Impressions from a visit to a country where faith is being tested by war—and where Dominican communities are helping to restore dignity, heal trauma and sustain hope.
As our train crossed into Ukraine, we shared a compartment with two Ukrainian women who now live abroad and were returning to visit their families. “The war has made people age quickly,” the younger woman told us. Looking at photographs of her mother in Kyiv, she could see how greatly the past four years had changed her.
She was 17 when Russia’s full-scale invasion began. Forced to leave the country alone, she had to grow up almost overnight. When she returned home for Christmas, her neighborhood reminded her of The Hunger Games: targeted attacks on infrastructure had left homes without heat or electricity, turning the cold and darkness into a struggle for survival.
With characteristically dark Ukrainian humor, she said that people sometimes speak almost nostalgically about the COVID-19 pandemic: compared with the war, those days now seem peaceful. Yet the conflict has also changed how she and her friends meet. Because every gathering could be the last, they have learned to inhabit each one more fully.
When Religion Serves the Nation
Kyiv appeared different from the city I had encountered on earlier visits. People filled the parks and cafés, enjoying the sunshine and the welcome warmth. For a moment, the beauty of the city allowed them to set aside the burden of war. Reports from the front, both in the media and from soldiers, also conveyed a quiet and cautious confidence that Ukraine could endure.
At the National Museum of the History of Ukraine, the country’s long experience of invasion and foreign domination becomes tangible. Its collections contain weapons recovered from Ukrainian soil and artifacts spanning centuries of conflict. Much of the permanent collection remains inaccessible, protected from the risk of attack and destruction, while temporary exhibitions interpret Ukrainian history through the experience of the present war.
One exhibition explores Western influences on Ukrainian art and craftsmanship; another presents those who fought for national independence in politics, culture and the arts. The Archangel Michael, patron of Kyiv and defender against evil, is shown in a distinctly contemporary light. Another display recalls the lavish gifts received by former President Viktor Yanukovych, whose government sought closer alignment with Russia.
The final exhibition is devoted to the battle for Mariupol. The ruins of the city’s theatre and personal objects belonging to fallen Ukrainian soldiers are arranged with the solemnity of relics. Nearby stands the “Prayer of a Ukrainian Nationalist,” with its invocation: “Holy Ukraine, Mother of Heroes, come into my heart.” It concludes with the declaration: “Eternal Ukraine, holy, mighty, united … Ukraine stands above all.”
The Russian Orthodox Church’s close alignment with the Kremlin offers a stark example of the danger that arises when religious authority is placed at the service of state power and war. Yet the temptation to sacralize the nation is not confined to one Church, one country or one side of a conflict. Precisely in a time of existential danger, religious language can be enlisted to define an absolute opposition between “us” and “them.”
We encountered a similar question in Chortkiv, where the form of a newly built Ukrainian Greek Catholic cathedral evokes the Tryzub, the ancient trident that is now the national emblem of Ukraine. In a country fighting for its survival, the resonance of this symbolism is understandable. For a Western visitor, however, the close convergence of sacred and national imagery also raises a question that every Church must face: How can faith sustain a people without being reduced to an instrument of national identity?
The newly built Greek Catholic cathedral in Chortkiv evokes the form of the Ukrainian Tryzub.
The Christian alternative is the way of the Cross. Blessed Pierre Claverie, OP, the martyred Bishop of Oran, described the Cross as the place of one who refuses to reject any part of humanity. Christ stretches out his arms to all and accepts the cost of reconciliation. This does not mean moral neutrality in the face of aggression. It means refusing to let hatred, exclusion or the logic of the enemy determine the limits of Christian love.
A Civilization of Love in Practice
The following day, at the Dominican St. Martin de Porres Centre in Fastiv, we encountered this alternative in a concrete form.
