Ukraine

Pope Francis attends a meeting with bishops of the Synod of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church at the Vatican, Sept. 6, 2023. Vatican Media/­Handout via REUTERS

Ukraine’s Eastern Rite Catholic bishops bluntly told Pope Francis at a meeting on Wednesday that some of his comments about Russia had caused great pain and were being used by Moscow to justify a “a murderous ideology.”

Cassidy Klein 3-20-2023
An illustration of Jesus sitting on a globus cruciger as he raises his hand to text that reads, "Glory to God for all things." One version depicts the text in the colors of the LGBT Pride flag and the other the colors of the transgender flag.

“Glory To God For All Things — Pride Colors” / from @artofmarza

ACCORDING TO AN Orthodox miracle story, St. Nicholas — the fourth century archbishop who inspired the figure of Santa Claus — quieted a raging sea. When sailors were caught in a storm on the Mediterranean, they called out for help. Nicholas appeared, walking on the waves before them. He blessed the ship, and the storm calmed. This is why he became the patron saint of sailors. It’s also why Mary Marza, a queer Orthodox artist in her mid-20s who is based in Los Angeles, illustrated St. Nicholas as a “waterbender.” Waterbenders, from the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, can control water and its movements. This is one of many works featured on her Instagram art account, Art of Marza.

“I liked the concept of blending saints with the elements or just blending the saints with things from my favorite stories and pop culture,” Marza wrote in an Instagram caption about this portrayal of St. Nicholas.

Marza (who asked to use her art account name instead of her real last name for this article) creates digital art and stickers that blend Orthodox iconography and prayer with street art and anime. The grungy, graffiti-and-animation-inspired aesthetic of her art and its confluence with iconography is part of her longing to “[see] God in places where people assume we can’t find Him,” she wrote on Instagram.

Danilo Zak 3-16-2023
An illustration of pairs of migrants, depicted in shades of black and white and grey, wearing backpacks and walking in a line, superimposed over an in-color American flag.

Marcos Silva / iStock

IN 2016, PEOPLE of faith in the city of Billings, Mont., gathered to call for their community to get more involved in resettling refugees. With growing violence, persecution, and strife around the world and a record number of people forced to flee their homes, this community had the heart to help.

But the closest refugee resettlement office in the state was in Missoula, a 345-mile road trip west on I-90. The United States traditionally requires refugees to be resettled with families and relatives or close to these resettlement sites, which help new arrivals land on their feet and access needed services. For Billings — and for many other like-minded communities across the country — it was a logistical challenge to participate in the work of welcome.

Earlier this year, that changed. On Jan. 19, the Biden administration launched Welcome Corps, a new initiative giving everyday Americans the opportunity to sponsor refugees. Groups of at least five can now apply to form “private sponsorship groups,” which are responsible for welcoming refugee newcomers into their communities. These groups agree to assist in providing initial housing; as well as support access to health care, school enrollment, and employment opportunities; and otherwise engage directly in the life-changing work of refugee resettlement.

Heather Brady 2-23-2023

A woman holds a sign during a daily demonstration of solidarity with Ukraine in Krakow, Poland ahead of one-year anniversary of Russian invasion on Ukraine. Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto 

Readers respond to Adam Russell Taylor's recent essay on the Christian imperative to make peace.

Pavlo Smytsnyuk 2-21-2023
A Ukrainian woman and girl are sitting together as they paint an Easter egg.

A woman and girl attend an Easter egg painting class held in a bomb shelter in Lviv. More than a third of Ukraine’s population is displaced by Russia’s invasion. / Mykola Tys / Getty Images

UKRAINE IS, IN A WAY, a very pluralistic country. Nobody has an absolute majority. The Orthodox are the biggest group of believers, but they are divided into two jurisdictions — one that is independent and another one that depends, to a bigger or smaller degree, on Russia and the patriarchate of Moscow. Around 10 percent of the Ukrainian population are Catholic, mostly Eastern Catholic, and follow the same calendar and liturgy as the Orthodox. One to 2 percent are Latin Rite Catholics, and 1 to 2 percent are Protestant.

