A documentary about Father Igor Fedoryshyn—a soldier, spiritual advisor, and National Hero of Ukraine
He spent his childhood in an ordinary Ukrainian family, where faith was rarely mentioned. The nearest church was nearly seven kilometers from their home, so young Igor knew practically nothing about church life. Then suddenly, sometime in fifth grade, a strange and distinct inner voice rang out in his soul: “Igor, you will become a priest.” The boy ran excitedly to his mother, but all he heard in response was laughter—what kind of confessor would he be if he didn’t even have a voice for singing? Years passed, and toward the end of high school, that same voice rang out again, clearly mapping out his future destiny: “Finish high school, go to Afghanistan, come back from Afghanistan—and you’ll become a priest.” And so it happened. At 18, the young man found himself in a foreign war, assigned to reconnaissance. It was in the Afghan mountains that he first saw death face to face and felt how war burns the soul from within, leaving behind a heavy emptiness. He so desperately needed someone wise by his side back then—someone who could comfort him or offer a kind word. Yet Afghanistan taught him the most important lesson of his life—an incredible reverence for human life. When he returned home at the age of 20, he could not even bring himself to kill the mosquitoes that bit him, because after the hell of war, every life seemed sacred. Fulfilling the second part of the prophecy, Igor entered the seminary, was ordained a priest of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, and became a pastor to the parishioners of the villages of Vysoke and Korzhova in the Ternopil region.
Later, when the 95th Zhytomyr Airborne Brigade was departing on a peacekeeping mission to Kosovo, the Ministry of Defense invited Father Igor to go with them. There, among chaplains from 32 countries around the world, he realized that in war, a priest is, above all, a source of psychological support and a moral shield for soldiers. His own military background as a scout helped him connect easily with the soldiers, and Battalion Commander Mykhailo Zabrodskyi became one of his close friends. So when, in the spring of 2014, Russia invaded eastern Ukraine and Father Igor saw the first casualties of his home brigade on television, he immediately called Zabrodsky and heard a brief reply: “Father, come here.” By May 9, the chaplain was already at the front, where he faced his toughest challenge—the Ukrainian soldiers’ psychological reluctance to kill the enemy. Near Mount Karachun, Father Ihor set up a small chapel and simply handed out rosaries to the soldiers. Noticing mistakes in the troops’ movements, the former scout tried to explain to the paratroopers how to avoid ambushes, but they just smiled: why should a priest be teaching them? But when the column fell into an ambush and suffered casualties, that evening the soldiers approached him on their own, in tears: “Father, how do we do it right?” It was one of the most heart-wrenching moments in the priest’s life—realizing that if they had listened to him sooner, the boys would still be alive. And when it was time to go home, the soldiers begged him not to leave them, for they believed that when a priest was nearby, the angels themselves protected their unit.
In June 2014, he was asked to become a chaplain in the National Guard, where fighters from the Maidan “sotnias” and the former “Berkut” unit had been merged into a single unit. Father Igor served as a spiritual bridge between them, explaining that old grievances must give way in the face of a common enemy invasion. At a checkpoint near Sloviansk, he met a young soldier from Vinnytsia whose mind had completely shut down due to the horror he had experienced. Prayers had no effect, so the chaplain took letters and drawings from Kharkiv schoolchildren out of his bag. Simple words and children’s drawings brought the soldier back to his senses from his deep darkness. During the fighting in Mariupol on the Feast of the Transfiguration, foreign journalists asked Father Igor, “There’s a chaplain on the other side who says the same thing. Which of you is right?” He then found an answer that became his creed: “We are fighting not out of anger, but out of love—love for our homeland and our families. They, on the other hand, are going to kill for money or out of hatred. That is why our soldier on the front lines, even if he doesn’t go to church, is fulfilling the highest mission—preserving peace in his friend’s home and throughout the entire country.” For this devoted service, Father Igor Fedoryshyn was awarded the high title of “People’s Hero of Ukraine.”
Life has tested his resilience time and again. In 2017, he miraculously survived a horrific car accident, and in the spring of 2020, during the coronavirus pandemic in the Ternopil region, he prayed with a heavy heart in an empty church and drove through the village on his own to bless Easter baskets at the gates of parishioners’ homes in order to protect their lives. With the outbreak of full-scale war in 2022, Father Ihor, together with his team, launched a large-scale volunteer effort, providing the Armed Forces of Ukraine with between 100 and over 400 vehicles. This ministry comes at a heavy price—due to exhaustion and rumors. Yet every time it seems he has no strength left, another call comes from the front lines: “Father Ihor, help…”—and he sets out once more, remaining a silent guardian angel for Ukraine’s defenders.
