The Largest Church in the Ukraine (and in Europe)

[Jacob4707]

Normally they don't (or didn't) print entire articles, so I've pasted it all in case it later goes away.

http://www.charismamag.com/display.php?id=15922

The Unlikely Ambassador

By Valerie G. Lowe

Just a few years ago a young Nigerian immigrant planted a church in the former Soviet republic of Ukraine. Today Sunday Adelaja’s Embassy of God is the largest church in Europe. http://www.strangadvertising.com/adserver/www/delivery/lg.php?bannerid=826&campaignid=785&zoneid=46&channel_ids=,&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.charismamag.com%2Fdisplay.php%3Fid%3D15922&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.charismamag.com%2F&cb=c1ea46fb76

Beautifully sculptured cathedrals dot the landscape of Kiev, Ukraine, reminding visitors that this Eastern European nation has been a hub of Orthodox Christianity for centuries. But these days the largest church in Ukraine is an independent charismatic congregation that meets in a dilapidated warehouse on the east bank of the Dnieper River.
Inside Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations, also known as God's Embassy, worshipers sing Western choruses translated into Russian and punctuate their praise with occasional shouts of "Alleluia" and "Praise God."
Just 16 years ago, a service like this would have been restricted under the nation's communist leadership. But after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, a once underground evangelical community began to raise its head. Today observers say Kiev is at the center of a spiritual awakening that may spread across Europe.
At the forefront of this revival is the unlikely ambassador of God's Embassy, a Nigerian native named Sunday Adelaja, who started the church in 1994 with seven people in a two-bedroom apartment. It now has 25,000 members who meet in 40 locations across Kiev.
According to Adelaja, more than 2 million people have accepted Christ since the church was founded, and 620 congregations have been planted in 22 nations, including the Netherlands, Germany, India, Russia and the United States.
God's Embassy is "a church of the end times that goes outside the four walls, carrying the kingdom of God into different areas of society," says member Lika Roman, the reigning Miss Ukraine.
And although Ukraine is predominantly white, Adelaja's ethnicity "makes no difference," says Vasiliy Onopenko, a member of God's Embassy and chairman of Ukraine's Supreme Court. "It doesn't matter that he is not from Ukraine. The only thing that is important is that we both believe in Christ, that we both feel His covering, that we both feel His mercy and grace."
In a nation still recovering from its oppressive past, Adelaja, 40, preaches a gospel of freedom and empowerment, and is intent on seeing Christian values influence every sector of society—from politics to entertainment to education. "The Great Commission is not what many of us have understood it to be," the pastor says. "We think of it as evangelism—going out and bringing people into the church—but that's not what the Bible says. God wants us to go out and draw people to Him."
Adelaja is determined to spread the "good news" by whatever means available to him. He has written more than 60 books, hosts national TV and radio programs, and travels extensively throughout Europe and the United States. In recent years Adelaja and God's Embassy have been featured in international media such as the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press and the BBC for their influence on Ukrainian politics.
But in the early days of his ministry, Adelaja could barely find two people who would listen to a black man preach a gospel once forbidden in the Soviet Union. "When I first arrived, people would ask to see my tail because they thought black people had tails," he says. "They would throw bananas at me and would tell me to go back to Africa."
After complaining to God about the racial injustices, Adelaja discovered what proved to be key in evangelizing Ukraine. "God told me my problem wasn't race. He said I had a problem with outcast people," Adelaja says. "He told me: 'You think ministry is about pulpit, promotion and advertisements. It's not. It's about people.'"
When he developed a compassion for addicts, alcoholics and outcast people, the church began to grow. He says the church's increasing size and influence are signs that God is drawing people to Himself in an unprecedented way. "When I first arrived in Kiev, I would ride around on the city bus crying out in prayer for people in this city," Adelaja says. "I would ask Him for one thing: 'God, let Your Spirit come.'"