A woman wrapped in a Ukrainian flag looks at pairs of shoes arranged in rows.

In Prague, a woman looks at shoes symbolising war crimes committed against Ukrainian civilians to mark the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo: REUTERS/David W Cerny TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

As the war in Ukraine enters its second year, Ukrainian citizens are hurting and exhausted. Meanwhile, Russia is mounting a new counter-offensive and Ukraine is restocking weapons from its allies, including the U.S. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed and wounded, both Ukrainian and Russian, yet the war grinds on without an end in sight.

2-16-2023
The cover for Sojourners' April 2023 issue, featuring a story about international adoption. There's a photo collage with one showing a toddler on a beach, and two photos with mothers holding babies. There's a map illustration and another of a baby bottle.

Wrestling with the complicated legacy of Christians and international adoption.

12-26-2022
A picture of the cover of the February/March 2023 Sojourners issue titled "The Trouble with Christian Heroes." A headshot of Jean Vanier is split apart by thick red lines and pictures of the L'Arche logo and photos of people in these communities.

Charismatic leaders such as Jean Vanier can inspire and transform us. But when these leaders commit abuse, how do the movements they ignite pick up the pieces?

Ukrainian law enforcement officers inspect one of churches of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine Nov. 22, 2022. REUTERS/Vladyslav Musiienko

Ukraine’s top security officials have ordered punitive measures against seven senior clerics, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday, part of a crackdown on a branch of the Orthodox Church with longstanding ties to Moscow.

Ukrainian law enforcement officers inspect one of churches of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine Nov. 22, 2022. REUTERS/Vladyslav Musiienko

The Ukrainian government will draw up a law banning churches affiliated with Russia under moves described by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as necessary to prevent Moscow being able to “weaken Ukraine from within.”

Rose Marie Berger 10-28-2022
A wall of graffiti made by Sergii Radkevych called "Fragments of Hope" that depicting two hands grasped the blade of a sword and breaking it in two.

"Fragments of Hope" / Sergii Radkevych

YOU NEVER KNOW where you’ll see the hands of Christ.

In central Kyiv, a mural depicting two elegant hands breaking a sword is surrounded by towering apartment buildings. Painted in 2016 by Ukrainian artist Sergii Radkevych, “Fragments of Hope” was one of a series of murals organized in response to the 2014 conflict in eastern Ukraine. It was public art on a mission to inspire a Ukrainian vision for peacemaking.

Radkevych combines religious iconography with street graffiti and realism. He pays particular attention to expressive hand gestures. “Fragments of Hope” became a frequent gathering point for protests in solidarity with eastern Ukrainians in 2017 and 2019. “This is my manifesto against violence and cruelty, a call to mutual understanding,” said Radkevych at the time. When I was in Kyiv in May, after more than three months of intensive Kremlin-led violence, I was grateful to find the mural still standing.

10-27-2022
A graphic illustration of Vanessa Nakate, a young Black female activist with shoulder-length black hair and a jacket. She holds a megaphone; an orange background with blue, green, and red geometric shapes is behind her.

Cover design by Cássia Roriz

Activist Vanessa Nakate on Jesus, erasure, and the climate crisis in the Horn of Africa.

Rose Marie Berger 8-02-2022
A collage of photographs from the faith delegation in Ukraine. In one corner, a soldier embraces a man. In another, a woman looks into the distance with her hands folded in prayer. In the background are maps of Ukraine.

Photographs by Dawid Gospodarek / Photo collages by Candace Sanders

Our public message was simple: “We have come to Kyiv in solidarity to pray for a just peace.”

Jim Rice 8-02-2022
An illustration of Ukrainian climate activist Ilyses El Kortbi holding a sign painted in the colors of the Ukrainian flag that reads, "We see Ukraine as one of the first climate wars."

