Role of denominational entities in providing assistance to the Russian-Ukrainian war refugees (2022-2023)

Sector of Contemporary History and Politics

Abstract

consequence war refugee church

The purpose of the study is to determine the role of denominational entities in dealing with the consequences of the Ukrainian war refugee crisis. The author set the following tasks: to find out the extent of the involvement of church and para-church organizations in the provision of assistance to these refugees, to identify the characteristic features of the aid activities of individual church-based organizations, and to trace internal mechanisms of this effort. The research methodology is based on the comparative analysis and functional-structural approaches. The originality of the study lies in an attempt to provide a broad picture of multidirectional refugee relief effort across Europe. The main results of the study are: The denominational entities ' response to the Ukrainian war refugee crisis which started in February 2022 has been mostly well-organized and effective. While being much smaller in the absolute volume of assistance provided than national governments ' efforts, this response has often been better targeted, more flexible, and prompter than government actions. It has covered to some extent every need of the refugee communities and capitalized on long-standing linkages between various churches both within countries and internationally. The level of formalization and centralization of this effort has generally been directly proportional to the development level of the country in question and its distance from the Ukrainian border (that is, Eastern European denominational entities have been overall more inclined to use informal and localized refugee support practices). Prospects for further research. Studying the ways of spreading best practices of denominational entities to other aid providers, especially government agencies, could be quite useful. This study needs to be complemented with research on the role of non-European and non-Christian church-based organizations in the Ukrainian war refugee crisis response.

Keywords: Russian-Ukrainian war, full-scale invasion, denominational entities, refugee crisis, refugee assistance.

Анотація

Тарас Шульга, м.н.с. сектору новітньої історії та політики, Інститут історії України НАН України, (Київ)

РОЛЬ КОНФЕСІЙНИХ ОРГАНІЗАЦІЙ У НАДАННІ ДОПОМОГИ БІЖЕНЦЯМ РОСІЙСЬКО-УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ ВІЙНИ (2022-2023)

Метою дослідження є визначення ролі європейських конфесійних організацій у подоланні кризи, спричиненої напливом українських біженців. Автор ставив такі завдання: з 'ясувати ступінь участі церковних і парацерковних організацій у наданні допомоги цим біженцям, виявити характерні риси допомогової діяльності окремих церков та простежити внутрішні механізми цієї роботи. Методологія дослідження базується на порівняльному аналізі та функціонально-структурному підході. Наукова новизна полягає в спробі представити широку картину різнопланової роботи з надання допомоги біженцям в різних країнах Європи. Основні результати дослідження. Реакція конфесійних організацій на спричинену напливом біженців від російської агресії кризу, яка почалася в лютому 2022 року, була миттєвою, а допомога здебільшого добре організованою та дієвою. Незважаючи на те, що абсолютний обсяг наданої допомоги був набагато меншим порівняно з витратами національних урядів, ця реакція часто була більш адресною, гнучкою та оперативною, ніж дії урядів. Вона певною мірою задовольняла усі види різноманітних потреб біженців і використовувала вже наявні зв'язки між різними церквами як усередині країн, так і на міжнародному рівні. Рівень формалізації та централізації цих зусиль переважно був прямо пропорційним рівню розвитку відповідної країни та її віддаленості від українського кордону (тобто східноєвропейські конфесійні організації були загалом більш схильні використовувати неоформальні та локальні підходи до підтримки біженців). Перспективи подальших досліджень. Досить корисним може бути вивчення способів поширення передових практик конфесійних установ серед інших надавачів допомоги, особливо державних установ. Це дослідження слід доповнити вивченням ролі неєвропейських і нехристиянських конфесійних організацій у реагуванні на кризу, спричинену напливом українських біженців.

Ключові слова: російсько-українська війна, повномасштабне вторгнення, конфесійні організації, спричинена напливом біженців криза, допомога біженцям.

