By Salvatore Cernuzio

Their first encounter had already been enough for Varvara. On December 31, during an audience in St. Peter’s Square, she met Pope Leo XIV while suffering from cancer and awaiting surgery. She said she received from him strength and encouragement, telling Vatican News it was “a dream come true.”

Varvara, a 13-year-old Ukrainian girl who received treatment in Italy and has now recovered, never expected security staff at Gemelli Hospital on Saturday to let her approach the Pope’s car and greet him in person as he left the hospital following his discharge.

Their greeting lasted several moments, with a few words exchanged amid cheers and applause and a Ukrainian priest helping to interpret.

Varvara explained to the Pope that their hug in December had given her “the strength to overcome the illness that, fortunately, I have now beaten.”

She also told him that, as soon as she learned he had been hospitalized, she felt she “wanted to come to Rome to pray for him beneath his window and return that important embrace,” together with a wish: “You too will overcome this moment and continue your work of spreading the Gospel.”

Pope Leo blessed and thanked the young native of Berdyansk, who loves history and literature, as well as music, particularly the drums.

Photo of Varvara's gifts for the Pope

Varvara arrived at Gemelli late Saturday morning with her father, Dmytro, and her mother, Iryna, just days after MRI and CT scans came back clear, confirming her recovery from cancer.

They traveled by train from Castellamonte, in the province of Turin, where they live and were welcomed after fleeing the bombing and violence in Ukraine.

The family had left their hometown and found refuge in Chernivtsi, in the southwest of the country. There, in 2025, Varvara was diagnosed with cancer.

With support from the Castellamonte-based humanitarian association La Memoria Viva, she was evacuated from Lviv and brought to Italy for treatment at Regina Margherita Hospital in Turin.

Even though treatment was available in Ukraine, hospitals there are under siege and often without electricity.

In Italy, Varvara and her parents found a warm welcome, help, and support. But they also faced operations, suffering, and discouragement. The tests a few days ago finally brought the good news she had been awaiting for months.

Varvara wanted to tell the Pope. So, she contacted Roberto Falletti, a Memoria Viva volunteer, on WhatsApp to share this new “dream.”

Pope Leo blesses Varvara during their first encounter on December 31, 2025   (VATICAN MEDIA)

As she greeted Pope Leo in person, she gave him the gifts she had prepared: a printed photograph of their embrace in St. Peter’s Square, set in a frame made from Castellamonte’s traditional ceramics, and a small felt doll resembling the Pope.

It was a stuffed toy like the one she had brought from Berdyansk, named Basik.

“He is the only friend I have had since the beginning of the war. He is with me and will accompany me in Italy, where I don’t know anyone or speak the language, and where I will have to face a long course of hospital treatment. He will be the little brother I don’t have,” she said when she first arrived in Turin.

She wanted to make something similar for the Pope, to tell him: “Just as Basik accompanied me, I would like this stuffed toy to accompany you on the road to recovery.”

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