Editor's note: Russia’s full-scale military assault on Ukraine on 24 February 2022 forced a westward exodus of civilians. Nearly seven million fled the country, while a similar number were displaced to areas of Ukraine not under regular bombardment—in total, at least a quarter of the population. The European country that has absorbed most Ukrainian refugees—at least 1.5 million—is Poland. Warsaw alone now has 180,000—a tenth of the capital’s population [Vanessa Gera and Kirsten Grieshaber, “‘Time stopped’: Ukrainians long to go home as war drags on,” Associated Press, 22 August 2022, https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukrainepoland-migration-00b1b341c356c26db266c64e4e2b5541.] 

The scale of the humanitarian response in Poland—Christian as well as secular—is similarly immense. Drawn from in-person interviews in Warsaw in late August 2022, this issue of the East-West Church Report provides a glimpse into the experience and motivations of some of the local Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants whose response to the needs of those fleeing Ukraine forms part of that vast effort. 

Published almost simultaneously with this issue of the Report, Editor Emeritus Dr. Mark R. Elliott’s introduction to the scope of the relief effort undertaken by Protestant Christians, “Best Practices in Protestant Aid for Ukrainian Refugees: 2022,” may be found in Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe, Volume 42, Issue 7, Article 5, https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol42/iss7/5.