champion: a hero who fought for Ukraine, a winner on the football field, and over his own pain. These men teach me not to complain, not to feel sorry for myself."
For two years, the team played in the Polish league, gaining experience. Meanwhile, coach Bohdan Melnyk began pushing the idea of a Ukrainian amputee football championship through the Ukrainian Association of Football. Today, "Pokrova AMP" is the reigning champion of Ukraine and has conceded no goals in its entire history. There are now around twenty amputee football teams active in Ukraine, and the initiative has state support.
Father Mylyan says the sport has its own set of rules — matches are shorter and the field is smaller, since running long distances on crutches is difficult, and there are fewer players. The crutches count as extensions of the arms, so touching the ball with them is forbidden. The rules are fairly strict, and the game is never just fun and games — but afterward, the players embrace and shake hands.
The Salesians also dream of expanding their rehabilitation efforts — there's already an approved project to build a large rehabilitation center outside Lviv, and initial work there has begun. There's a need for more stadiums and for a space where veterans can feel comfortable and get everything they need in one place.
"This isn't just about amputee football, it's about creating an inclusive environment where all kinds of people can develop themselves through sport. And of course, there will also be plenty of initiatives for young people, because Salesians without young people just don't work. We've had 11 children's and youth football teams running for 20 years now — a full football school of national standing that competes with Lviv's "Karpaty" and "Rukh." We're even planning to open a kindergarten. All of this matters because it gives our people strength."
The Congregation of St. John Bosco also continues its humanitarian work. When Russia's full-scale invasion began, huge numbers of displaced people were forced to seek shelter in relatively safer cities. That reality has, sadly, become normal for society by now, but the problems and needs of internally displaced people haven't gone away. Thousands still need a new home, basic supplies, support, and comfort. For four years now, the Salesians in Lviv have been providing food for an entire community of Ukrainians forced to flee occupation and front-line areas.
Military chaplaincy is a ministry unto itself. Father Oleh Ladniuk is an official chaplain who also trains new pastors for this work; for years, he's split his life between Kyiv and Dnipro — and, of course, the front line. Father Hryhoriy Shved has served as a volunteer chaplain since 2014 and continues to travel regularly to the front to care for the people he's stood beside since the start of the war.
There's also a Salesian monastery on the left bank in Kyiv, with its own oratory, football field, and activity leaders. Dozens of children have kept coming to the "Happy Holidays" program there despite constant Russian shelling and danger. Father Taras says there's real potential to grow this work — the only obstacle is that there simply aren't enough Salesians to cover everything. They're hoping for new vocations, which would let them talk not only about developing and improving existing projects but also about launching new ones. Salesian brothers from abroad also come to serve in Ukraine — the Congregation is represented in 137 countries worldwide — but the Eastern-rite Salesians, the Greek Catholics, exist only here.
When asked where the funding for such large-scale work comes from, Father Taras answers, "God provides."
"Of course, He does it through the hands of our benefactors. Father Mykhailo Chaban travels the world constantly, seeking support. There are already companies and businesses in Ukraine that make regular donations to various projects, and quite a few private individuals contribute as well. Of course, Ukraine still needs to build a stronger culture of philanthropy, as UCU [Ukrainian Catholic University] does. I think that's one of the tasks we need to take on — bringing together laypeople who are ready to share their gifts around our work. And of course, our Congregation helps us too, since it's one of the largest in the world, with a huge number of people standing behind it."
Despite being involved in so many community projects, Father Taras says he still finds time for himself — young people already share the workload and responsibilities with him. In his free time, the priest enjoys playing tennis and reading. He devotes special attention to Scripture, since he's convinced again and again that this book is a help at every moment of life. He also loves to sing, at home and while driving, and enjoys listening to Oksana Mukha, Pavlo Tabakov, and Oksana Bilozir.
"A person always has free time. It all comes down to self-organization. I try not to do things for them anymore, but to trust the young men and women who are capable of taking responsibility and being co-creators. It's all about a genuine, living connection. And I also think a person who doesn't rest doesn't really know how to work either."
In closing, we return once more to the motto seen in the church courtyard: "Good Christians — Honest Citizens." As Father Taras explains, this idea is the very goal of St. John Bosco's preventive educational system.
"Through the educator's presence among children, Father Bosco created a preventive system of education. It rests on three pillars. First, we approach things with a clear, sober mind — that is, we look at reality as it is. Second, we don't just look at reality; above all, we bring love, which lets children feel accepted and understood. And the third element is faith, God's grace, because without God's help, salvation is impossible. Divine grace is absolutely necessary for salvation, and behind it stand the sacraments, the Divine Liturgy, religious formation, and so on. It's precisely in these conditions that good Christians — who are also honest citizens — are meant to be raised.
And the foundation of all this is the pastor's presence in young people's lives. A living presence — not the kind where you explain and demonstrate something and then leave them to figure it out on their own. No: you are present; you are among the children; you play with them; you stay with them. They know that you are there. I am with you.
This presence itself prevents so many problems. There's no shouting there, only love, expressed through the educator's active presence during activities — real, living communication between the educator and the boy or girl! Being present is the very foundation of a chaplain's work, including with children and young people."
##DONATE_TEXT_BLOCK##