Although the temperature was near freezing and there had been a mix of rain and sleet all day, a group of approximately 100 people gathered in the dark outside Bethlehem’s City Hall Rotunda to talk, sing and pray for peace for the people of Ukraine.

Many participants were Ukrainian in either citizenship or family background; others had names that were Irish, English or Italian. One person identified himself simply as American.

Summoned by the Bethlehem Interfaith Group of approximately 20 ministers, priests and rabbis, people came out in the miserable weather to declare their support of the people of Ukraine, millions of whom are being bombed or shelled in even worse conditions at home.

Prayers and poems were the meeting’s main agenda. In the audience each participant held a symbolic lighted candle. Part of a poem by Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine’s poet laureate, was read in English. A hymn was sung in Hebrew by Rabbi Michael Singer, and, for the finale, the national anthem of Ukraine was sung in Ukrainian by a group led by two Ukrainian Orthodox priests.

The only fully secular speech of the evening was a moving pledge of Bethlehem’s support for Ukraine and our Ukrainian citizens by Bethlehem Mayor J. William Reynolds.

So, what did the meeting accomplish?

All over America, in cities and towns large and small, meetings like this, some much larger, have already, or will soon take place. Polls show overwhelming support among Americans for the Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s invasion, and the support is bipartisan.

A small group in Bethlehem may not seem like much at first, but the groups across the United States add up. Vladimir Putin has contempt for the way democracies do things, but he has thumbed his nose at the democratic ideal of the rule of law at his own and Russia’s considerable risk.

Photo coverage continues on page A2