Fr. Misha, OP, showed us a video from the closing Mass of a retreat for mothers whose sons had been killed in the war. Before each woman stood two images: a photograph of her son in uniform and an icon of Christ or the Virgin Mary that she had painted during the retreat. Through prayer, painting and companionship, the mothers had begun the painful work of facing their grief together. The tears visible in the film spoke more eloquently than words.
This is only one part of the Centre’s work with those traumatized by war. Children from front-line communities come for several days of peace and the chance to experience something of an ordinary childhood. Adults who have witnessed or endured terrible events receive help in processing their trauma. Refugees find shelter, support and a community in which their wounds do not have to remain hidden.
Here the human person—in all his or her fragility—is placed at the center. Pope Leo XIV has renewed the Church’s call to build a “civilization of love,” an expression coined by St. Paul VI and developed by St. John Paul II. In Magnifica Humanitas, the Holy Father describes it as a “construction site of hope”: the patient work of translating charity into justice, fraternity and care for every person.
That work is visible throughout Fastiv: in the refugee shelter; in the distribution of food and essential supplies; in assistance sent to front-line towns; and in the school that serves refugee children and children with special needs, including autism. The measure of a civilization, Pope Leo reminds us, is not the power of its means but the care it is able to offer.
Even a coffee machine can become part of that care. Standing beside one of the supply trucks bound for front-line communities, fr. Misha explained: “In Kherson, offering people a cappuccino amid the ruins of the city means restoring a part of their dignity. Normal life is a victory in times of war.”
It is a small gesture, but an eloquent one. The civilization of love is built not only through great declarations, but through acts that tell a suffering person: You are seen. Your life has value. You are worthy of care.
Looking for the Wheat
In many of the communities we visited, the friars emphasized the urgent need to rebuild a culture founded on the dignity of every person, solidarity and the capacity for dialogue. Ukrainian society still bears wounds left by the communist period; the present war has added suffering and trauma that touch virtually every family. What, then, can the Church—and the Dominican Order in particular—contribute to the healing and renewal of the country?
A fragment of a church window in Chortkiv, destroyed under the communist regime.
Interest in the St. Thomas Aquinas Higher Institute of Religious Sciences in Kyiv is growing, including among students from non-Catholic backgrounds. The war—and the role played by Churches within it—has raised profound questions for which people are seeking answers. Fr. Petro, OP, who teaches Christology and ecclesiology at the Institute, told us that he is reconsidering how these disciplines speak to the realities of war.
Again and again, the Dominican friars returned to the parable of the weeds among the wheat (Mt 13:24–30). The evil is real and must not be denied. Yet Christians cannot allow it to command all their attention. The task is to look for the wheat—for grace—and to ask what gift God desires to bring forth even in the midst of suffering.
Fr. Jarosław Krawiec, OP, Vicar Provincial of Ukraine, wrote about this at the beginning of the full-scale invasion. War has exposed cruelty and selfishness, but it has also awakened extraordinary courage, generosity and solidarity. Communities of shared values have emerged across denominational, religious and social boundaries.
The statue of St. Martin de Porres in the garden of the Dominican social centre in Fastiv.
The Dominican friars in Ukraine are accompanying this movement of grace through social outreach, theological and philosophical reflection, education, pastoral care and trauma healing. Their contribution will also be needed in the long work of reconstruction—not only the rebuilding of homes and institutions, but the spiritual rebuilding of a society around freedom, justice, dignity and humanity.
Following a visit by Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe, OP, fr. Jarosław wrote: “Ukraine’s suffering is the suffering of the whole world.” Ukraine, he observed, is not only a front line against an invading army, but also a front line between two visions of society: one governed by unchecked power, and another founded on freedom, justice and human dignity.
The struggle between those visions is not confined to Ukraine. It passes through every society—and through every human heart. The witness of the Dominican communities we visited invites us neither to ignore evil nor to let it define our vision. It asks us to recognize the wheat, nurture it and become collaborators in the civilization of love.
— fr. Thomas G. Brogl, OP
Socius for Europe
