13-Year-Old Cancer Survivor Returns Pope's Hug of Hope

When 13-year-old Varvara hugged Pope Leo XIV last December, she was fighting cancer and waiting for surgery. That embrace gave her the strength to beat the disease, and now she wanted to give that strength back.

The Ukrainian teen surprised the Pope outside Rome's Gemelli Hospital on Saturday as he left following his own medical stay. Security staff allowed her to approach his car, where they shared another emotional embrace amid cheers and applause.

"The hug in December gave me the strength to overcome the illness that, fortunately, I have now beaten," Varvara told the Pope through a Ukrainian priest interpreter. She explained that when she heard about his hospitalization, she felt called to travel from her home in Castellamonte, near Turin, to pray beneath his window.

Varvara's journey to this moment started in her hometown of Berdyansk, Ukraine, where war forced her family to flee. They found temporary refuge in Chernivtsi in southwest Ukraine, where doctors diagnosed her with cancer in 2025.

With hospitals under siege and often without electricity back home, the humanitarian group La Memoria Viva helped evacuate Varvara to Italy. She received treatment at Regina Margherita Hospital in Turin, enduring surgeries and the weight of being in a country where she didn't know anyone or speak the language.

Her constant companion was Basik, a stuffed toy she brought from Ukraine. "He is the only friend I have had since the beginning of the war," she said when she first arrived in Turin.

Just days before meeting the Pope, Varvara's MRI and CT scans came back clear. She was cancer-free.

Sunny's Take

Varvara arrived at the hospital with gifts: a framed photograph of their first embrace, set in traditional Castellamonte ceramics, and a handmade felt doll resembling the Pope. Just as Basik had accompanied her through war and illness, she wanted the stuffed toy to accompany Pope Leo on his road to recovery.

The music-loving teen, who plays drums and adores history and literature, told the Pope she wanted him to "overcome this moment and continue your work of spreading the Gospel." Pope Leo blessed and thanked the girl who had traveled by train with her parents, Dmytro and Iryna, to deliver her message of hope.

In Varvara's story, we see how kindness circles back, how a moment of compassion can fuel someone through their darkest hours and inspire them to pass that light forward.