Papal Almoner Ends Ukraine Charity Mission in Kyiv
After Mass at the nunciature and a night of attacks, he prayed with the poorest and with mothers of fallen soldiers in Fastiv.
On October 30, 2026, Archbishop Luis Marín de San Martín, the papal almoner, spent his final day in Ukraine in Kyiv and Fastiv, closing a three-day mission of concrete solidarity with a people living under war.
The day began with Mass at the Apostolic Nunciature in Kyiv. The archbishop was accompanied by Archbishop Visvaldas Kulbokas, the apostolic nuncio, and Massimo Ralli, undersecretary of the Dicastery for the Service of Charity. The capital had endured a night of missile and drone attacks; sirens and explosions continued through the day.
Among the Poorest on Kyiv’s Outskirts
From the nunciature the delegation went to the Missionaries of Charity, the Sisters of Mother Teresa, on the city’s outskirts, passing neighborhoods of apartment blocks gutted by explosions. The sisters shelter about fifty guests—displaced people, persons with disabilities, and the sick, some of them bedridden, the poorest of the poor.
There the almoner prayed the Our Father in Ukrainian with those present. Guests shared the hard stories of their lives. The visit placed the Church’s charity beside people marked by displacement, illness, and the daily cost of conflict.
Fastiv: Mothers, Memory, and Ongoing Aid
About an hour from Kyiv, in Fastiv, the group was received by Fr. Mykhailo Romaniv, director of the Saint Martin de Porres humanitarian center run by Dominican friars. The center supports mothers of soldiers killed or missing at the front. The women showed the almoner photographs of their sons on their phones. Together they prayed for those sons and for all the war’s victims.
The same center distributes food, clothing, and medicine to front-line areas and runs a soup kitchen that the Papal Almoner’s office has supported in recent years. Displaced people also find work and training through DePaul Ukraine, a Vincentian project linked to the local network of aid.
Over three days the mission covered roughly 2,800 kilometers and reached twelve Latin and Greek-Catholic communities. It brought the Pope’s closeness in tangible signs of charity meant to sustain projects already under way. No financial figures were released.
The journey did not claim to end the suffering. It affirmed that the Church remains present—at the nunciature altar, in the sisters’ home, and beside mothers who keep their sons’ faces on a phone screen—while war still wounds cities, families, and the poorest who have nowhere else to go.