The main text

The Russian Federation's war on Ukraine, and especially the full-scale overt invasion that began on February 24, 2022, created the largest refugee crisis in post-WWII European history. As of December 31, 2023, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimated the number of Ukrainian refugees as 6,343,000 UNHCR Ukraine Refugee Situation. URL: https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/ukraine (дата звернення: 02.01.2024).. This immense humanitarian disaster has been met with massive response on the part of governments (especially in Europe, but also in some non-European nations) and international agencies, the scale of the aid provided to refugees via these channels also exceeding any such crisis in the post-WWII era. For instance, European governments allocated over 62 billion USD to Ukrainian refugee aid by July 31, 2023, while the US government appropriated almost 7 billion USD to the same purpose Wilson Rachel, Robinson Lou, Pettersson Henrik. Ukraine aid: Where the money is coming from, in 4 charts. URL: https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/05/world/ukraine-moneymilitary-aid-intl-dg/index.html (дата звернення: 29.10.2023)..

Still, the magnitude of the crisis has been such that non-government organizations have had a lot of space to act, especially since they have generally been much more flexible and responsive in their humanitarian work than governments. Denominational (confessional) entities have constituted an important component of the humanitarian aid community, which reflects both high importance of charitable work in most religions' ethical codes and high trust enjoyed by such organizations, both from aid recipients and people wishing to help those in need. Specific nature of this or that denominational entity's role in refugee assistance depends both on its potential and the needs of refugees it serves.

The issue of denominational entities' role in dealing with the Ukrainian refugee crisis has been actively studied, especially in the countries most involved in it. However, most such studies have been limited to individual entities/nations. For instance, Elzbieta M. Gozdziak describes in her article various Hungarian churches' assistance to refugees (including those from Ukraine) Gozdziak E. Contesting Flexible Solidarity. Debating Religion and Forced Migration Entanglements (Politics of Citizenship and Migration). London: Palgrave Macmillan. P. 21-44. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23379-1_2, Hjalmar Bang Carlsen, Tobias Gardhus and Jonas Toubol discuss role of confessional networks in response to the Ukrainian refugee wave in Denmark Carlsen H. et al. Ukrainian refugee solidarity mobilization online. European Societies. URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/ref/10.1080/14616696.2023.2177704 (дата звернення: 29.09.2023). https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/g3ybw, Franciszek Mroz deals with the Polish Catholic Church's contribution to helping Ukrainians Mroz F. Geographies of Care: The Catholic Church in Poland's Assistance to Refugees from Ukraine During Russia's Invasion of Ukraine. Journal of Religion and Health. 2023. Vol. 62. P. 444-464. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-022-01729-9, while Ionut Biluta shows how political sympathies interact with the Romanian Orthodox Church commitment to assisting victims of Russian aggression Biluta I. The Romanian Orthodox Church Between the Alliance for the Union of Romanians and the Putinist Temptation. Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai -- Theologia Catholica Latina. Vol. 68, № 1. P. 120-134. https://doi.org/10.24193/theol.cath.latina. 2023.LXVTII.L06. Nonetheless, there have already been some studies using an international perspective of the issue at hand, such as Katharina McLarren's paper in which she shows the prominent role of denominational entities not just in providing direct aid to refugees, but also in shaping public perception of assisting refugees as a public interest McLarren K. Christian Churches and the Ukraine War: Introducing Religious Publics in Global Politics. Politics and Governance. 2023. Vol. 11, № 3. P. 134-144. https://doi.org/ 10.17645/pag.v11i3.6762.

Primary sources for the present study include media reports and statements of denominational entities, government bodies, aid agencies as well as databases maintained by international organizations (including UN system) and research institutions.

