Priest with prostheses serves in church and dances at weddings

Recently, a photo of two men with open leg amputations went viral on social media. One is a priest, the other is a military man.

The caption to the photo reads: “Today I visited the home of soldier Volodymyr Boichuk with Jordan water and shared my experience of serving the parish for 22 years with two prostheses. Volodymyr has a lot of hard work and endurance ahead of him. He will make it!”

Our Natalia Mazina went to Horodenka, Ivano-Frankivsk region, to visit Ivan Teremko, a cleric of the Kolomyia diocese of the OCU (Orthodox Church of Ukraine), the same priest in the photo.

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He meets me at the train station. He is stately and dignified, wearing a black cassock with a heavy cross. Before I could get into a serious mood, the man hugged me, winked, and joked.

He drives the car to his home, nodding to his friends through the window. Many take off their hats as a sign of respect.

“Here is my garden, where I am working,” Father Ivan stops near an elegant house. The garden is opposite, across the road. I am surprised.

But soon the surprise disappears: there is nothing this man cannot do. We'll even dance, but that's for later. First, let's talk about the winter of 2002.

“Lord, take my soul”

It was a snowy winter that year. Father Ivan, then 36, was having dinner at home when the landline phone rang. His neighbor (they lived next door to each other), also a priest, had driven to the village where he was to serve in church the next day. The car got stuck because of a snowstorm, so he asked Ivan Teremko: “Take someone's horses and sled and come pick me up.” The neighboring priest himself was sheltered by parishioners.

Father Ivan responded: he borrowed horses and left with a carriage driver. He also wanted to take his little daughters with him. He said, “I will ride you on horses with bells! But his wife Halyna refused: it was a blizzard! Where are you going?

The two men set off together, but stopped after five kilometers: it was so snowy that you couldn't see an arm's length away. And night had fallen. The horses went a little further and stopped — they could not go any further. The men realized that they had lost their way.

They ended up somewhere in a field, and Father Ivan jumped to the ground. It wasn't even ground anymore; it was a mire. There was no frost, so the horses fell through - up to their chests! A thought came to him: cut the harness, saddle them up, and let them go. They will find their way home on their own. But no matter how hard the priest kicked them, the poor animals could not move.

Father Ivan's short boots immediately took on water. His feet instantly froze. The men considered the idea of going somewhere else for a while but decided to spend the night in the sled.

Going somewhere is certain death, and staying here might mean that the blizzard will stop by morning. At dawn, Ivan Teremko's legs “did not serve”, as he says. They were numb and stiff, and he had no feeling.

His partner, who was wearing beat-up Siberian boots and high rubber galoshes, did not get his feet wet and decided to go for help.

An hour, two, three passed and he was gone. Later it turned out that the cart driver had found a straw haystack and climbed into it to wait out the weather, thinking that the priest had already frozen to death.

Realizing that no one would come for him, Father Ivan crawled away. As best he could, on his elbows and knees. He moved along the road, not knowing that it was only 50 meters away. If he had turned off, he would have been noticed: in the morning, some of the villagers were already sledding through, although the blizzard had spread even more. It would not subside until the next evening.

The priest reached the main gas pipe that ran nearby and led to Romania. Another thinner pipe stretched upward from it. He leaned against it with his back. He decided that if he died, they would find him here sooner. His strength was leaving him, and he was freezing. He prayed: “Lord, accept my soul.”

His legs turned black as coal

Meanwhile, his wife Halyna, having waited all night in vain, went to the head of the collective farm in the morning. Her husband was gone.

“A tractor is coming to clear the road for the ambulance: someone has appendicitis. Get in with the doctors,” he said.

The tractor was stalling, a white wall of snow obscured everything, and people couldn't even see the electric poles. A gasoline truck was following the tractor, and for some reason, its driver wanted to turn his head toward the field. For a second, the white wall parted, and he saw something black moving in the distance.

It was Father Ivan. He seemed to be shouting “Help!” loudly and waving with all his might. In reality, he was barely turning and opening his mouth. His face was frozen and his beard was covered with icicles. He could not get up and move on his own, so a tractor made its way to him. In the ambulance, they rubbed his body with vodka and gave him some to drink.

