‘Prayer is our number one weapon’ against Russian aggression, says papal nuncio to Ukraine

KYIV, Ukraine (OSV News) — As Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine — which continues attacks launched in 2014 — nears its fifth year, OSV News sat down Aug. 12 with Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, papal nuncio to Ukraine, for a reflection on faith and prayer amid relentless conflict.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

OSV News: How are the Ukrainian people, and in particular Ukrainian Catholics, doing at this moment, as the full-scale invasion enters its fifth year?

Archbishop Kulbokas: A colleague of mine in the Holy See diplomatic service told me that despite previously reading the news and watching videos, he saw the war in Ukraine as something that remained far away. But he is currently in a country which suffers from the huge difficulties of war, and he said, “Now I understand.”

So the big difficulty is that when we only read the news or see some videos, that is not enough to fully understand the situation. We lack actual experience (of the war). It’s a big challenge that concerns everybody.

One of the challenges that Ukrainian Catholics are facing is that of not being understood, of course. I remind our bishops, priests and all the faithful that, well, even if our brothers and sisters — even if Catholics in the world — don’t understand us, God is the one who understands.

So that’s the main grace that we have. God never abandons us; he’s the only one who never does.

Everybody does what he or she can, so that’s our task — to share the experiences, to discuss, to pray together. But that doesn’t mean that we will have a full understanding of the situation.

OSV News: Many people have been praying over the past few years for Ukraine. What would you say to those who are brokenhearted that their prayers have not been answered how or when they had hoped the Lord would answer them?

Archbishop Kulbokas: God is always a mystery for us, and so God’s plans of divine providence are a mystery for us. We never know what the plan is.

We know that our main goal is not even our life of freedom on earth. Our vocation is to go to the divine kingdom, to live eternal life — so that means that we have no guarantees from God that he will protect our physical life as much as our spiritual life.

Another aspect, and I would stress it very strongly, is that when we have this huge, terrible aggression from the Russian side, as Jesus stresses, this aggression is unable to kill our spiritual life, our eternal life. But there is always a challenge that this military aggression could provoke a reaction in our hearts: disbelief, lost hope, anger towards God and our brothers and sisters. That is a very, very big temptation that would be even more dramatic and tragic than the war itself. It would mean spiritual defeat.

So I’m stressing to myself — and I invite our priests and bishops to stress — that we need to pray and to explain to our brothers and sisters that we need to keep our hope. And our hope is Jesus, not this life.

A third aspect is the mystery of our prayer. I discussed this with a friend of mine in my native parish in Lithuania, where a woman who had difficulties in her relationship with her son prayed for six years (to restore communication). Lately, she made her prayer much more focused, determined. Finally, her son called her after six years of lost contact. And for me, that was a miracle.

It’s also a sign that there are big differences between “prayer” and (authentic) prayer. We can pray in a very loose, superficial way — or maybe not superficial, but still with very little focus or determination. It’s also a challenge for me to be more determined and more focused on prayer.

And what do we pray for? We pray for peace. We pray also for the conversion of Russia. At Fatima, Our Lady insisted on that. The conversion of Russia would be a gift from God — conversion to God, to peace, to respecting human beings.

The last aspect is perseverance and determination, because evil always tries to tempt us by saying, “Ah, you see, you prayed for a year, for five years or maybe for 10 years, and you still didn’t see a visible result of your prayer. So forget praying.”

And as we read many, many times in the Gospels, Jesus is expecting our positive, faithful reaction when we meet those obstacles. Even in these difficult situations, when after five years we have not yet reached the effect of our prayers and we continue praying — that’s what Jesus wants to see in us. That means that we have defeated evil, which comes to us and attempts to say our prayers have no more reason to be continued.

The more we react with faith to those obstacles — the lack of results, the lack of efficacy of our prayer — and the more we focus on prayer, we are growing in faith and defeating evil.

OSV News: You recently told Vatican Radio that Pope Leo is arguably the only voice raised in defense of peace. How can the average Catholic support the pope in his calls for peace?

Archbishop Kulbokas: I still believe that prayer is our number one weapon. We need to have our heart in our prayer. We need to share our experiences, our hearts, our difficulties, to emotionally understand the struggles, so that prayer becomes filled with emotion and is not only theoretical. That means having personal contacts, not only among officials. Every brother, every sister has the possibility to reach people.

When I travel to Rome, I take part in prayers for peace. Sometimes I see that others’ prayer is very relaxed, and I need to mentally return to Ukraine — to the difficulties of the prisoners of war, of the children, of those tortured, of those wounded — in order to pray. So the emotional aspect (of prayer) is very important.

Jesus said in the Gospel that prostitutes and tax collectors are preceding the others in the kingdom of God, because sometimes unexpected persons are more open to this emotional tie with Jesus, which starts from the head and goes to the heart.

The second thing which I consider very important is the role of the Church. In Russia and in other countries, we have difficulties with the governments and authorities. So what is the role of the Church, not only as an institution, but as a community of believers?

We need to be both creative and also attentive to situations. The Church is not just the pope; we are all together in the same Church. And sometimes, individuals in certain situations have much more of a possibility to influence peace than the pope himself. If we’ve got this talent to seriously discuss (peace) with political leaders, we need to do that, because if we do not, who will?

OSV News: What in particular gives you hope at this moment?

Archbishop Kulbokas: From human logic’s point of view, my assessment is that the general situation of humankind — with weapons and artificial intelligence quickly developing — is that challenges will only increase. But then I say, “Thank God I am able to touch this fragility of humankind, and see that we are lacking cohesion, cooperation, effort.”

That shows me I need to focus on two aspects: one on God, who always has the possibility to say, “Stop.” But in my understanding, he is saying, “Assume responsibility for your situation; take (the) initiative (for peace).”

The second aspect is the importance of personal relationships. Through this network of human hearts, we need to create a fraternal reaction to war and to building peace, using our small talents, our small possibilities. In the Gospel, as we see in the multiplication of fishes and bread, we have very few fish, very few talents, very little bread. But still Jesus is saying, “Use your talents, and then I will multiply your efforts.”

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