'Born to Be Brilliant'
Born in the remote village of Idomila in Ogun State, Nigeria, Adelaja was raised in a Christian home by his grandmother. But instead of walking out his faith, Adelaja says he was a mean-spirited little boy who was angry with his grandmother for being too poor and sick to provide for him.
Rachel Adelaja reared her four children as a single mother and took in other village youth, including her grandson Sunday, who had been abandoned by his mother. Although poor, the family survived, often receiving financial help from Rachel's son, who was a college professor.
But in 1972, tragedy struck. Two of her children died in separate car accidents within a month of each other, and in May of the following year a third child fell sick and died, though the illness was minor.
Each death seemed to have a rational cause, but villagers published rumors in the local newspaper that the siblings died as a result of a curse, accusing the family of being involved in witchcraft.
After burying three of her four children in less than a year, Rachel slipped into a coma and was hospitalized, leaving 6-year-old Sunday to fend for himself. He still bears deep scars on his legs from the six years he spent toiling in the bush of Nigeria, trying to earn a living. During that time, Adelaja says he was extremely bitter and once set his grandmother's clothes on fire in a fit of anger.
It wasn't until Rachel died of cancer when Adelaja was 15 that he began to realize how much his grandmother sacrificed for him. "It hit me—she loved me so much, but I was wicked to her," Adelaja says. "People would tell her to give up on me, but she wouldn't do it."
That loss also marked a turning point. A mediocre student at the time, Adelaja says a letter from his brother convinced him to change his attitude and work hard in school. "He told me I was born to be brilliant," Adelaja says. "I could not believe it. He said I could be at the top of my class."
Taking the words to heart, the once self-destructive teenager became salutatorian of his high school class in 1986 and received a full scholarship to study journalism in the Soviet Union.
Six months before attending Belarusian State University, 19-year-old Adelaja made a decision that he says transformed his life forever. "I accepted Jesus while watching a televangelist preach the gospel from John 10:10," he remembers. "It felt like 220 kilograms of weight had been lifted from me."
Adelaja is convinced the hardships he endured in his youth gave him the stamina to withstand the persecution he would later encounter. He describes his early years in "old Russia" as "dark" and "dull" because people living in the former Soviet Union were forbidden to make personal and political choices.
"To read the Bible I had to go to the toilet and hide, and to pray I had to hide myself underneath a blanket and pretend I was asleep," he recalls.
As a member of the growing underground church, Adelaja endured constant harassment from the KGB, he says. And when his roommate reported him for hanging a portrait of Jesus on a wall, university officials raided his dorm room.
"The chief communist leader for the university told me I had to remove the portrait of Jesus," Adelaja says. "I felt such a deep pain ... but I could hear God whisper to me: 'Don't fight. Don't resist them. Your destiny is at hand here; My calling for you is at hand.'"
He says the persecution he faced that day seemed prophetic in light of a dream he'd had the same year. "I had been praying at night for two weeks when Jesus came and took me to my future," Adelaja says. "I began to see myself in my 30s, and I was preaching to white people.
"I saw myself preaching on a stage with great men of God, then Jesus took the microphone from one of the most famous preachers on earth and gave it to me."

(cont'd)

[Jacob4707]

(cont'd)

