Ukrainian Churches Receive Hope Award
A dozen evangelical leaders picked up the European Evangelical Alliance award in Albania, after nearly four years of war.
On October 8, 2026, in Golem (Albania), a dozen Ukrainian evangelical leaders received the Hope Award from the European Evangelical Alliance, according to Protestante Digital. Since 2022, their churches have baptized more than 40,000 people.
The tribute closed the final night of Hope for Europe 2026, a gathering with about 250 participants from more than 30 countries. Connie Main Duarte, from Portugal, and Jan Wessels, from the Netherlands, presented the award. The Council of Protestant Evangelical Churches of Ukraine had joined the European network the previous year.
A dozen leaders with difficult stories
Among those who received the award were pastors whose churches were damaged by missiles, people who evacuated citizens with disabilities, and theologians who continue training new pastors and military chaplains. Nearly four years of total war weigh on those same congregations.
«The hope of a country at war does not depend on a treaty or a flag: it depends on Christ.»
Presenting the award, Connie Main Duarte said: "When the hardest moment came, these churches did not close their doors, they opened them."
Basements, warehouses and young volunteers
The basements of the temples served as air-raid shelters. The buildings filled with food, medicines and generators. Youth groups turned into volunteer teams. Many pastors could have left and stayed: with the elderly who could not flee, with those who were afraid, and with soldiers and their families.
Wessels said that Baptists, Pentecostals, evangelicals, Adventists, Reformed, Lutherans and Messianic Jewish congregations discovered that what unites them in Christ weighs more than their differences. He also said that these churches speak with one voice before their government, their society and the world.
God is still working, according to Bandura
Igor Bandura, general secretary of the Ukrainian council, thanked the continent's evangelicals for their support in a struggle he described as physical and spiritual.
He recalled that the day before, 22 civilians, including children, died in a town in northern Ukraine. And he stated that God is still working: in addition to the baptisms, 2,000 pastors and deacons have been ordained.
Bandura acknowledged that these years have left an enormous tragedy and lessons that only God teaches. The war is not over, he said, and he asked for continued unity in prayer and support. At the close of the evening, delegates from other countries wrote prayers and messages of encouragement for Ukraine.
The European Evangelical Alliance award was previously given to A Rocha, for creation care; to the Greek Evangelical Alliance, for welcoming refugees in 2016, and to Home for Good, for receiving children who had nowhere to go.
The hope of a country at war does not depend on a treaty or a flag: it depends on Christ. Paul wrote that we are "afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed" (2 Corinthians 4:8-9, ESV).
This week you can pray for the new pastors, for those baptized amid the bombings and for the churches that open their basements. What if your group commits to pray for one of them every month?