The man cheered up, and his usual vigor returned: “Drop me off at the last house, I'll warm up and go home.”

“Okay, okay,” the doctors said and did their job. At the hospital, they first put him in a tub of cold water, cut off his icy clothes, and took him to the intensive care unit.

He did not believe it was serious. He joked: the nurses were his parishioners, how could it be? He even stood with frostbitten feet, although he did not feel them. In the morning, his hands and feet were swollen and covered with purple blisters. The skin on his face was peeling off.

Two weeks later, his legs turned black as coal. The doctors said: cut them off! So Father Ivan lost both his legs. His knees remained. In total, the man underwent six operations.

Doctors were going to cut off his hands because they were 85% frostbitten, but a professor ordered to cancel the operation at the last minute. His hands really gradually healed, although they are still twisted, blue in the cold, and often shake. But they are there!

The driver who was with Ivan Teremko that night was found only on the fourth day. He also had his frostbitten legs and fingers amputated. He lived to an advanced age.

The situation with the horses was worse: one died, and the other was cut up and used for sausage.

He learned to dance in five days

We are sitting in the spacious kitchen of the Teremko family. Halyna, a 55-year-old priest's wife, has set the table and invites us to try one of the dishes, because “how can you not treat your guests?”

The sandwiches are smeared with mayonnaise and garlic, with crumbled sausage, cucumbers, and tomato on top, and sprinkled with cheese. A kind of salad on a crouton.

Father Ivan drinks only compote: he is in the habit of not eating breakfast. He throws his heavy cross on his back to prevent it from getting in the way. Over a glass of berry drink, he recalls how he learned to walk.

He did not go to a rehabilitation center — he was discharged from the hospital as soon as he walked to the second floor and back on crutches. At home, he practiced walking with only one prosthesis, as the other had not yet been made. Once he went to pick up his wife from work 25 kilometers away. He parked under the window and honked the horn. She looked out the window and almost fainted: he rushed over with the prosthesis and inserted a piece of plate instead.

“I had a great desire to get back on my feet and walk,” says Ivan Teremko.

“Make coffee for people, because they're already eating sweets,” his wife interrupts. “Once a neighbor brought an invitation to her daughter's wedding. He said: ‘Mariia if I learn to dance by Saturday, I will come to the wedding. If not, then I won't.’ There were five days left until Saturday. And in the evenings we practiced and learned. At the wedding, when the music started playing and we started dancing, everyone was looking at us, not at the newlyweds,” Halynalaughs.

The man, who had already changed into secular clothes, quickly picks up his wife and waltzes her around the room. Then he invites me to join him, and I can barely keep up.

He went to serve 8 months after frostbite

Over time, Ivan Teremko learned how to dig with a chair, how to repair a car, how to climb down a ladder into a well if the pump engine broke down, and how to climb an apple tree.

“We plastered this house together. I was operating a concrete mixer. He was scaffolding,” Halyna praises her husband.

“This is all normal for me,” he laughs. Why are you surprised? We are ordinary people. “None of the neighbors will say that I do nothing. On the contrary, a neighbor scolds her healthy husband: ‘Look how Father Ivan works, he doesn't complain that he's tired. He's on his feet all day and doesn't moan that he's in pain’.”

Eight months after the frostbite, the priest was already serving in his parish. He would stand for several hours at a time. But something bad happened.

“Because I was so eager to walk, I put a lot of stress on my legs and did not allow the stump to form properly. I had to undergo a re-amputation and cut off another part of my leg. But again I did not take care of myself - I put on the prosthesis too early.

I was so restless: we were doing repairs in the house — I was throwing bags of cement. My leg was cracked so that the bone was visible, but I wrapped it with tape, and for a year and a half I walked like that. Last spring, on the Annunciation, I was serving in the church and saw that all my clothes were wet with blood, dripping onto the floor. I came home, took off the prosthesis, and it was full of blood,” Father Ivan recalls.

He called a surgeon he knew and said, “Come and sew it up”. “How do you imagine that? Get to the hospital right away!” thedoctor ordered him back.

