Metro Voice News Celebrating Faith, Family & Community
Something is missing in many Ukrainian churches this Christmas season – the men, who either have died in the war with Russia or still are away fighting. “Somehow, we make it through,” said Dasha, a war widow in her 20s who attends an evangelical church.
Dasha recently gave birth to a baby boy. Her husband, Pavlo, didn’t live to see his newborn son. He was killed on the frontline in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, where Russian forces have intensified their offensive in late 2024. Dasha is raising her baby in a warzone, all while grieving and coping with crippling power cuts that can last up to 20 hours a day. On Christmas, there will be an empty place in the pew beside her — a picture that’s become all too familiar in Ukrainian churches.
One evangelical congregation in the village of Novoivankivtsi in southeast Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region has no men. They all have been called up to fight or fled the war-torn region with their families. Only a handful of widows are left, determined to carry on with church services and their small Bible study group. At least 630 churches and religious buildings across Ukraine have been damaged or destroyed since the invasion began. Hundreds of churches across Ukraine have been drained of men, including their pastors, to bolster the frontline troops. Ukraine has lost 43,000 soldiers since the war began.
“After more than 1,000 days of war, the complexion of these churches has changed dramatically,” said Eric Mock, senior vice president of Slavic Gospel Association. “It’s estimated 400 pastors are serving in various capacities on the frontlines, and many more men from these churches.”
Left behind are the women and children, including many, like Dasha, who have been widowed and those who live in dread every day of receiving heartbreaking news from the front.
Yet many brave women and their churches are looking beyond their own grief and loss to help their struggling neighbors this Christmas. Elderly widows at the Novoivankivtsi church have been supplied with firewood to keep themselves warm during what experts predict will be Ukraine’s most difficult winter since the start of the war.
“These churches and their members, including many women, minister to the needs of people coming to them while struggling themselves to put food on their own tables and care for their own children,” Mock said. “In the face of anxiety, fear, and sorrow, these courageous women are caring for others.”
The Slavic Gospel Association supports thousands of evangelical congregations across Ukraine, Russia, the former Soviet Union and Israel. This Christmas, its church-run Immanuel’s Child outreach will provide gifts and Bibles, as well as Star of Bethlehem ornaments from individuals in the United States, to tens of thousands of children, including many who never have heard the Christmas story before.
–Alan Goforth