Influencing Nations
When the underground church began to emerge after the Soviet Union dissolved, Adelaja founded Word of Faith Bible Church in Kiev with his wife, Bose, a fellow Nigerian who studied engineering in Russia. He put his journalism degree to good use and launched a TV ministry and placed ads in the local newspaper, hoping to draw people to the church. But his marketing efforts yielded few congregants.
Although the nation was free of communist rule, most Ukrainians continued to believe they shouldn't deviate from established norms, Adelaja says. But a turning point came for Word of Faith when the young pastor met a woman who was desperate for change.
Natasha Potopaeva, who introduced herself to Adelaja as "Natasha Alcoholic," had been drinking for years when she cried out to God one night for help. Although she began to experience some peace, she says she still didn't know Jesus. Then one day she turned on the TV and saw Adelaja inviting viewers to a Bible study.
"The Bible study became like food to me," Potopaeva says. "I received Jesus into my heart, and I was overfilled with joy. I knew I had to help other people find the joy and peace I had."
Potopaeva introduced Adelaja to drug addicts, alcoholics and others who were on the outskirts of society. "God told me to take off my tie, roll up my sleeves and go where preachers don't go," Adelaja says. "God would speak supernaturally to the addicts, and their lives began to change. Within a year, 1,000 people had joined the church."
That's when he renamed the church God's Embassy, so it would be viewed as a place where people from all walks of life could find help. In 1994 Potopaeva founded Love Rehabilitation Center as an outreach of the church. It has since planted 3,000 centers throughout Ukraine and in other countries.
When Sergey Diordiev, 26, arrived at the center he had been a drug addict for six years and had served a year in prison for drug trafficking. "The Holy Spirit changed me," says Diordiev, who now works for the center. "I was angry and hateful, and I never had friends, but here I have fellowship with other people."
Bose Adelaja, who serves alongside her husband as co-pastor of God's Embassy's central church in Kiev, says both men and women should be trained to reach the world with the gospel. She is also lead pastor of another God's Embassy congregation in Kiev and represents a growing number of female leaders in the church. "God is calling women not only in Ukraine, but in the U.S. and other countries to plant churches, pastor churches, evangelize the lost and train others for ministry," she says.
Orthodox Christianity remains the dominant religion in Ukraine, but prominent leaders such as Kiev Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky and other politicians have gravitated to the charismatic God's Embassy. In 1994, the church opened Stephania Soup Kitchen after Chernovetsky donated a building to the church. To date, more than 2 million people have received hot meals, as well as social, medical and rehabilitative services at Stephania.
"Pastor Sunday and God's Embassy are highly respected in Kiev," Chernovetsky says. "If we are to be certain of our ability to transform this world into a better place, and to love every person ... we need those who can ... give us godly insight."
Through its Joshua Institute Bible school, God's Embassy has sent out 1,500 graduates to plant churches, open orphanages, run for political office and impact other arenas in need of the gospel. And the church's prison ministry is reaching out to a growing population of ex-offenders and inmates in Ukraine.
Elena Misoshnyk, 35, was serving a 12-year sentence for murder with no possibility of parole when she learned of God's Embassy's prison outreach and accepted Christ. "God started sending people to me who were on drugs and HIV-positive, and when they would ... touch me, they would get healed," says Misoshnyk, who served nearly seven years of her sentence before she was unexpectedly released under the provisions of a new law.
In recent years, God's Embassy has captured the world's attention for challenging government policies that restricted democracy and religious freedom. In 2003, a church-led protest caused city leaders to rescind their previous decision to deny the church an extension on its property lease.
The following year church members joined with voters from across Ukraine to protest a presidential election many considered fraudulent. The demonstration, which came to be known as the Orange Revolution, eventually led to a runoff election and victory for West-leaning opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko.
As a result of his church's influence, Adelaja has discussed political issues with former Israeli Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu. Last year he participated in the Clinton Global Initiative, an invitation-only event that convened diverse leaders to discuss solutions to global problems such as poverty, climate change and religious conflict. In August he addressed the United Nations.
Adelaja's office wall is decorated with photos of him pictured with world leaders, including former President Bill Clinton and former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright. "Pastor Sunday has played a major role in the international world," says Henry Madava, a Zimbabwe native who pastors the 6,000-member Victory Church in Kiev. "[Ukrainian] politicians see the pureness Christians bring."
Adelaja says God's love for people cannot be confined to one country. For that reason, he has planted churches and a Bible school in in the U.S., and recently launched ChurchShift, an initiative designed to teach American pastors how to affect change in the culture by altering the way they think. He says wealth and prosperity often distract Christians from pursuing the true purpose of ministry.
"Sometimes my minister friends in America tell me ... they're believing in faith for a thousand more members, a new car, a television show and so on," Adelaja writes in his book, ChurchShift (Charisma House), which is scheduled to release in February. "When Christians change the goal of the church, and make it a place of conservation and escape rather than equipping and sending, we are working against the Great Commission. We are hoarding kingdom resources, namely people and their gifts."
Adelaja says his church isn't seeking to be defined by its political activism or its size; it just wants to see people set free. "The reward for seeking God is influence over a sphere of society so people can be rescued from the horrors of sin and evil," Adelaja says. "Anybody who walks in obedience to God has the right to ask for nations to be restored and given into His hands. That's what we do here at God's Embassy."

