Religion as a Source of Resilience in Ukraine

Key-note speech delivered by Natallia Vasilevich at the High-Level International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance Conference «Forb as a Source of Resilience and Religious Engagement» under the auspices of the President of the Czech Republic, which took place in Prague on 12 November 2025.

Your Excellency Mr. President, Excellencies,, distinguished guests, colleagues, and friends, thank you for the honor of speaking today. I am standing here is a representative of the ecumenical anti-war movement “Christians Against War” and as a member of the Steering Group of the Conference of European Churches’ project “Pathways to Peace”.

In my presentation today, I would like to reflect on the role of religion in sustaining resilience in Ukraine during the ongoing war. Religion in this context is not only a source of strength. It is both part of the problem and part of the solution — at once vulnerable and powerful, wounding and healing. And across all of these dimensions, the freedom of religion or belief plays a critical, even essential role.

First, I will speak about religion as a target of war—how religious communities have been directly affected.

Second, I will address religion as a part of the problem—how religious narratives and institutions have been implicated in polarization and identity conflict.

Third, I will turn to religion as a part of the solution—highlighting how faith communities provide humanitarian support, accompany trauma, and help shape meaning, hope, and dignity.

And fourth, I will offer examples of Ukrainian peacebuilding initiatives that work across religious communities to strengthen dialogue, reduce antagonism, and build the foundations for social cohesion.

My aim is to clarify where the fractures lie, where healing is already emerging, and what support is needed to ensure that resilience becomes not only survival, but also restoration and renewal.

1. Religion as a Target of War

Since the start of the full-scale invasion, religious life in Ukraine has suffered greatly: sacred sites have been damaged by shelling and occupation, and many clergy and believers have lost their lives.

According to Religion on Fire Project, since February 2022 at least 667 religious sites have been damaged or destroyed.

And according to Christians Against War, since the start of hybrid war in 2014 at least 79 priests and ministers of the Ukrainian Christian communities lost their lives.

The situation is especially severe in territories currently occupied by the Russian Federation, where religious life is tightly controlled, freedom of religion or belief is gravely violated and dissent is treated as a security threat. Clergy and believers in occupied territories have faced interrogations, forced disappearances, and pressure to cooperate. Independent religious organizations have been banned or replaced by structures more loyal to the occupation authorities. Churches and religious communities that are perceived as “non-loyal” are subject to harassment, surveillance, expulsion, or forced re-registration under Russian legislation.

In many cases, people are so intimidated that they are afraid to report incidents of persecution, even after they leave the occupied territories. This creates a climate of silence rooted in fear, and makes documentation extremely difficult.

Religion is targeted not incidentally, but because it carries memory, identity, and moral community — the very foundations of social cohesion. Destroying this fabric weakens a society’s capacity not only to resist aggression, but to remain itself.

Because of this, the documentation of violations against religious communities in occupied territories is an urgent and essential task. The international community should exert consistent pressure on the Russian Federation to ensure that violations are investigated, rights are restored, and the freedom of religion or belief is guaranteed in accordance with international human rights norms.

We should not forget Russia itself — the persecution of all dissidents, religious leaders, and believers who raise their voices against the war on the basis of their faith must stop. People such as the Russian Buddhist leader Telo Tulku Rinpoche, who is here with us today, should be allowed to return to their country. The international community must remain concerned and increase its pressure on Russia to end these violations of freedom of religion and belief.

2. Religion as Part of the Problem

We must speak plainly.

The leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church has provided ideological legitimation for the aggression, framing the war as spiritually justified and even holy. This has caused deep damage to public trust in religious institutions.

According to monitoring conducted by Christians Against War, at least 240 clerics of the Russian Orthodox Church have been identified as participating in combat operations, providing logistical and moral support to the Russian military, or actively engaging in wartime propaganda.

Within the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, there have also been individual cases of clergy accused of supporting the invasion, with more than 200 criminal proceedings initiated to date, according to SSU information.

This situation has significant consequences inside Ukraine.

Although the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (formerly under the Moscow Patriarchate) remains the largest religious community in the country by number of parishes, it now faces distrust, public pressure and restrictive regulatory measures.

In May 2022, its leadership declared administrative separation from the Moscow Patriarchate, but the state authorities and large part of society do not perceive this as sufficient to guarantee real independence.

Ukrainian society is now navigating a difficult tension between freedom of religion or belief and national security concerns, as if these principles were in conflict, rather than mutually reinforcing foundations of a democratic society. The UOC is widely viewed through a security lens, and the idea of banning the Church is popular among many citizens. 

Transitions of parishes to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) in many cases happen in conflictual, even violent manner, and the intra-Orthodox conflict becomes national dividing line, deepening local wounds, leading to polarisation  and weakening social cohesion at a time when internal unity is essential for collective resilience in the face of war.

The freedom of religion is not an added value or privilege, it is precondition of resilience.

3. Religion as Part of the Solution

Despite these challenges, religious communities have become essential actors of resilience:

1. Churches organise humanitarian aid, evacuation, shelters, and support for displaced people.

2. Chaplains and clergy accompany grief and trauma, offer psychological and moral support.

3. Interfaith cooperation has strengthened, particularly through the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches.

4. Faith based organisations engage in international cooperation, advocacy and religious diplomacy.

The religion can help reframe trauma. It is also a learning process: religious communities are discovering how to heal wounds rather than deepen them, and how to respond to pain without producing hatred or exclusion.

Instead of interpreting suffering as a punishment from God, many understand it as unjust harm, which calls for solidarity, compassion, and shared responsibility.

Religion strengthens resilience through:

1. Meaning-making: reframing hardship in dignified, non-punitive terms.

2. Collective action and volunteering: shifting from the position of the victim to that of the agent who helps others.

3. Support from clergy and community: remaining emotionally connected; sharing grief rather than carrying it alone.

This is resilience not just endurance, but as sustained humanity. Healthy relationships and cooperation among religious actors are essential for this work. And it is only when freedom of religion is guaranteed to all, without discrimination, they can strengthen their potential and contribute to resilience.

4. Pathways Forward: Ukrainian-Led Peacebuilding Initiatives

Let me highlight two examples of organisations working in this direction in Ukraine.

Dialogue in Action works to build a culture of dialogue under wartime pressures. They work with trauma-sensitive facilitation, youth engagement, and capacity-building within religious organisations. Their core insight is: If we lose dialogue, we may win the war but lose a healthy society. The same vision is shared by the ecumenical movement, especially by the Conference of European Churches in the framework of its project “Pathways to Peace”.

The Sophia Brotherhood creates encounters between believers of the UOC and OCU, counters hate speech and violence, builds trust and cultivates new leaders who speak with responsibility rather than hostility.

Both organisations stress the necessity of fostering freedom of religion or belief as the framework of dialogue.

Conclusion

Religion in Ukraine today is a place of wounds and a place of strength — where pain and healing live side by side.

It is where identity is attacked, where tensions still run deep, and yet — where people continue to find meaning, care, and each other.

Resilience is not only survival. It is the dignity of how we continue to live, care, and remain human in the face of what seeks to destroy us.

If Ukraine is to win the war without losing the peace, it must:

protect freedom of religion or belief,

reduce polarization,

strengthen trauma-informed pastoral care, and

support Ukrainian-led dialogue that holds communities together.

For this, international community have a vital role — not to direct or pressure, but to accompany, to listen, and to ensure that reconstruction efforts are conflict-sensitive and peace-positive.

Thank you.