Prayer in Times of War: Religious Practice and Collective Trauma in Ukraine

As Russia's war in Ukraine enters its third year, religious communities are drawing deeply from traditions while developing new responses to collective trauma. In Lviv's Pentecostal communities, where Soviet-era persecution remains in living memory, traditional practices of intense collective prayer are being transformed to process the ongoing horrors of war. When I was there, I observed one congregation's response to Russia's destruction of the Kakhovka dam. This response revealed both trends: the desire to continue historical practices that sustain the community and the need to innovate in order to process the devastation.[1]

In a repurposed Catholic chapel, where many congregants have maintained their faith since Soviet times, a remarkable moment of collective spiritual response emerged during a Wednesday prayer meeting. As the pastor, who had been imprisoned for his faith during the Soviet period, shared his memories of WWII flooding while discussing Russia's latest attack, the congregation transformed individual grief into powerful collective expression.

The pastor's memories of the flooding provided a powerful frame for understanding the current crisis. The water wasn't deep in his childhood village on the Dniester River, he recalled, but the current was so powerful that villagers were trapped in their houses. German soldiers distributed bread to stranded families by motorboat. “Today,” he observed, “Russian forces open fire on those trying to help flood victims.” Yet this comparison, he emphasized, wasn't about blaming Russians—“there are many good Christians living there.” Rather, consistent with his frequent observations during services about Satan's growing influence in contemporary events, he interpreted these attacks as further evidence of Satan's intensified rampage in the world, bringing unprecedented terror and havoc. 

“What we as Christians can do facing this reality is pray,” the pastor concluded, stepping into the hall and inviting believers to gather around him. As the congregation formed a tight circle, he began an intense prayer that soon transformed into weeping. The believers joined in, their voices rising from individual prayers to collective crying and glossolalia (“speaking in tongues”), creating a single harmonious sound. When the prayers finally subsided, the pastor concluded with his own words, still crying.

This response to trauma through collective emotional practice has deep historical roots. As Catherine Wanner has documented, Ukraine was home to more than half of the Soviet Union's Baptist and Pentecostal believers, who maintained their faith through decades of persecution. Today's practices of collective emotional expression draw on what Webb Keane identifies as established “semiotic ideologies”—ways of creating and experiencing sacred presence through shared religious forms. The pastor's linking of past and present trauma—from WWII flooding to Russia's destruction of the dam—exemplifies what Tanya Luhrmann calls “kindling presence,” where divine reality is made tangible through specific collective practices.

Yet this is not merely a continuation of historical patterns. As Simon Coleman shows in his work on global Pentecostalism, religious communities constantly adapt traditional practices to meet contemporary challenges. In Lviv, Soviet-era practices of intense collective prayer have been transformed into powerful responses to war trauma. During my fieldwork in June 2023, I observed how the congregation's emotional expressions moved beyond individual suffering to create what Joel Robbins describes as shared “ritual effectiveness”—moments where collective practice creates new possibilities.

The pastor's narrative weaves together three temporal layers of trauma: his personal childhood memory of WWII flooding, the current war-induced catastrophe, and the cosmic battle between good and evil. By framing Russian aggression not as merely a human conflict but as part of Satan's intensified activity in the "last times," the pastor transforms a specific traumatic event into an opportunity for transcendent experience. This follows what Coleman identifies as a key aspect of Pentecostal practice—the ability to reframe contemporary struggles within a larger spiritual narrative.

The congregation's collective response demonstrates how religious communities can mobilize traditional practices to face current crises. As Robbins argues, such moments of shared emotional expression create new possibilities for processing trauma. Through collective weeping and glossolalia, individual grief is transformed into shared spiritual experience. The physical gathering in a tight circle around their pastor becomes both a symbolic and literal manifestation of community resilience in the face of ongoing war.

This moment in a Lviv chapel reveals something crucial about religious life in times of war: how sacred practice can help communities maintain spiritual vitality even amid tremendous suffering. Whether through collective weeping in response to current crises or shared prayer in the face of trauma, these practices show how religious communities can adapt traditional forms to meet contemporary challenges. In an era when Ukraine faces continued aggression, such spiritual resources may prove particularly crucial for communities seeking to maintain hope and meaning in the midst of war.

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[1] The Kakhovka dam was destroyed by Russian forces on June 6, 2023. This ethnographic observation is from an evening prayer meeting the following day. This analysis in this article as a whole draws from focused fieldwork in Lviv (June 2023), including participant observation in the Pentecostal community.

Featured image from Sharon Hahn Darlin, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons