The city of Opole is 275 miles from Poland’s eastern border. But Ukraine never feels that far away.

And at Ostoja Church, a Pentecostal congregation that has served the city of 130,000 since 1952, that presence is palpable, particularly during Sunday-morning prayers.

The church’s pastor, Mariusz Muszczyński, said that every Sunday since the beginning of the war, the church has prayed for peace in Ukraine—in Ukrainian and Polish.

“We never skip it,” he said, “it’s become part of who we are.”

It’s not only the church’s prayers that have changed since the war began. The people have as well.

“From one day to the next, our church transformed from a middle-class Polish-descent church into a messy, missional, giving, caring, international community,” Muszczyński told CT. “It revolutionized our church overnight. Three years down the road, we are in a totally different place than we used to be.”

Even before 2022, there were more 8,000 economic migrants from Ukraine living in Opole, the capital of Upper Silesia in Poland’s southwest. But in February of that year, when Russia launched a large-scale invasion of Ukraine, hundreds—and later thousands—arrived seeking shelter and safety. In the first 18 months after the invasion, the Polish government granted temporary protected status to 22,000 people in Opole.

Muszczyński’s church was on the frontlines of dramatic change.

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Sitting with Soraya under the shade of a palm tree along Balneario del Escambrón’s sun-soaked sand in San Juan, Puerto Rico, I could barely stand the heat.

It was 88° F (31° C) with high humidity. Sweat was pouring down my face as I listened to her talk about her experience as a Puerto Rican convert to Islam.

Amidst the discussion, she noticed my perspiration and laughed. “Hermano, you think you’re hot?! Imagine being dressed in a black abaya [loose over garment] and hijab!”

Bringing the topic up, I asked her why she chose to wear hijab — or Islamic headscarf. Soraya replied, “before I became Muslim, men were always judging my body by its curves, by how tight my clothes were and how round I was in certain places. Wearing abaya donning the hijab, takes those evaluations out of the conversation and forces people to take me for who I actually am, what I say, what I do — not what I wear.”

Even so, Soraya still gets stopped on San Juan’s streets and asked about her clothing, her religion, or whether she feels “oppressed.”

For many, the “controversial fabric” is a symbol of subjugation and segregation. Especially right now, as protests continue to rage in Iran after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Ahmini who was killed while resisting the country’s compulsory laws forcing women to wear hijab, the headscarf has once again become a trademark of tyranny and functional emblem of fundamentalist religion.

And yet, for millions of religious women, headscarves, veils, and others forms of conservative clothing remain a prized tradition, a fashion statement, or — as with Soraya — a means of liberation.

In my latest piece with Patheos, I explore the material contexts and colonial pasts that are imperative to keep in mind when discussing hijabs, veils, and other forms of modest, religious dress.