Ukrainians in Portland celebrate Easter amid war and immigration worries

It was 11 p.m. on Holy Saturday, April 19, when Easter celebrations began. The inside of St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Portland remained dimly lit, as soft chanting filled the building.

Father Volodymyr Yavorskyi, 30, who has served as priest at the church for seven years, led the services, his head bowed and his back to the crowd. He said Easter is a momentous day for Ukrainians and Orthodox Christians worldwide who call it Pascha.

“For Orthodox, the biggest and the most popular holiday, the most happy and most joyful and unique, is Easter,” Yavorskyi said.

For three years, the church’s Easter celebrations have come amid a continuing war between Russia and Ukraine. The majority of parishioners at this church are recent arrivals from Ukraine, and most others have family and friends impacted by the war.

Now, in addition to the uncertainty of the continuing war, there are growing fears among some Ukrainian refugees that the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration could jeopardize their legal status in the United States.

‘They feel at home’

The paschal worship service is a ceremony full of symbolism, tradition and music. It’s traditionally held around midnight, and the ceremony commemorates the death and eventual resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The first section resembles a funeral, with the clergy carrying a tapestry of Jesus around church, and the atmosphere is notably solemn. All members of the church then go outside and walk around the building three times, before proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus. Then they hold a special liturgy, with all the lights on and shining brightly.

WATCH: Father Volodymyr Yavorskyi in a paschal ceremony representing resurrection of Jesus Christ

All throughout, the church choir sings a cappella, a complex style of Byzantine chanting with eight different modes.

“We worship the same as it’s done in Ukraine,” Yavorskyi said. “When people come to church, they feel at home.”

Services at the church have become more crowded following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As the war continues, around 250,000 Ukrainians have been granted temporary stay in the United States, including thousands in Oregon.

Since the war began, St. John the Baptist’s congregation has doubled in size. Yavorskyi estimates about 60% of the congregation has arrived from Ukraine in the past three years.

That’s made Sunday services logistically difficult to manage. So many people attended the church’s service for Palm Sunday on April 13, which is very popular in Ukraine, that some had to wait on the stairs outside. For Pascha, the church held two separate services, so more could attend.

Yet, Yavorskyi said they can’t firmly discuss plans for expanding the church building; it’s unclear how many parishioners will still be in Portland in the near future.

Uncertainty on two fronts

Many Ukrainians entered the U.S. through the Biden-era Uniting for Ukraine program, which provides humanitarian parole status for immigrants for up to two years. The Trump administration paused the program indefinitely in January, and it’s no longer accepting new applications.

Liam Patton is an attorney at SOAR Immigration Legal Services in Portland, where he works with a legal project serving Ukrainians. He said many Ukrainians arrived in the U.S. believing that the Uniting for Ukraine program would be a pathway to permanent residency.

Now, many fear what will happen when their parole status ends or if they could be asked to leave sooner.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty and panic about this,” Patton said. “There isn’t really any sort of stop-gap or cushion for when these statuses expire. One day you’re lawfully present, and suddenly the next day you’re not.”

He said many families are now deciding if they should stay in the U.S., return to Ukraine or attempt to find refuge in a different country.

Yavorskyi said recent cases of the Trump administration detaining immigrants with permanent residency have left the whole community feeling unstable.

St. John the Baptist Church has become a center of life for many Ukrainians living around Portland. People drive from as far away as Battle Ground, Washington, to attend. It’s also become a place where people can share information about immigration processes and living in the United States.

Mykhailo Tur directs the church choir and arrived in the U.S. in 2024 through the Uniting for Ukraine program. Originally from the city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, he said he would like to stay in the U.S., and that returning to his home country would be a last resort.

Currently, he does not know if he will have to leave. He said others he knows have already left, deciding they won’t wait for their statuses to change.

“When I came here, I really didn’t expect that I will have to go away again to start my life from scratch one more time,” Tur said.

For Yavorskyi, navigating the complicated emotions of his congregation — all of whom he said have some connection to the war — can be difficult. There are disagreements about military drafts in Ukraine and the difficult situations that immigrants find themselves in, he said. He tries to avoid controversial statements during sermons.

“After two years, I would say people start to get tired,” he said. “They understand that it’s not right to be tired. They don’t have the right to be tired, because there are soldiers dying every day for them.

“But the tiredness comes. It comes and we cannot do anything.”

A blessing

Still, the feelings inside the church were joyous on Pascha. After the liturgy ended, people made their way to the church basement, where there were dozens of elaborate food baskets. In Ukraine, it’s traditional for the priest to bless baskets of non-Lenten food. Many are adorned with beautiful tapestries and filled with different baked goods and colorful eggs.

Children smiled as Yavorskyi splashed holy water over all the baskets and everyone in attendance, while shouting in Ukrainian, “Христос воскрес (Khrystos voskres)! Christ is risen!” Everyone loudly sang hymns in unison.

Tur said afterward that prior to arriving in the U.S. he had not attended church in several years. He said being in a space where he could speak Ukrainian with others brought him back. He had been very nervous to lead the choir for Pascha, but said it was special to play that role in the liturgy.

“This Pascha was really special for me, because I remembered all the Paschas I had participated in before,” he said. “It was like I was resurrected.”