One of the trends that occurred in Ukraine, even before the initial invasion by Moscow in 2014 and the reinvasion in 2022, has been the exponential growth of the Ukrainian Prayer Breakfast Movement, which has seen American Evangelical Christian and other leaders in attendance. This growth in attendance is indicative of Moscow’s persecution of Ukrainian Christians while Ukraine concurrently grows stronger as a Western Christian nation.
In 2008, for the first time in Ukraine’s history, a Parliamentary prayer group was formed “for spirituality, morality and health of Ukraine.” The year 2011 saw the first National Prayer Breakfast in Ukraine, with other government officials joining Ukrainian Members of Parliament in that endeavor two years later. In 2016, Ukraine’s president attended the Prayer Breakfast for the first time. The next year, the Prayer Breakfast was largely focused on orphaned and other disadvantaged children.
Louie Gohmert, the pro-Trump then-Congressman from Texas, spoke at the 2018 Prayer Breakfast, as did actor Stephen Baldwin. One year later, Pastor Jim Garlow of President Trump’s White House Spiritual Council attended as a special guest.
After Moscow’s reinvasion, the Prayer Breakfast was addressed in 2024 by House Speaker Mike Johnson and, a year later, Alabama Congressman Robert Aderholt and Senator James Lankford. And in the last prayer breakfast, Ed Graham, COO of Samaritan’s Purse, and former Rep. Bob McEwen, Executive Director of the Council for National Policy, attended.
Such increasing attendance, both in number and in prominence of American officials, is indicative of Americans, when they learn what Moscow is doing in Ukraine, to take a stand for their fellow Christians.
Moscow has systematically destroyed churches and held pastors hostage in occupied territory, coupled with the indiscriminate killing of civilians throughout Ukraine at large. These include Protestant pastors and Catholic priests, who are a major threat to the Russian regime, as they were in the First Cold War.
Russia’s hatred of Christianity even extends to its fellow Orthodox believers in Ukraine, whose leadership was so turned off by Moscow’s rule that they, in one of the boldest moves in the history of Christendom, broke away from the Moscow Patriarchy and instead fell under Constantinople directly. While not getting a lot of mainstream press coverage, this was a significant movement in modern Christendom and in the history of Orthodox Christianity.
This is all the while the Russian Orthodox Church has supported Moscow in its war of aggression, even to the extent of declaring the war against Ukraine a “Holy War.”
Ukraine as a nation has taken further steps to solidify its ties to Western Christianity and Civilization. It has moved Christmas Day from Orthodox Christmas in January to December 25, coinciding with Protestant and Catholic Christmas. Further, Ukraine’s government has put in measures to actively expose corruption and weed it out, as evidenced by reading about corruption in Ukraine…something that does not happen in totalitarian states. Ukraine was among the first nations to back the United States in Iran and is actively sharing its drone technology with America; drones that are saving American and Allied lives.
There may not be much more Ukraine can do to win the good graces of the United States, but there is certainly more that American Christian leaders can do to continue supporting our brothers and sisters in Christ who, like David, face a tough enemy but also have a very real possibility of victory. One day, we will get to Heaven and will meet our Ukrainian brothers and sisters in the Lord. Hopefully, we are not asked by the Judgment, in front of them, why we forgot our larger Christian family when Jesus did so much more for us.
The current trends are hopeful, and while there is no such thing as a perfect nation, there are nations that are worthy of support and vital to the interests of the United States. Ukraine is such a nation. Religious leaders from Billy Graham to Pope John Paul II stood with the nations of Eastern Europe against Russia during the First Cold War. Today, we should do the same for those Eastern European nations.
Views expressed in this article are those of the author and not any government agency.
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