Valerie G. Lowe is the associate editor of Charisma. She traveled to Kiev, Ukraine, in April to file this report. Sunday Adelaja will address the Synergize Pastor's Conference in Atlanta January 29-31. For more information, log on at billion.tv. To read an excerpt from Sunday Adelaja's forthcoming book ChurchShift, log on at http://www.charismamag.com/adelaja (http://www.charismamag.com/adelaja).

God and the Orange Revolution
The prayer of Christians have shaped Ukrainian politics.
It was the toughest decision Sunday Adelaja had made as pastor of Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations in Kiev, Ukraine.
After enduring government persecution for years, Adelaja believed God was calling him and his congregation to take a stand and protest City Hall. Local politicians had accused God's Embassy, as the church is commonly known, of being a cult and a threat to Kiev's national identity. As a result, the church's request for an extension of its rental lease had been denied.
It was 2003, more than a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, but civil disobedience could still bring imprisonment or violent retaliation from the police. "In my mind it was not only foolish, it was dangerous," Adelaja says.
The pastor had always believed the church should submit to the government because it carries a God-ordained authority. But Adelaja says God showed him that he was wrong. "He took me through the book of Acts and showed me that civil disobedience can be righteous when you are fighting unrighteousness," he writes in his book ChurchShift, noting that the disciples broke the law when it prohibited them from preaching.
After spending time in prayer and consulting 12 of the ministry's key leaders, Adelaja mobilized 3,000 members to march on City Hall. "God told me the people are the power and to use that power to protest the government's decision," Adelaja writes.
As a result of the church's action, then-Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko extended the church's rental agreement and gave God's Embassy $5 million in free property. Not only had the ministry prevailed without incident, the protest established God's Embassy as a change agent in Ukraine.
Sofia Zhukotanska, a lead pastor at God's Embassy and a respected figure in Ukrainian politics, says God is raising up a new generation of people to lead in all areas of government. "The church should be strong and influential in all systems of the Ukraine," Zhukotanska told Charisma. "It will have the Word for all Ukrainians."
Adelaja says the church's willingness to protest the government in 2003 gave Ukrainian residents the courage to demonstrate the following year against a flawed election during which Russia-backed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych allegedly used intimidation and electoral fraud to win the presidency over opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko. The massive protest, dubbed the Orange Revolution, resulted in a runoff election and victory for West-leaning Yushchenko.
"Under God's direction we had been used to change the mind-set of an entire country," Adelaja writes. "I believe that the protest and prayers by our church and other churches led to the most important change in Ukraine in centuries." Political, economic and social challenges remain. But the pastor believes Christians are called to civic action. "God taught us that in order to transform a nation, we would have to leave the four walls of the church," Adelaja says. "This is what the Great Commission is truly about."

[buzuxi02]

I highly doubt it, these are the same people who claim the charismatic movement has 800 million followers. More propaganda from the heretics.

[Jacob4707]

I highly doubt it, these are the same people who claim the charismatic movement has 800 million followers. More propaganda from the heretics.

Hmmmm....

I'm not sure it's exaggeration and propaganda.

1. Christianity Today Magazine, which is NOT Charismatic, apparently had a similar article on this pastor and the church in 2005: http://www.christianitytoday.com/tc/2005/006/4.42.html

2. According to Wikipedia:

The church claims to have 25,000 members in Kiev and many more elsewhere in Ukraine.
Leonid Chernovetskyi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Chernovetskyi), the mayor of Kiev (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiev) as of 2007, is a prominent member of the church.

