From 27 September to 2 October 2026, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin hosted the 36th international seminar of the Society for Intercultural Pastoral Care and Counselling (SIPCC).
This year’s gathering took place under the theme “Seeing, Understanding and Acting: Processes in Care, Counselling and Interreligious Communication”. Participants focused on interpersonal communication, interreligious dialogue and pastoral care, especially amid war, social conflict, forced displacement, and cultural and religious differences.
The German Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ukraine was represented at the seminar by Bishop Pavlo Shvarts and Deacon Yurii Rykov.
Deacon Yurii Rykov shared his personal experience of ministry in occupied Berdiansk. He spoke about the challenges people had faced: no gas or central heating in sub-zero temperatures, disruptions to electricity and water supplies, closed markets and shops, and a breakdown of authority. All of this caused great fear. No one knew what further trials might lie ahead.
The occupation authorities seized people in the streets, imprisoned them and subjected them to torture. Worship premises were confiscated, believers were forbidden to gather, and church ministers were arrested. The pervasive lawlessness forced many people to leave their homes and seek refuge abroad or in Ukrainian-controlled territory.
In time, Yurii Rykov was also forced to leave. He now lives and serves in the Lutheran congregation in Kremenchuk. He described the difficult process of adjusting to a new place where most people around him had experienced the war differently.
Bishop Pavlo Shvarts presented GELCU’s experience of pastoral care during the full-scale war. In his address, he traced how people’s needs and the tasks of pastoral ministry had changed through the different stages of the war, from 2022 to the present.
In 2022, the shock of the full-scale invasion, fear for one’s life, evacuation, loss of home and the need for immediate support were at the forefront. With each subsequent year, however, the nature of these needs and challenges has changed. The war is no longer experienced solely as an emergency: it has become an enduring reality in which people must live, work, raise children, grieve their losses and try to plan their future.
Bishop Pavlo Shvarts paid particular attention to the challenges arising from the length of the war and the lack of a clear prospect of its end. Exhaustion, grief, disappointment and uncertainty about the future continue to accumulate.
Public and political debates about war and peace create further challenges when political leaders use the subject of peace manipulatively and people’s complex experiences and expectations become a battleground for political interests. All this directly affects people’s emotional and spiritual well-being and presents congregations and ministers with new responsibilities. Forms of pastoral support therefore need to be continually reconsidered in response to this changing reality.
The international seminar’s programme included lectures, practical sessions, reflection groups, an interreligious forum and informal meetings. Sharing experience among representatives of different countries, churches and religious traditions was an important part of the gathering.
The participation of GELCU representatives offered an opportunity to bring the experience of Ukrainian Lutheran congregations to an international audience and to show how church life and pastoral ministry are changing under the conditions of a prolonged war.