Ukrainian climate activist Ilyses El Kortbi / Illustration by Maya Nguyen

DURING THE “KLITSCHKO ERA,” the first decade and a half of this century, Vitali Klitschko and his brother, Wladimir, reigned over the world of heavyweight boxing—The Ring magazine listed both of them on its list of the greatest heavyweights of all time. Today, the brothers are engaged in a battle with much higher stakes than anything they faced in the ring. Vitali is now mayor of Kyiv, Ukraine. Soon after Vladimir Putin’s forces stormed into Ukraine, the brothers issued a call on social media for religious leaders and others to visit their embattled country as a sign of solidarity and support.

A Ukrainian serviceman holds a gun while walking through a burning wheat field.

A Ukrainian serviceman walks on a burning wheat field near a frontline on a border between Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions, on July 17, 2022 as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues. REUTERS/Dmytro Smolienko

Proclaiming God’s abundance feels counterintuitive in a world filled with excruciating and growing hunger: In the United States, long-standing food deserts, racial inequities exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and a broken social safety system are all contributing to a growing crisis of hunger. Globally, at least 140 million people are currently affected by a dire food crisis; 49 million people are just one step away from famine conditions.

7-25-2022

Photos by Dawid Gospodarek, collage by Candace Sanders

Why our faith delegation went to Ukraine to pray for peace.

Jim Rice 6-29-2022
Illustration of a golden American eagle standing above a broken shepherd's crook

Illustration by Matt Chase

PUTIN'S CARNAGE IN Ukraine has given us a horrendous window into the immorality of modern warfare. We may feel one side is an innocent victim and the other an egregious aggressor, but the images from bombed-out civilian sites give us daily, gruesome reminders that the waging of war today is anything but “just,” typified by indiscriminate killing, high civilian casualties, and military actions that are in no way last resorts—and behind all this brutality, the very real threat from even-more-devastating nuclear “weapons of mass destruction.” War is hell, and it always has been, but modern weaponry, tactics, and attitudes make it perhaps more hellacious than ever, especially for civilians.

In this context, who can serve as the outside moral voice, raising questions around the ethics of modern warfare? Who can bring to bear the church’s teaching on war and hold the warriors, particularly those who profess faith, to account? Who can challenge the moral framework of a war and how it is waged? The answer to those questions is probably not “military chaplains.” Tom Witt, a longtime activist and former head of the Lutheran Peace Fellowship, is concerned about the fact that military chaplains are in the military chain of command. “When chaplains are hired by, under the command of, and getting paid by the military,” Witt told Sojourners, “there’s not much chance they can be anything other than cheerleaders, or people who affirm whatever kind of war that we’re in, even if it’s not a so-called ‘just war.’” What we have, Witt said, “is a military chaplaincy rather than a chaplaincy to the military”—and such “embedded” chaplains aren’t free to oppose military doctrines or actions, even if they contradict the teachings of the church.

Parish priest Andriy Klyushev poses for a photo, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, in Saint Nicholas church, Irpin, Kyiv region, Ukraine June 4, 2022. REUTERS/Edgar Su

For years a vocal minority at Saint Nicholas’ parish in the middle-class Kyiv commuter town of Irpin resisted calls to split from their spiritual fathers in Moscow. 

A Russian flag flies behind a chain link and barbed wire fence. Via Alamy.

“[Sanctions] are, as we see now in the case of Russia, warfare by other means,” Jim Hodgson, a retired program coordinator for the United Church of Canada whose decades of work focused on Latin America and the Caribbean, told Sojourners.

People take part in the Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession led by Pope Francis during Good Friday celebrations at Rome’s Colosseum on April 19, 2019. REUTERS/Remo Casilli

The Vatican’s decision to have both Ukrainians and Russians take part in Pope Francis’ “Way of the Cross” procession on Friday has caused friction with Ukrainian Catholic leaders, who want it to be reconsidered.