3. A paper (for a conference at Princeton) from a professor from Pennsylvania State University (http://php.scripts.psu.edu/dept/history/faculty/wannerCatherine.php) that discusses the church and Kiev/the Ukraine's growing Evangelical/Charismatic activity and importance: http://www.princeton.edu/~restudy/soyuz_papers/Wanner.pdf (http://www.princeton.edu/%7Erestudy/soyuz_papers/Wanner.pdf)

4. This Google-cached article from a non-religious publication: http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:sr2IBDe7hW8J:www.ukraine-observer.com/articles/206/621+%22embassy+of+god%22+ukraine&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=39&gl=us

Since it's cached by Google, it no longer exists in "live" form on the Internet, nor in the magazine's archives, and will soon disappear from Google, too. Thus, for information's sake, I am repeating the entire article here (also cont'd 2 posts down):

The Ukrainian Observer
A Knowledge-Based Magazine from the Willard Group

Protestants in Power http://www.ukraine-observer.com/img/fake.gifBy John Marone
http://www.ukraine-observer.com/img/fake.gif
http://www.ukraine-observer.com/images/206/621.jpg
Religion and politics have stood side by side before the people since the earliest human organizations, sometimes rubbing elbows, sometimes trying to nudge one another to the periphery. In Ukraine, the dominant religion has almost always been Orthodox Christianity, which makes no excuses for its support of a strong centralized state. But recently, another competitor for the souls and support of the country's believers has appeared in the corridors of power. Christianity's most decentralized denominations are at high tide in the former Soviet republic, riding on the crest of a wave of regional democratization and dissolving the debris of the former Russian empire in their wake.

Reformation and Reform

Protestantism is definitely a political force to be reckoned with in Ukraine, "because it possesses a high level of civilization and culture," says Leonid Tanyuk, the head of the parliament's Committee for Issues of Culture and Spirituality, and a member of the pro-presidential Our Ukraine faction. Most Protestant churches supported the Orange Revolution, which brought Viktor Yushchenko to power. As perennial religious minorities, they could only gain from the rule of law and transparency promised by the opponents of former President Leonid Kuchma's administration. Conversely, Yushchenko's opponent, Viktor Yanukovych, was not shy about enlisting support from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate.

Ukrainian Protestants didn't so much support Yushchenko as they did the policies that he and other opposition groups espoused, says Volodymyr Kulynych, a former people's deputy who now serves as an adviser on Tanyuk's committee. They look after their own interests, he added, and one interest they all share "is to keep either (of Ukraine's three) Orthodox churches from becoming dominant," which would likely lead to a return to pressure against minority Christian denominations.

On the other hand, according to Kulynych, Protestants recalled how in 2003 Yanukovych's government had tried to push through a draft bill that would have given the Orthodox church subordinated to Moscow more of an official status in Ukraine. Ironically, the bill didn't get through because Yanukovych's own Region's party didn't support it for fear of opposition from small but well organized Protestant groups in their own back yard - Donbass.

Kulynych, a Greek Catholic, says that Ukrainian Protestants are not only influential during elections but on a regular basis in parliament, where, again, they are few but influential and respected. "Protestants know how to work with other religions and the authorities at all levels," he stresses. Much more effectively than their more numerous Orthodox counterparts, Protestants fan out to the regions with schools and charity. Their congregations are tempered by years of official persecution and now often succored by financial aid from Western Protestant groups, with whom they conduct regular bilateral exchanges.

The one thing that Orthodoxy, and for that matter Greek Catholicism, does have over the reformist denominations is that it is deeply rooted in Ukrainian history and culture. But even this advantage sometimes works in the Protestants favor, as their churches are often more dynamic and their members more active.

Moreover, contrary to popular belief, Protestants have been in Ukraine as long as anywhere else: i.e., as early as the 16th century. In the 1650s, Protestant Yury Nemerich, one of the best-educated Ukrainians of his time, served under Hetman Ivan Hubsky, authoring a treaty with Russia. Some early Protestant communities survived through the centuries, especially in western Ukraine, while others appeared with German settlements under Catherine the Great.

