UOC

St. Nicholas Roman Catholic Church, Kyiv

I was standing outside the battered facade of St. Nicholas Roman Catholic Church in Kyiv, the late-afternoon light reflecting off stained-glass shards and scorched stone. No one lined up to pray—war has a way of hollowing out once-busy corridors of faith. Even so, its forlorn silhouette against the sky felt like a silent lament, a reminder that no place—no matter how sacred—is entirely safe from the jaws of conflict.

I hadn’t come here in search of confession or spiritual solace. Yet as I took a photo of the damaged exterior, my companion Dmytro leaned in to share a story that hit me like a blow to the chest. It wasn’t about this Catholic church, but rather the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, where certain priests had acted as Russian informants. In the early days of the invasion, they’d quietly funneled vital information to those who bombed civilian neighborhoods and tore families apart. I felt my stomach tighten at the thought: parishioners seeking prayers and guidance, unknowingly entrusting their fears to men who would forward that trust to an invading force.

The notion hovered in the cold evening air—confession, or the Orthodox equivalent, is meant to be a place where souls are laid bare and burdens are shared. How can that same intimate space be a conduit for betrayal? War has already twisted every corner of daily life, but hearing that sacred spaces might become breeding grounds for espionage was a revelation too bitter to swallow. We expect churches—Orthodox, Catholic, or otherwise—to stand as moral beacons when everything else collapses. But what do you do when the beacon itself has been corrupted?

I glanced again at the church’s battered towers, the protective scaffolding perched on one side as if struggling to hold up more than just a building—like it was trying to uphold a faith that war had brutally called into question. We often imagine religion as a refuge, a moral anchor in chaotic times. Yet here was evidence that even within the sanctuaries we consider most inviolate, malevolence can slither in under the guise of piety.

It reminded me of a story of St. Mary’s Basilica when I was in Krakow just a day earlier. The occupying Nazis stripped the altar and pews, tearing out centuries of religious art, and installed the office of Hans Frank, Hitler’s Governor-General of occupied Poland, right there in the nave. What had once been a place of devotion became a hub for unspeakable decisions—a twisted symbol of how a sanctuary can be physically gutted and bent into something diametrically opposed to its original purpose. Standing here in Kyiv, that memory only deepened my dread: the same pattern of desolation can play out anywhere, leaving behind a shell where faith once flourished.

A nagging voice in my mind replayed the commentary of Abraham Kuyper, who believed each sphere of human life—church, state, family—answers to God in its own way. In an ideal world, these spheres maintain harmony, each fulfilling its unique calling without distorting or absorbing the others. But war gouges at those boundaries, prying open the church’s sphere to let in all manner of corruption. When a place meant for humble worship turns into a wellspring of secret loyalties and coded whispers, it’s as if the very essence of faith is undone. Kuyper would be heartbroken to see how easily the sacred can be manipulated, how quickly the lines between devotion and deceit can blur.

I never set foot inside that day; there was no one around to greet me, no mass to attend. Just me, Dmytro, and a heavy stillness. Somehow, the absence of people made it all the more sorrowful. Without a congregation, without the low murmur of prayers, the church felt like an abandoned shell, vulnerable to whatever darkness wanted to creep in. I found myself wondering how many illusions this war would strip away before it’s over—how many layers of trust must be peeled back to reveal the raw fear beneath.

As we left, the battered architecture of St. Nicholas etched itself into my memory. It’s one thing to see the physical destruction—holes in the roof, stained glass reduced to jagged shards—but it’s another to sense the hollowing of an institution meant to foster hope. The idea that a priest could stand at the altar, preaching grace, while secretly aligning with those who inflict untold suffering is a betrayal of an almost cosmic scale. It underscored how war doesn’t merely shatter buildings; it can unravel the moral fabric that binds communities.

I walked away feeling a profound unease. But these uncomfortable truths need to be aired, so we don’t fall into the trap of assuming any space, however holy, is immune to the evils of ambition and conquest. In the waning light, the scaffolding still gripped the church walls as though refusing to let them tumble. And that small gesture of resistance—wood and metal bracing sacred stone—felt like a fragile symbol of what all people of faith hope for: that even in a world where sanctuaries can be hijacked, something of the divine might endure.