Video Message of the Head of the UGCC on the 203rd Week of the Full-Scale War, January 4, 2026
Christ is born!
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ!
This Sunday, at the beginning of the new year 2026, we continue to count the weeks of the great war in Ukraine. This Sunday marks the 203rd week of the full-scale Russian invasion.
This past week was one in which joy and sadness once again mingled. The enemy relentlessly strikes our peaceful cities and villages every night. In addition, heavy combat is unfolding across the entire front line. Our defenders are heroically defending our Zaporizhzhia near Huliaipole, our Donetsk region near Pokrovsk, and our Kharkiv region near Kupiansk. They are also protecting our peaceful residents on the border of Sumy and Chernihiv regions.
But the truth is that every night the enemy selects a new victim and concentrates all the power of its weaponry on a specific settlement. Zaporizhzhia suffered one of the most massive attacks this week. Almost every night, the city of Odesa and the Odesa region suffer, especially the port infrastructure. The most cynical acts are the bombings of hospitals and nursing homes, where the most vulnerable people are located, who, on the contrary, need attention and help.
Once again, we felt how many Ukrainians lacked heat and light this week. Just at Christmas time, the temperature in Ukraine dropped sharply. At night, the temperature dropped to below — 10 °C. And, obviously, in such conditions, it is very difficult to survive the winter. The enemy, on the contrary, intensified its attacks on critical infrastructure in order to plunge Ukraine into darkness.
But we tried to warm and support each other. It was during the most difficult times that the heroic traits and truly Christian character of the Ukrainian people were most evident. In particular, on New Year’s Eve, we experienced remarkable solidarity among ourselves. Christmas carols were sung in the Kyiv metro. Our Christmas carols became a manifesto of our resilience. In particular, this week we all felt and experienced this very deeply. And I thank all the carolers who, with the star of Bethlehem, entered every home that may have been sad, preaching and singing about the Savior born among us.
A special event took place for our youth this week, because a delegation of more than a thousand young people came to France, to Paris, for the New Year’s prayer of Taizé. And before that, there was a trip, a visit of support and solidarity by the brothers of Taizé to Ukraine.
During this New Year season, Ukrainian youth prayed for peace in Ukraine. In that prayer, young people from Ukraine, France, Germany, Italy, England, and various countries of Western Europe were united. This Christmas power, joy, and awareness of the presence among us, even in the midst of war, of the newborn Savior gave us courage, optimism, and hope. And so, summing up this week, we say once again: Ukraine stands, Ukraine fights, Ukraine prays!
On January 1, when the whole world celebrates the first day of the New Year, the Catholic Church celebrates World Peace Day. On that day, we listened especially to the voice of Pope Leo XIV, who spoke to the hearts and consciences of modern humanity with words imbued with that peace.
We have entered a new time. And it is obvious that Ukrainians feel the time in which they live in their own way. The sense of time during war is very different from that in peaceful circumstances. For some, time stopped with the start of the full-scale invasion. For others, time broke when they lost their homes or their sons, husbands, or fathers on the front lines.
We find ourselves in a new era, but Ukraine experiences it in its own way. And we understand that since ancient times, humanity has understood time differently. In the classical myths of the Greco-Roman world, time was seen as a kind of hostile god who devours his children, the Chronos who destroys everything. A time filled with fear, uncertainty about tomorrow, and an almost constant sense of doom.
But we, the Christians of Ukraine, have entered that time and are trying to experience it in a Christian way, in a special way. We feel that this is a moment that we call “kairos.” A moment when our Lord God is present among us and this time is transformed from a cold idol into a gift. The Lord God gives us this time in which we live as an opportunity, a possibility.
We Christians entered the New Year with faith in a favorable time. “Now is the time of salvation,” St. Paul reminds us of the Lord’s words. And we indeed want to feel that this fullness of God is open to all of us at this moment of salvation today and is a good opportunity, a good chance to do good—not to fear this cold time, but to turn it into another opportunity, a chance to serve God and people.
We summed up the Year of Hope in 2025, but we feel that this hope has not remained in the past. This hope, which rests in the manger, in the person of the newborn Savior, walks with us into the New Year.
Therefore, we greeted each other with New Year’s greetings and wished each other peace and God’s blessing. We all wanted to discover the potential of God’s time, the moment of salvation, and transform it into our specific deeds, actions, and plans. Plans to build—to build peace; to build a space for life; to build the future of our Church and our people—the future of our Ukraine.
Therefore, Ukraine greets the whole world on the New Year and shares the essence of its hope. At the same time, we pray: Lord, at this favorable moment, this moment of salvation, save Ukraine! Save our young men and women from the devouring eye of the Russian aggressor! Inspire the hearts and minds of the powerful of this world with thoughts of peace and respect for human dignity and human life!
We beseech You: Lord, in this new year, bless our homeland, our people, and the children of our land with Your righteous, heavenly peace, for Christ is born! Let us glorify Him!
The blessing of the Lord be upon you, through His grace and love for mankind, always, now and forever, and for the ages of ages. Amen.