In short, Protestantism is not a recent import from American missionaries. Many churches, in fact, took on elements of Orthodoxy, like standing in prayer and the wearing of headscarves by women in church. Ukrainian or Russian is standard in most liturgies. According to Tanyuk, only those denominations that preach in Ukrainian will continue to grow.


Ukrainian Baptists
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Ukraine's largest Protestant denomination is the Baptists, who trace their roots to 1864, when they held their first baptism at a German settlement. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, the Baptists and other non-Orthodox Christians in the former Soviet Union enjoyed a short period of tolerance, which eventually degenerated into Stalin's purges of the 1930s.

Grigory Komendant, president of the all-Ukrainian Union of Associations of Evangelical Christian Baptists, comes from a Baptist family in western Ukraine. His grandfather, a church deacon, was arrested in 1939 for using his home as a prayer house. Although his family never saw him again, they received his blood-stained clothes a few years later. For Soviet Protestants, WWII offered respite, but "many were sent to prison after the war," says Komendant, who is now 59: "Most survived underground." During the 1960s, the repression took on a different form: churches were closed, atheism became a mandatory subject in schools, parents were arrested and their children put into foster homes.

Komendant was more fortunate than many of his co-believers, getting selected in the early 1970s to attend a seminary in Hamburg Germany. The times were changing, albeit slowly. The KGB still maintained a council for religious affairs. Baptists and other Protestants were "allowed to pray, sing and hold services," but not much more, Komendant recalls. There were always informers in the church, whom nobody knew about.

The 1980s offered more freedom, and the Baptists took advantage of them by stepping up evangelical work and making contacts with the authorities. Now, the Ukrainian Baptist Union, led by Komendant since 1994, is the biggest in Europe, boasting 150,000 believers (not including children under 16) and 2,700 religious communities. In 1990, it counted only 930 churches in Ukraine.
It also now boasts 42 colleges, universities and seminaries with a total of 10,000 students. Since 2001, Komendant has concurrently headed the European Baptist Federation, and between 1995 and 2000, he was vice president of World Baptist Alliance. The Ukrainian Baptist Union is part of a wider Baptist community, including 51 countries in Europe and 182 in the world.

The Baptists do "more missionary work than anyone else," in Ukraine, says Komendant, adding, "every Baptist is a missionary." They even send missionaries to Russia and Portugal, where large numbers of Ukrainian expatriates work. To help them in their efforts, millions of dollars in assistance is received from foreign Baptist churches and organizations. Most of this comes from the United States in the form of building prayer houses, organizing seminars, etc. There are currently 40 U.S. southern Baptists working in Ukraine. "We have a good partnership with Western churches," says Komendant, who notes that the same cannot be said about relations with Ukrainian Orthodoxy.

Church and State
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Earlier this year, Ukrainian Baptists reached what was in Soviet times the pinnacle of raw power: Oleksandr Turchynov, a long-time ally of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and a practicing Baptist pastor, was appointed head of the State Security Service, or successor to the KGB. Unlike Komendant, Turchynov, who has a Ph.D. in economics, is not from a family of Baptists. He started off in the Communist youth organization, or Komsomol, before joining the church. During the 1990s, he worked in the Dnipropetrovsk regional administration and became a member of the Hromada party, like Tymoshenko. Later both politicians announced their opposition to then-president Leonid Kuchma, forming the Fatherland Party, which last year joined forces with Viktor Yushchenko's Our Ukraine.

"We are very well inclined toward the new authorities, because they are democratic and open, which are Biblical principles," says Komendant, who also acknowledges having had good relations with Leonid Kuchma when he was president. Relations went cool during Kuchma's second term, the Baptist leader explains. Komendant attended Kuchma's last inauguration and was one of 10 religious leaders invited by Yushchenko to Sofiya Cathedral after his swearing in.

But, as during Soviet times, the Baptists say that they would oppose any state leader who conducted an unjust policy. They support State leaders as a means of lobbying Baptist interests and principles, according to Komendant: "In the past, we prayed for the Communist authorities, but we hated them."

