On April 10, 2024, the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (UCCRO) met in Kyiv at the Ukrainian Bible Society (UBS) House of the Bible with the delegation of the Conference of European Churches (CEC), which is visiting Ukraine these days.
During the meeting, Ukrainian religious leaders expressed gratitude to the CEC for their prayers, assistance to refugees and support for Ukraine at the international level and informed the CEC representatives about the needs of Ukrainians in the context of repelling Russian aggression.
Representatives of the UCCRO noted that Ukraine has religious freedom during martial law and various churches, taking advantage of this freedom, carry out their spiritual and humanitarian activities in Ukrainian society. The Institute for Religious Freedom presented to the CEC delegation its report "The Impact of the russian invasion on faith-based communities in Ukraine", which contains the results of monitoring and surveys on the situation of Ukrainian religious communities in the territories occupied by Russia, as well as interviews with religious leaders of various denominations about russian crimes in Ukraine.
UCCRO chairman and President of the UBS Hryhorii Komendant presented the delegation of the Conference of European Churches with a painting depicting Jesus Christ praying with the biblical text from John 17:15 "My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one." The painting also depicts the horrors of war and the suffering of the Ukrainian people, based on the events in Borodyanka and Irpin in the Kyiv region. The picture is painted on boards taken from ammunition boxes from the Avdiivka area.
The CEC delegation was represented by: CEC President Archbishop Nikita of Thyateira and Great Britain (Ecumenical Patriarchate), CEC Board members Dr. Charles Reed (Church of England) and Maria Mountraki (Orthodox Church of Finland), members of the "Pathways to Peace" steering group Rev. Riika Porkola (Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland), Dr. Jonas Jorgensen (Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark) and Prof. Andriy Smirnov (Orthodox Church of Ukraine) and representatives of the CEC office – Secretary General-elect, Rev. Frank-Dieter Fischbach and the head of the theology and education program, Catherine Pekridu. On behalf of the UCCRO, the meeting was attended by representatives of the Ukrainian Bible Society, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine, the All-Ukrainian Union of the Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists, Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Seventh-day Adventist Church, Ukrainian Christian Evangelical Church, Ukrainian Evangelical Church, Ukrainian Lutheran Church, German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ukraine, and the Institute for Religious Freedom.