'You are not alone': Ukrainians hold on to faith amid devastation of Russian invasion

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There were three of them. A mother, her 10-year-old daughter and a paralyzed teenage girl. I met them in a Ukrainian Greek Catholic refugee center, where they’ve lived for months, alongside hundreds of fellow refugees fleeing the violence of Russia’s invasion.

Trauma was etched into their eyes, the mother’s face streaked with tears. Yet when they saw Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, my host for the day, they came alive. They held out their hands and asked him to pray with them. A sense of peace came upon them – and one of hope.

I encountered that same overpowering feeling over three days in Ukraine this month. I saw tremendous desperation and privation while in Ukraine. Even small comforts are often lacking. In Lviv, Christmas lights aren’t allowed, because the electricity is urgently needed at hospitals and relief centers.

Ukrainians believe they will defeat Russia

Yet amid the darkness of spirit and daily life, a brighter light is shining. So many of the Ukrainian people have hope because they have faith. It’s why they keep their spirits high on the front lines. It’s why they serve the bereaved and the broken. And it’s why nearly every Ukrainian I met firmly believes that God will carry them, against the odds, to victory.

I spent time at both Roman Catholic parishes and convents and Ukrainian Greek Catholic seminaries and centers in western Ukraine. They have opened their doors and their hearts to the refugees fleeing the war in the eastern part of the country. Multiple church leaders, who are organizing relief efforts for millions of refugees, told me that religious conviction is especially important amid the fighting.

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The Roman Catholic archbishop of Lviv, Mieczysław Mokrzycki, put it best. He told me the stakes of this war are nothing less than Ukraine’s survival, and when you confront the possibility of your country’s death, you can do one of two things. You either fall into despair and pull back, or you look up in faith and push forward.

Even the suffering of the war is a spur to faith, as Archbishop Shevchuk of Kyiv made clear. He said Christians believe in accepting suffering, like Christ did, so that great good may come of seemingly endless evil.

There’s no easy answer when your daughter’s life is extinguished by a Russian missile, or your family is forced to flee everything they’ve ever known. Faith helps Ukrainians deal with the death and destruction that surround them on all sides. And it gives them comfort that amid this tragedy, they are not alone.

In the same way that Christ came to Earth to be with us, the Christians of Ukraine are coming to each other’s aid, to make their shared suffering more bearable.

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Parts of the country are still influenced by decades of communistic atheism, when Ukraine was still a part of the Soviet Union. Yet many of those who had no faith before the war have turned to God in the past year, while many others have deepened their faith.

The Catholic fraternal organization I lead has seen significant growth in the country – amid an existential war, no less. But it wasn’t until I went to Ukraine that I saw why the faith is attracting so many, with large numbers of Catholic converts in recent months. It's not just the preaching of the pastors or the words of the faithful. It’s their actions.

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The Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests who never left their parishes, despite being bombarded daily and overrun by Russian troops. The parishioners who are housing complete strangers, for months on end, and giving everything they have and getting nothing in return. The drivers who take trucks of humanitarian supplies from religious groups like ours to the war-torn regions, knowing they could get hit by an artillery shell mid-journey.

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Beyond Ukraine, the Poles have taken about 1.4 million Ukrainian refugees into their churches and seminaries and homes, without having to set up a single refugee camp anywhere in Poland, as Polish President Andrzej Duda told me. The witness to faith is everywhere and authentic and powerfully inspiring.

Throughout my time in Ukraine, my message was: “You are not alone.” I meant that our organization’s 2 million members will continue to support the Ukrainian people for as long as it takes – an urgent need, for as many faith leaders told me, charitable aid is dwindling.

Yet in the most important sense, the Ukrainian people were never alone, and they never will be. They have faith in God, and as they prepare for the coming of the savior this Christmas season and a long, cold winter, they are confident that he who has brought them this far will keep his promise to never leave them or forsake them.

Patrick E. Kelly is the supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus.