In eastern Ukraine people have grown numb to the danger of air raids but faith is growing. A bishop tells Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) that “without your help we would be like refugees.”

People living in the east of Ukraine have been living in a state of conflict since 2014. The full-scale invasion by Russia in 2022 only intensified that experience.

Bishop Jan Sobilo during his visit to ACN International. Copyright: Aid to the Church in Need

“Nobody expected the war to start in 2014, and then the situation got much worse after the invasion in 2022,” says Auxiliary Bishop Jan Sobilo of the Latin Diocese of Kharkiv-Zaporizhzhia.

The bishop, who recently visited the headquarters of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) in Germany, said that ACN has been helping the Church in Ukraine since 1991, when the country won its independence from the former Soviet Union. The pontifical foundation helped with “everything we need for our mission and our work: structure, cars, fuel, basic help,” Sobilo said. “We thought everything was good, and our mission could continue, but then the war came.”

Now, several major cities in the diocese are under occupation, and no priests remain to serve there. Meanwhile, other parishes have increased in size due to the influx of people fleeing the occupied territories. Most came empty-handed and found help in the Church.

“Some of them don’t know God, but they feel in their hearts that they need something, and they found it in our community,” the bishop explains. “The priests and sisters make them feel like they have a new family. We distribute bread and food, and people say, ‘You did not only give me bread, but also a taste of God.”

“We have helped thousands of people, thanks to ACN,” Sobilo says. “This isn’t just another project; these are real people. We see their faces and know their stories. We know that because of ACN’s benefactors we will not starve, and we can continue to spread the Gospel. Without your help our Church would be like in Soviet times.”

Stories of people who, despite terrible losses, have grown closer to God through the Church are countless. But has the war not led others to reject God?

“I don’t know anybody who lost their faith,” Sobilo tells ACN. “An officer once told me that among all the people he knew on the front line, there are no atheists.”

“You never know when your time will come”

The head and father of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, recently announced that his Church has grown from 8% to 12% of the population in recent years, and Bishop Sobilo confirms a similar trend among the Latin Church in the east of the country.

The bishop’s headquarters are located only about nine miles from the front line. Bombings are routine and air raid sirens are so common that people do not bother to go to the shelters. “They stay where they are. They say they prefer to risk their lives, but at least live in the meantime. It’s not only the attacks on our cities, drones and rockets fly overhead to Kyiv, so the sirens go off dozens of times a day.”

Some dark moments do pierce the apathy, though. The bishop says that the most difficult, for him, is presiding over the funerals of young men. “The worst for me is to see the mothers who have lost their children. I remember one case in particular, of a young man who was drafted soon after finishing school. He did his training, then went to the front line and died two weeks later. His body was never recovered.” Seeing his mother mourn her only child in this way was heart-breaking, he says.

Because of this, everybody is aware that their life is very fragile. “Everybody has someone close who has died because of the war. You never know when your time will come. That is why we tell people they should go to confession at least once a week, so that they are always prepared, and that is also why people turn to the Church to prepare for the sacraments,” Bishop Sobilo explains.

Over the past years the diocese has been preparing dozens of people for reception of the sacraments of initiation, and currently has a group of 40 adults preparing to be received into the Church at Easter.

As the Church in Ukraine enters Lent and prepares to celebrate the Resurrection, hope remains that peace might soon return to the country. The Auxiliary Bishop of Kharkiv-Zaporizhzhia admits that he has little faith in the plans of politicians and world leaders, but that does not mean he does not believe in peace. “I have no doubt that God has a plan for Ukraine. Perhaps we cannot see this plan yet, or understand it, it may be a surprise, but He has not forgotten us.”