On coming to European countries, Ukrainian refugees faced numerous issues, ranging from the most basic requirements for shelter and food to cultural and educational needs. Even though governments of receiving nations allocated large amounts of funding to assisting Ukrainians coming under their protection, government bodies were not always sufficiently equipped and resourced to deal with million-strong waves of refugees. In other words, while the money was there, the government human resources for dealing with multitudes of traumatized foreigners were often lacking. In such cases, assistance from non-government organizations (including church-based ones) was extremely welcome, since such organizations were, firstly, highly experienced in assisting people in need, secondly, they frequently had well-established connections with their Ukrainian counterparts and good knowledge of Ukrainian realities in general, and thirdly, they relied on strong networks of volunteers who could deploy in their thousands just where they were needed. More speculatively, denominational entities might have benefitted from trust which Ukrainians had (or claimed to have) for organized religion, and they might have been therefore better able to assuage their concerns (as compared to government bodies, given that Ukrainians had overall poor experience of dealing with their own bureaucracy).

Church-based organizations (including both specialized aid bodies and elements of general church structures, such as parishes, monasteries, dioceses etc.) played an important role in supporting refugees from Ukraine with direct transfers immediately upon coming to the respective countries, and these transfers were both monetary and in-kind, which was especially important in the early weeks of the crisis, when many refugees had not yet been able to benefit from government financial assistance (since receipt of the latter mostly required paperwork and in any case was delayed by a few days or even weeks). While such cash gifts, food parcels, clothing sets were far smaller in value overall than government transfers, the former came in time and reached the intended recipients just where they were needed. To achieve this remarkable result, denominational entities had to expand their activities by an order of magnitude, establishing numerous aid stations at railroad stations, bus terminals, border crossings, creating large warehouses, and holding repeated fundraising events among parishioners.

Their success looks especially impressive when one recalls that European countries bordering on Ukraine (that is, Eastern/Central European countries) which bore the greatest burden of refugee assistance in those first weeks after the full-scale invasion began are among the poorest members of the Western community, and so they have both limited financial base and a lot of areas needing funding in their own societies. Moreover, there have been some lingering issues, for instance, in Ukrainian-Polish or Ukrainian-Hungarian relations, which often date back to bloody interethnic conflicts of early and mid-20^th century. Churches, being understandably conservative-leaning, are quite susceptible to being involved in nationalist politics Biluta I. The Romanian Orthodox Church... P. 120.. Still, both the general public and the community of faithful in particular have in most cases risen to the occasion and provided help to Ukrainians without any attempt to use it, say, to improve the position of their co-ethnics/co-religionists in Ukraine. Quite likely, this ethical approach to assisting refugees grew not only from precepts of the respective creed, but also from the feeling that Ukraine fought for more than its own survival, as many Eastern/Central Europeans perceived the Russian invasion as a threat to the entire region, as an attempt to restore the Soviet empire with all the negative consequences of such a restoration for their nations, including the curtailment of religious freedom. Besides, Ukrainians are culturally similar (and racially almost identical) to residents of Ukraine's western neighbors, which probably goes a long way to explain much better attitude to Ukrainian refugees when compared to, say, Syrian refugees of the 2015-2016 wave GozdziakE. Contesting Flexible Solidarity. P. 38-39.. That is, mostly Christian (or at least post-Christian) and almost exclusively White European societies of Eastern/ Central Europe find it far easier to empathize with similarly Christian and White Ukrainians than with Middle Eastern Muslims or Africans.

The financial value of aforementioned church-organized direct transfers to refugees from Ukraine is hard to estimate precisely, but it amounted to at least 420 million PLN in Poland in the first eight months of the crisis (through October 2022), which is equivalent to over 100 million USD, or close to 1.5% of Polish government assistance to the same demographic in the same period Mroz F Geographies of Care... P. 450; CNN Ukraine aid... [calculations are mine. -- Auth. ].. Importantly, such direct transfers could also be used (and often were used) for moral support, as in the case of providing Ukrainians with their traditional festive meals, for instance on Easter 2022 Ibid. P. 454.. Given the religious (Christian) character of Ukrainian folk festivals, Christian organizations were especially well-equipped to satisfy this need for reconnecting refugees with their homeland and culture through food.