Currently, the union is trying to organize a national prayer breakfast with Yushchenko, as U.S. President George Bush does.

The breakfast would include other Christian churches, some of whom have strained relations with the Baptists. For example, Komendant accused Ukrainian Orthodox churchmen of hampering their charity works: "We have had specific incidents where the Orthodox Church kept us from helping children." For his part, the Baptist leader is not keen on one or two of Ukraine's other minority churches, referring to the Mormons as "a cult."

[buzuxi02]

ukranians need to wake up and smell the coffee. They have to put their mistrust of Moscow behind them. There a fractured nation with more uniates than all others combined.
Even in the diaspora where they would attends any church whether Orthodox or uniate (or even protestant) as long as its ukrainian.
We must pray for them.

[Jacob4707]

(cont'd)

Charismatic Christians

Another minority denomination which Komendant and some other churchmen view "negatively" is the charismatic Embassy of God, run by Nigerian Elija Sunday. But one thing that the Baptists and Elija have in common is political and financial clout.

Leonid Chernovetsky, a three-time people's deputy and the man behind the Pravex Bank financial group, is a member of the Embassy of God. Chernovetsky is also the leader of the Christian Liberal Party, which is part of President Yushchenko's Our Ukraine faction. Originally from Kharkiv, where he studied law, Chernovetsky soon relocated to Kyiv to serve with the regional prosecutor's office. More recently, Chernovetsky was a candidate in the first round of last year's presidential elections. Now he is considered a serious candidate to replace Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko, with whom he has had a lasting conflict that started over business but soon moved into politics and even religion.

Elija Sunday, 37, was raised as a Presbyterian, but at the age of 18, after seeing an evangelist TV show in Nigeria, he underwent a conversion. Before that, he had "lived the nightclub life" and "didn't know much about God as such," he recalls.

It was at this time that he was offered a scholarship to study in what was then still the Soviet Union. "As soon as I got here, I wanted to go home," he said, because of the economic difficulties at the time. Before founding his church in Ukraine in 1994, he did a stint in Belarus, where he studied journalism. It was in Minsk where he first came up against official pressure, from the Komsomol, which objected to the crucifix he had hung up in his dormitory room.

Then, after moving to Kyiv, his university studies and spiritual vocation converged in a religious program he was offered to host on Ukrainian television. "But people didn't like the idea of a black man preaching Christianity," he recalls. When he first opened his church, he didn't have any money, so he had to live in a dormitory and rented a hall on credit. "God told me not to expect normal people to come at first," says Sunday, so he went to bums and alcoholics: "They used to call us the church of drug addicts... at first it was rough." By the end of the year, he had a one-thousand-strong congregation. When his flock rose to 3,000, "all the trouble started." Sunday still keeps a thick volume of newspaper clippings containing articles defaming him and his church, which he said were ordered by the Orthodox Church with assistance from the KGB.

During the almost two decades that he has been in the former Soviet Union, Sunday also has dealt with plenty of racism: "My daughter still comes back from school and says that the other kids call her chocolate," Elija says with a smile. Sunday said he decided to become a pastor after a series of dreams, in which he saw himself preaching to "crowds of white people." "The plan (of those who gave him his scholarship) was actually to bring people from Africa to brain wash them and send them back to plant communism," but God had other plans for Elija, he says. Now he has a flock of 25,000 in Kyiv alone, plus churches in Holland, Germany, Russia and Belarus. The Embassy of God is planning to hold a church congress this year at the capital’s Palace of Sports.

Besides Chernovetsky, Sunday says his church is supported by dozens of little known small and mid-sized businessmen. "All churches have their benefactors," he underlines. During a conflict with the Kyiv Mayor's office, he circulated a petition that was signed by dozens of members of parliament. Even Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko showed up at one of his church services, he boasts: "She believes in the future of Protestantism, but wouldn't say so publicly...One day there will be a whole Protestant faction in parliament... My goal is to influence five million Ukrainians."

