For the Rev. Ihor Koshyk, the Crucifixion is an ever-present story and symbol. But as he watches the invasion of his homeland play out, he can’t help but see a nation suffering its own kind of abandonment, amid its own kind of persecution.

“Right now, it feels to me and all in our community that Ukraine is being crucified in front of the whole world, and the whole world is just watching,” said Koshyk, pastor of Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a Ukrainian Catholic church in East Hollywood.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Thursday has Koshyk and houses of worship from the Inland Empire to Orange County to Los Angeles coming together in prayer. And as Sunday approached, faith leaders prepared special messages of peace for a nation that by Friday was seeing its capital city Kyiv under siege by invading Russian forces.

“If somebody thinks because we live in Los Angeles and we’re not going to feel some kind of impact of what happens there, they’re wrong,” said the Rev. Nazari Polataiko, where at his Holy Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Los Angeles a few dozen people attended a special prayer service Thursday night.

Polataiko’s congregation is mostly people of Eastern European descent, but the invasion has sparked prayer vigils and concern across a broad spectrum of Eastern and Western faiths and congregations, locally and globally.

Roman Catholic Pope Francis himself went to the Russian Embassy on Friday to personally “express his concern about the war” in Ukraine, in what the Associated Press reported was an extraordinary gesture that has no recent precedent. Francis later assured a top Ukrainian Greek Catholic leader he would do “everything I can” to help.

The move exemplified the extent to which faith communities have mobilized amid what they see as an immoral act of war on innocent people. It’s all the more poignant, leaders say, because it coincides with the beginning of the Lenten season in Christianity — itself a reflection on human mortality and sin in which Christians fast, and self-deny over 40 days, following the example of the story of Jesus Christ’s journey into the desert. The season is observed in Western and Eastern faith traditions, and ends with Easter — symbolizing resurrection.

The timing certainly wasn’t lost on Southland church leaders, who are seizing the moment to pray and urge peace.

“We decided the beginning of Lent was the perfect time to offer up prayers for Ukraine as we journey with Christ toward the cross,” said the Rev. Sylvia Mann, pastor of Bethel Congregational Church United Church of Christ in Ontario.

Bethel’s traditional Ash Wednesday 6:30 p.m. service this coming week will focus on Ukraine, Mann said. Scores of others were tweaking their messages as war unfolds.

At Roman Catholic churches in San Bernardino and Riverside counties this weekend, priests celebrating Mass will ask their congregations to offer up prayers regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“We will be calling on our people to pray for peace, and spare the lives of people in Ukraine, and prevail upon the leaders to reconsider acts of war,” said John Andrews, spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino (which includes churches in San Bernardino County and Riverside County).

The diocese is adding language to Masses taking place on Saturday and Sunday in the portion of the service called “Prayers of the Faithful.” A lector or a priest will say:

“For peace in our world especially in places torn by violence, such as Ukraine.

“For our Ukrainian brothers and sisters experiencing the tragic act of violence and war in their homeland that the Lord bring back peace and harmony to their land.”

The Life, Justice and Peace office within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange is on the same page. The office this week sent out various materials to Orange County parishes, urging them to acknowledge the nascent war in Ukraine during Mass on Sunday and to encourage prayers to end the conflict. The diocese has also echoed Pope Francis in directing Catholics to pray on Ash Wednesday for the war to end. On Twitter, Walgenbach’s office has been sending out messages on how to contribute to humanitarian aid efforts.

It echoes Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who in a Feb. 24 statement on behalf of the country’s bishops, encouraged Catholics to join Pope Francis’ call to prayer and fasting to bring an end to the conflict, according to a report from Catholic News Service.

On Ash Wednesday, most dioceses will take up the USCCB’s Collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe, which includes Ukraine.

In many cases, coming together among faith communities has gone beyond prayer, to a more urgent plea for  nations to do more.

“The majority of people just hope that this will end soon, and this is why we’re asking our government to do everything in its power to help, to stop the war and the shed of innocent blood,” Polataiko said in an interview Friday.

He urged Angelenos, including those who do not have direct ties to Eastern Europe, to contact their senators and other elected officials to put pressure on the U.S. government to issue harsher sanctions against Russia. The world should care what’s going on in Ukraine, he said, noting that the last time Kyiv was attacked by airstrikes was some 80 years ago by Nazi Germany during World War II.

“As a result of that entry, the whole world suffered,” Polataiko said. “The evil has to be stopped. People have to care because evil thrives when good people do nothing. … We should act before it’s too late.”

What was striking to many was that the world was already trying to come out of an epic dark time in history that has spun into a crisis of loneliness.

Greg Walgenbach, the director of the Life, Justice and Peace office within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, described the last two years of pandemic, political turmoil and social anxiety. And now the Russian invasion of Ukraine has compounded the grief of the last two years, Walgenbach said.

And that’s where reflection comes in, he said.

“The real importance of prayer is reaching out to our creator and reaching out to other people,” Walgenbach said Friday. “As individuals, we need to take that step to reach out, not get stuck in our heads or in our phone screens, and reach out to one another.”

Koshyk was also thinking about loneliness among nations.

Koshyk, who immigrated to the United States two decades ago but whose parents and other family members remain in Ukraine, said Ukrainians feel they’ve been “left alone” by the world to defend their homeland against Russia.

That’s why creating a space where people can gather together is so critical, Koshyk said.

“The most important thing is to be together. When you watch the news alone at home it frightens you. But when you’re in church, praying with people, you say, ‘I have family.’”

During times of crisis – whether personal, political or, in the case of Ukraine, sanguinary – faith, to those who are so inclined, often takes an outsized role in a world where politics and negotiation have failed, leaders say.

Jane Mermelstein agrees. And she knows what she’s talking about – her late husband endured human suffering on a scale few alive today could ever understand. Mermelstein, of Long Beach, is the widow of Mel Mermelstein, a Holocaust survivor who died last month.

Mel Mermelstein became one of the most well-known survivors of the Nazi’s attempted genocide because of his efforts to fight Holocaust deniers.

Yet, he never lost his faith in God, Jane Mermelstein said. Or his hope.

“Hope is the thing that kept him alive,” she said. “He died with that hope. I could see it on his face.”

“It’s hope that the people in Ukraine need to keep,” she added. “In a way, it’s good that he didn’t live to see what’s happening in Ukraine,” Jane Mermelstein said. “It would have broken his heart.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this story.