Denominational entities have also made an important contribution to providing temporary housing to Ukrainian refugees. For example, Polish monasteries sheltered in excess of 15,000 refugees on March 17, 2022 Ibid. [calculations are mine. -- Author].. Again, while this figure pales when compared to the total of over 2 million Ukrainians who found shelter in Poland in 2022, it should be noted that monasteries provided their living space primarily to the most vulnerable groups (women with young children, individuals with disabilities) and in the most difficult first weeks of the crisis, so their contribution should be valued higher that can be judged through a purely numerical comparison. Long-standing links between denominational entities in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe allowed some non-Ukrainian clerics to acquire a working knowledge of Ukrainian by 2022, and this knowledge was put to good use during the refugee crisis. Getting assistance in their mother tongue was not just objectively convenient for incoming Ukrainians, but also psychologically reassuring.

Denominational entities have played a significant role in responding to educational needs of Ukrainian refugees, providing schoolchildren with school supplies, clothing, sports equipment, and books as well as holding educational and therapeutic workshops and classes, art classes and games and physical activities Ibid. P. 457.. However, in many cases, caregivers are unable or unwilling to enroll their children in schools of receiving countries (either because of shortage of school places or due to the desire to enable the children to receive Ukrainian-standard education in view of the hoped-for eventual return to the homeland). In such cases, church-based organizations help to establish remote learning centers and donate digital equipment needed for e-learning (for instance, Caritas (the largest Catholic aid organization) has provided such assistance in Romania and Slovakia Dabbous S. Caritas organisations in Ukraine, Poland, Romania and Slovakia support children, teachers and families by providing safe facilities, psychological assistance, summer camps, online learning and schoolbags. URL: https://www.caritas.eu/back-to-school-afterfleeing-war/ (Retrieved September 29, 2023).). By hiring Ukrainian refugee teachers for such centers, aid organizations both maintain professional skills of these educators and partially unburden caregivers of such children, enabling them to look for work without being anxious about children missing out on education. Another important area of assisting refugee children has involved organizing field trips and summer camps, which not only serve purely educational purposes, but also promote integration of Ukrainian refugees in the receiving counties' societies Ibid..

From a public health perspective, the Ukrainian war refugee crisis was also a major shock for healthcare systems of European countries. Incoming Ukrainians were less healthy than their European neighbors even before the full-scale Russian invasion, but the hostilities led to mass psychological trauma and thousands upon thousands of physical injuries, some of them very rarely seen in Europe after 1945. Even though these systems are predominantly public-funded, and government-controlled, church-based organizations have still played some role in assisting Ukrainian refugees, especially with regard to psychological aid, given that many Ukrainians are more comfortable receiving such aid from a cleric than from a psychologist. Moreover, some denominational entities have well-prepared paramedic teams, which are sometimes coordinated even on an international level, like the (Roman Catholic) Order of Malta, which was able to mobilize paramedics from Germany, the Czech Republic, Belgium, England, France, Italy, Estonia, Lithuania, Spain, Austria, and Ireland for short tours of duty near the Ukrainian border in FebruaryMarch 2022 MrozF Geographies of Care... P. 459.. Again, receiving country government human resources were obviously far larger, but church-based organizations turned out to be more flexible and able to act faster.

