Christmas candles still shine in the darkness of war
Photo Canva.com
Opinion
Christmas is the holiday of lights, being together and peace on earth. Nothing could be further from the truth in Ukraine. Nevertheless, pastor Igor Bandura found a way to celebrate the coming of the Prince of peace.
19 December 2025. The Fourth Sunday of Advent in the fourth year of the great war in Ukraine.
I am writing these lines from Irpin – a city that already knows what the war truly means: ruined houses, graves in front yards, and thousands of people who have lost their homes. And yet we light the candles again. Because we are Christians. And for us Advent is not only waiting for Christmas. It is the time to look straight into the darkness and tell it: “The last word is not yours.”
Three years ago, during the first wartime Advent, my sister in faith, the artist Natalia Shchuplyak, painted a picture she simply called “Advent.”
An empty manger and one single Christmas candle still waiting to be lit are at the centre of the canvas. Around it burn four other candles, but they are clearly signs of war.
Warmth of home
The first candle is a trench candle, made from a tin can, paraffin, and cardboard. It is the very same candle that warms the hands of soldiers in dugouts near Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad today. It flickers, it smokes, but it never extinguishes.
The quiet, burning question we have been asking for the fourth year already: God, where are You?
The second is lit by a small, displaced girl out in the open – somewhere at a railway station or in a bomb shelter. She holds the candle with both hands, as if she is afraid the wind might snatch away the last warmth of a home that no longer exists.
The third is a grave candle. Quiet, steady and hopelessly calm. There are now thousands of them – on every cemetery and in every yard where a son, a husband, a daughter or sometimes an entire family has been buried. These candles burn even when no one is left to cry aloud.
The fourth is a prayer candle. It stands in a half-ruined church that somehow survived. It burns without ceasing. It is probably still burning – because prayer never stops.
Thunder
And in the centre – the empty manger. And the quiet, burning question we have been asking for the fourth year already: God, where are You?
Back in 2022 we understood for the first time that Advent can be dark. That light can be born not only in cosy European cathedrals to the strains of “Silent Night” but also in cellars where lullabies are replaced by explosions and the Christmas tree is a homemade candle fashioned from a tinned-meat can.
And now, in 2025, while Europe already hears “Carol of the Bells” in shopping malls and ice rinks, I can no longer listen to that melody the way I once did. Because Mykola Leontovych’s,“Shchedryk,” was born in Pokrovsk.
In the quiet Podillian town, Mykola Leontovych once conducted the church choir and wrote down a simple Ukrainian carol that later became a Christmas anthem for the whole world. Where once bells rang and children’s voices rose, today artillery thunders.
Pokrovsk, the town that gave the world a melody of joy is now fighting for the bare right to exist. Our men are paying for every metre of Pokrovsk with blood. And we do not know whether the church in which Leontovych once sang “Shchedryk” will still be standing, or whether only ashes will remain.
Joy to the world
Now that melody sounds different to me. It is no longer only about light and warmth. It is about how light breaks through smoke. About how joy can coexist with pain. About how, even when everything around is falling apart, the bell does not fall silent.
Now, when I hear that familiar silvery peal, I no longer hear only joy. I hear mothers’ weeping over buried sons drowning out the little bells. I hear the roar of shells interrupting the festive tune. I hear the cries of the wounded and the silence of destroyed houses driving Christmas far, far away, as if it has become inappropriate in a world where we hear “air-raid siren” instead of “joy to the world”.
Empty manger
The war seems to steal from us the very possibility of celebration. It places the brutal reality of suffering over the tender news of a Baby in a manger. And it feels as though the ringing of “Shchedryk” is drowning in that pain, as though Christmas itself is retreating for the darkness this war has brought us.
Christmas was never about everything being all right. It came precisely when everything was at its worst.
But at that very moment, I look at Natalia’s painting again. At those four “dark” candles and the empty manger in their midst. And I understand: Christmas was never about everything being all right. It came precisely when everything was at its worst: into an occupied country, under foreign rule, into a cold stable, to people who had already lost almost everything.
Therefore, even when the weeping of mothers drowns out the melody of “Shchedryk,” even when war tries to push Christmas to the back row, the light still breaks through the smoke.
Burning
So this Christmas, when you hear “Carol of the Bells” once more, pause for a second.
Remember Pokrovsk.
Remember the little girl with the candle at the station.
Remember the trench candle warming someone’s frozen fingers somewhere near Myrnohrad.
Remember the empty manger and the question we have carried in our hearts for four years now.
And pray.
Not with beautiful words.
Just: “Lord, come. Soon.”
For the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. It is still burning. Even through the smoke. Even in Pokrovsk. Even here, in Ukraine.
Related Articles
