On February 24, 2025, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine held a special session dedicated to the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion and, for the first time, to the observance of the National Day of Prayer.

The session was attended by members of the Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations (UCCRO).

At the beginning of the session, Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk noted that on February 12, 2025, Parliament had officially established the National Day of Prayer, which will now be observed annually on February 24.

The participants and guests of the parliamentary session, together with a choir, performed Ukraine’s spiritual anthem, "O Great and Only God".

During the session, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the Resolution "On the Appeal of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to the Parliaments and Governments of Foreign States, International Organizations, and Their Interparliamentary Assemblies" in connection with the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The text of the Appeal includes a call to international partners to support Ukraine’s Peace Formula and Victory Plan, as well as the country’s European and Euro-Atlantic integration.

Following the session, UCCRO members visited an exhibition featuring icons and paintings created on wooden panels from ammunition boxes, as well as a handwritten Bible, presented by the Ukrainian Bible Society.

Near the exhibition, Valerii Antoniuk, Chairman of UCCRO, together with other Council members, led a prayer for Ukraine, which included: prayers for Ukrainian soldiers and Ukraine’s victory, prayers for the return of Ukrainian children, military personnel, and civilians held in Russian captivity, prayers for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.

The parliamentary session was attended by: Valerii Antoniuk – Chairman of UCCRO, Head of the All-Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Christian-Baptist Churches, Epiphanius – Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine, Primate of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, Josyf Milyan – Auxiliary Bishop of the Kyiv Archdiocese of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Vitalii Kryvytskyi – Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine, Ordinary of the Kyiv-Zhytomyr Diocese, Leonid Padun – Senior Bishop of the Ukrainian Christian Evangelical Church, and authorized representatives the Ukrainian Pentecostal Church, the Ukrainian Union Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Ukrainian Evangelical Church, the Ukrainian Lutheran Church, the German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ukraine, the Association of Jewish Religious Organizations of Ukraine, the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Ukraine, the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, the Ukrainian Bible Society.

On the occasion of the National Day of Prayer, initiated by UCCRO and other interchurch institutions, prayer services for Ukraine were held in churches and religious organizations across the country.