We will now turn from an (admittedly cursory) description of diverse areas of assistance provided by denominational entities to Ukrainian refugees to an analysis of internal mechanisms governing this aid effort. These mechanisms reflect both underlying architectures of the organizations involved and their complicated interaction with highly country-specific situation on the ground. For instance, in countries bordering on Ukraine, every level of church organization was usually involved in helping refugees from the war-torn neighbor country, starting with individual parishes and monasteries and going through dioceses and diocesan branches of aid organizations to the national leadership of the church in question. As a consequence, a lot of such help was provided informally and poorly accounted for. Meanwhile, in countries farther removed from the conflict zone, we see cases of major churches being involved in refugee assistance effort only through their specialized aid organizations using formal procedures. For instance, as far as we could ascertain, the Finn Church Aid (the humanitarian assistance arm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland) has been the only body of that church to play an important part in the refugee crisis, and it has done so through helping the Hungarian Interchurch Aid in its work with Ukrainian refugees in Hungary and IDPs in Ukraine Hungarian Interchurch Aid's Ukraine Response Enters a New Phase with the Opening of Kyiv Humanitarian Centre. URL: https://segelyszervezet.hu/en/news/kijevi-humanitariuskozpont-nyitasaval-lep-uj-szakaszba-az-okumenikus-segelyszervezet-ukrajnaisegelyprogramja/ (Retrieved September 29, 2023). (instead of doing the same in Finland).

How can we explain that? Most likely, churches in Ukraine's neighbor countries feel that, firstly, the crisis is so acute that limiting the aid effort to some specialized organization would not be the right thing to do; secondly, such specialized organizations are not well-resourced enough (due to the church structure as well as overall relative poverty of the respective countries) to be able to deal with such a mammoth task; and thirdly, the massive presence of Ukrainian refugees in these countries means that involving all levels of church edifice in assistance is both useful and desirable, as every parish can find Ukrainians in need of help nearby. Meanwhile, in other cases, such as that of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, the church leadership probably feels that the Ukrainian war and refugee crisis are somewhat detached from everyday experience of most believers, while the government is quite capable to deal with the refugees who do reach such countries, as these countries (located in Europe, but farther from Ukraine) are generally richer; therefore, church efforts are better applied outside, say, Finland, in poorer and worseaffected countries; obviously, a dedicated and well-resourced church-wide aid organization is far better equipped to engage in such efforts outside the nation's borders than individual parishes or even dioceses.

Speaking of interchurch relationships' impact on assistance to the Ukrainian war refugees, we have to note an admirable spirit of ecumenism and openness demonstrated by a great many churches in this crisis. Protestants cooperate with other Protestants and with Catholics or Orthodox Hungarian Interchurch Aid's Ukraine Response Enter..., Christian organizations establish partnerships with purely secular bodies McLarren K. Christian Churches and the Ukraine War... P. 139., representatives of many countries come to work together under the aegis of this or that denominational entity. Of course, it reflects probably not just adherence to religion-based humanist values, but also overall unity of the West and especially Europe in supporting Ukraine. In other words, it may well be that many Christians aid Ukrainian refugees less due to their Christian values and more due to their solidarity with Ukraine. Still, church-based aid organizations act as useful channels for refugee assistance, whatever its origin. In some cases, church networks absolutely dominate in aid organization even in most developed countries (for instance, in most religious districts of DenmarkCarlsen H. et al. Ukrainian refugee solidarity mobilization online... P. 6-7.). Denominational entities rarely use the aid effort as an occasion for proselytization.

References

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5. Dabbous, S. (2022, August 29). Caritas organisations in Ukraine, Poland, Romania and Slovakia support children, teachers and families by providing safe facilities, psychological assistance, summer camps, online learning and schoolbags. Retrieved September 29, 2023 https://www.caritas.eu/back-to-school-after-fleeing-war/ [in English].

6. Gozdziak, E. (2023). Contesting Flexible Solidarity. Debating Religion and Forced Migration Entanglements (Politics of Citizenship and Migration) (pp. 21-44). London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23379-1_2 [in English].

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8. Mroz, F. (2023). Geographies of Care: The Catholic Church in Poland's Assistance to Refugees from Ukraine During Russia's Invasion of Ukraine. Journal of Religion and Health, 62. 444-464. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-022-01729-9 [in English].

9. Wilson, Rachel, Robinson, Lou, & Pettersson, Henrik. (2023, October 6). Ukraine aid: Where the money is coming from, in 4 charts. Retrieved September 29, 2023 https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/05/world/ukraine-money-military-aid-intl-dg/index. html [in English].

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