''An enemy hath done this': on how not to pray for Ukraine

The horrific and unprovoked attack on Ukraine is an act of great evil.

So said the Archbishops of Canterbury and York last week, when Putin's regime commenced its invasion and occupation of Ukraine.  The welcome moral clarity of the statement, however, sharply contrasts with the 'Prayers in a time of war in Ukraine' provided by the Church of Ireland’s Liturgical Advisory Committee. 

Of the four prayers proposed, only one actually refers to Ukraine. Despite the title given to the prayers - "in a time of war" - you would be easily forgiven for thinking that this prayer refers to Ukraine in peacetime:

O Lord our Governor, whose glory is in all the world:

We commend to your merciful care the people and government of Ukraine

that, being guided by your providence, they may dwell secure in your peace.

Grant to their leaders and all in authority,

wisdom and strength to know and to do your will.

Fill them with the love of truth and righteousness,

and make them ever mindful of their calling to serve their people;

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The prayer entirely omits any reference to the fact that Ukraine is now subject to a grave injustice - or, in the words of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, "great evil".  There is no petition for Ukraine to be delivered from this evil and injustice.  

This failure to name evil and injustice comes dangerously close to collusion with that evil and injustice now being inflicted upon Ukraine. The classical Prayer Book tradition had a much greater and more robust realism in such prayers.  The Church of Ireland BCP 1926 provided a prayer 'In the time of War and Tumults', including this petition:

Save and deliver us, we humbly beseech thee, from the hands of our enemies; abate their pride, assuage their malice, and confound their devices.

This should be our prayer for Ukraine, as it faces the assault of Russian tanks, aircraft, missiles. A peacetime prayer for Ukraine is a morally compromised failure to pray rightly for a nation subject to the evil actions of an aggressor intent on conquest and subjugation.  

So what is the cause of such a morally compromised prayer for Ukraine being proposed for use in the Church of Ireland? As with other aspects of contemporary liturgies, it seems that this prayer is 'stuck' in the 1990s and the 'End of History': the apparent triumph of peace, prosperity, and progressivism.  No need, then, for those antiquated prayers about war and enemies, just as there was no need for prayers about plague or regarding the weather.  

Related to this is the cosy pacifist assumption afflicting much ecclesiastical discourse, that our safety and liberty do not need to be defended against enemies.  The Church of Ireland prayer for Ukraine reflects what Nigel Biggar in In Defence of War (2013) identifies as a characteristic of pacifist theologies: "a lack of moral analysis and discrimination". It seems as if the prayer rejects with embarrassment Article 37's affirmation that "It is lawful for Christian men, at the command of the Magistrate, to wear weapons, and serve in the wars".  Or, as Biggar puts it:

Love can be active in the making of war. Augustine was right: belligerent harshness can be kind.

We put aside prayers for war that petition for deliverance from unjust and evil acts for much the same reason that the imprecatory Psalms are bracketed off in many contemporary Psalters: they are rather unkind and nasty in the midst of our nice, safe lives.  As one excellent recent article on the imprecatory Psalms has stated, however, they powerfully remind us that our nice, safe assumptions are a delusion:

We pray the imprecatory psalms because within their scriptural scope we see the truth of our situation in this Vale of Tears: surrounded by the wicked of the land ... who seem to be getting away with their lawlessness. 

We have, then, much to learn from previous generations of Christians who prayed during time of war.  One particular example comes to mind. 28th February 1794 was, by Royal proclamation, a general fast day in Great Britain and Ireland, as Europe was ravaged by war due to the nationalist ambitions of the Revolutionary regime in France.  The collect in the Form of Prayer appointed for the day included the following petition:

Look down from Heaven, O Lord, we beseech Thee; and protect us against the declared Enemies to all Christian Kings, Princes, and States, the impious and vowed Blasphemers of Thy Holy Name and Word, who, in the very Centre of Christendom, threaten destruction to Christianity, and desolation to every Country where they can erect their bloody Standard.

When reading the collect this week, what particularly caught my attention was the phrase "the very Centre of Christendom", a reference, of course, to France. It could also, however, apply to Ukraine, a nation in which Greek East and Latin West have met and flourished, and a majority Orthodox nation which is part of Europe.  And now a violent nationalist regime seeks to raise its "bloody Standard" over Ukraine.  

So, yes, we should indeed be praying for Ukraine to be protected against its declared enemy.

In face of the invasion, the Orthodox Metropolitan of Kyiv and all Ukraine has said:

Our common mission is to repel the enemy, to protect our homeland, our future, and the future of the new generations from the tyranny that the attacker seeks to bring with his bayonets.

Now is not a time for polite, nice, safe prayers for Ukraine.  A "great evil" is unfolding before our eyes.  Let us, then, pray for Ukraine, that Almighty God would save and deliver Ukraine from the hands of the enemy; and that, abating the pride of the enemy, assuaging their malice, and confounding their devices, Ukraine may be preserved from peril. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(The icon of Saint George triumphing over the serpent is by Ukrainian icon writer Ivanka Demchuk.)