Understandably there are many in this city right now seeking solace and reassurance from the Church, and the man providing it here is Father Viktor Marynchak.
He is the priest for Ukraine’s Orthodox Church in Kharkiv, at a 400-year-old building named after St John The Theologian.
If there is such a thing as an activist Priest, it is Father Viktor: a passionate proponent of a free, democratic Ukraine who thinks Vladimir Putin’s military build-up is the action of a neurotic bully.
If Putin’s troops come, he says, the people would fight: “From our houses, in our streets, we would resist”.
In the winter cold, he holds services for young men contemplating their first real war: cadets from the Ukrainian Military Air Force University.
He tells them they would be fighting for “democracy, liberalism, freedom, human rights”.
They listen to his every word, in front of the church’s memorial to those who died in the 2014 Russian invasion.
Would Father Viktor ever fight? “A priest cannot carry a gun, but I can be with my people.”
The people of Kharkiv come to listen to Father Viktor, to hear that God is with them, and to find comfort in a city – in a country – where at the moment there’s precious little around.