The leg had to be cut off by another 13 cm. After that, Ivan Teremko had to rest for 2.5 months and did not wear the prosthesis until the wound healed. He still takes care of himself and avoids such loads. At home, he takes off the prosthesis and walks on his knees, which have developed calluses.

Although recently he climbed up on a folding ladder in the garage to fix the cables that had become tangled in the ceiling. And the ladder just happened to fall. The man managed to grab the metal door. But you can't hang there for long, and no one will hear you shout. He had to jump two meters down. He was aiming not to hit the ladder. He didn't want to tell his wife about the incident, but she noticed when he came home covered in mud. She was so angry…

He took off his prostheses to support the wounded

When Father Ivan posted photos of himself without prostheses, he surprised many of his parishioners. They had been coming to him for 25 years. They had heard that the priest had no legs but thought that maybe he had no fingers or feet. Few people knew the truth. After the photographs were made public, he became even more respected for his resilience.

One of the parishioners wrote in the comments that she remembers that when the first service in Ukrainian was held in her village, Father Ivan came with other priests to support the new cleric. There were a lot of people, the police. There was a family that wanted the “Moscow priest” back so badly that they even beat Ivan on the legs with a stick. He said: “I have already had enough pain.”

Father Ivan visited his parishioner Volodymyr Boichuk, who was injured by an enemy mine, in the hospital. Then, after Epiphany, he came to his house and found him sitting sad, dejected, and despondent.

“He seems to be joking, but it's not sincere. I see that he is completely depressed. His wife is abroad, his retired mother is at work, and he lives with his twin brother. Volodymyr began to tell me something. Maybe it was stupid, but I thought, let him talk, even if he swore, if only he could get out of this state. I realize that I need to find the right words, I need to encourage him.

I suggest: ‘Let me show you how I walk on my prostheses.’ I sat down next to him on the bed: ‘We're going to put this photo on the Internet, and you'll see how many people will support you’.”

Teremko explains his proposal:“I am not ashamed or afraid of anything anymore. I'm going to be 60 soon, so I want to give a boost to others. I want this child (he is not yet forty) to get back on his feet. I want him not to shut down, not to think that no one needs him.”

After the photo was published and publicized, veteran Volodymyr Boichuk was taken to a rehabilitation center — the locals helped financially.

“He needs to be around people like him. Today he will turn away to the wall, and tomorrow he will see that the boys are trying to get up, learning to walk, and he will think: ‘Am I worse? Can't I do it?’”.

After our meeting, Ivan Teremko sent us a video of the veteran walking on his own with prostheses, still leaning on bars.

Never lose heart!

Finally, I ask if the priest has ever complained to God; if he has ever asked him why he had to go through such a trial.

“I have never had such thoughts. It means that it is the Lord's will. He gives a person only such a test that he can withstand. I have accepted this, and I carry this knowledge. The bishop told me: ‘I observe that priests shift from foot to foot during the service, while you stand for hours on end.’ Maybe the Lord did this to show others that it is possible to live without complaining and to be positive. I joke all the time, I'm always doing well, I'm happy with everything,” hereplies without hesitation.

“He is a fighter by nature. He never loses his heart. Even though it hurts, he will smile. But the support of the family is also essential in such a case,” adds his wife Halyna.

The man thanks her with his eyes and turns on a video of him singing for her 55th birthday last year in a restaurant. The words of love are heard: “All because we have children. All because you are my wife.”

We watch a video of the couple singing together. Ivan also played us a little concert on the accordion as a farewell, with fragments of songs. It feels like this is his element, that he is celebrating life — every day of it.

Before leaving, he put on his cassock again and showed me his beautiful Church of the Archangel Michael in the village of Hlushkiv, where he has a parish. He gave me a ride to the bus in his car. As we were getting in, he asked the driver:“Give these good people all the way from Kyiv a nice ride!”

He first took the money, but then hesitated and gave it back:“The priest asked me, I can't refuse.”

“Do you know him?” I ask.

“No. It's the first time I've met him,” thedriver replies sincerely.

“Then take the money, he won't know!” I insist because it's embarrassing to go for free.

“No,” theman says confidently and treats me to some candy.