Like the Baptists, Sunday is equally proud of his charity work: feeding 2,000 homeless everyday and supporting a five-acre drug addiction center and two homes for street children. According to the expatriate preacher, Protestantism in Ukraine is a vibrant alternative to Orthodoxy precisely because it handles "crises that can't otherwise be solved by the state." Also, in the case of Charismatic churches like the Embassy of God, there is "the emotional release that people get from the service itself." For example, Sunday uses music and dance. His flock even includes Ukrainian celebrities.

The walls of Sunday's office are equally colorful, displaying trophies from the Orange Revolution.
"Of course, I try to encourage our people to be politically active," he says cheerfully. So are Protestants becoming more influential in Ukraine? "Actually, they are just kicking off," comes the answer from the exuberant Nigerian.

Stability and Tolerance

Mykhaylo Kosiv, another member of the parliamentary Committee for Issues of Culture and Spirituality, doesn't agree. "Protestants have no serious prospects in Ukraine," he says, because they thrive on social instability, and things are beginning to stabilize in the country. According to him, Protestant churches have reached their peak in growth and will remain on the fringe from here on out. Kosiv acknowledges that many of Ukraine's minority religions are assertive and well financed, but they are also more dogmatic than the Orthodox or Greek Catholics. More mid-stream denominations like Komendant's Baptists, he argues, will suffer by association with less conventional creeds.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate also gets a lot of funding from abroad (i.e. Russia). "No one has any information on how much, and no one is going to give it," says Kosiv. But no church gets money from Ukraine's state budget. Instead, some cities and towns finance, for example, the building of churches from their own budgets. In addition, some businessmen support churches for influence in society. Although churches themselves aren't taxed, Kosiv denies that religious institutions are used as part of tax evasion schemes.

There are currently 68 confessions registered in Ukraine, according to the latest state statistics. All are regulated under the law on freedom of conscience and religious organizations, which was passed in 1991. It was this law that Yanukovych's government sought to amend in 2003. A list of the country's top denominations, based on the number of their communities (with a rough estimation of their centers of support in brackets) goes something like this: The Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow Patriarchate (Communists and most parties now in opposition); the Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Patriarchate (current authorities); and Greek Catholics (Western Ukraine). Then come the Baptists, who are very close in numbers to the last two. Next would be the Pentecostals. After that, there is also the Autocephalous Orthodox church, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, the Seventh-Day Adventists, Muslims and Jews. Charismatic churches are up there with the Pentecostals but both are decentralized.

Most religious conflicts that have come up over the years have been between the two leaders: The Ukrainian Orthodox Church - Moscow and Kyiv Patriarchates, which are identical in doctrine and ritual. The state authorities have been very careful to balance the interests of all religions, especially Orthodox ones, says Kosiv, who adds that Ukrainians, unlike Russians, are comfortable with a choice of faiths. Some even attend more than one church. The parliamentarian also cautions against rating various denominations by the number of church communities, as they can vary significantly in size.

Oleksandr Zayets, the head of the Institute for Religious Freedom, says that Christian churches have often cooperated on issues of common concern. For example, in 2003, several denominations rallied to block a homosexual parade from being held in the center of Kyiv. A few banded together to limit the advertisement of alcohol and contraceptives. Zayet's organization tries to find common interests among different religions.

Nevertheless, competition among various faiths for the souls and political support of Ukrainians has been a regular feature of the post Soviet landscape. Protestant groups, funded by Western donors, have led the way. David Diandre, who teaches Bible courses at International Christian University, is acquainted with many in the U.S. Protestant missionary community in Ukraine. "It's very capitalist. Everyone is trying to get his market share. If your building project is successful, God is smiling on you," he says about American missionary groups.

According to Diandre, much of the proselytizing takes the form of a show, and lots of money is thrown around. "Everyone who comes to church gets a free lunch." For young Ukrainian would-be converts, it is financial support, a feeling of belonging and Western prestige.

Most of the Protestant missionaries who use such tactics are fundamentalist, but their denominations are wide-ranging and more often than not non-denominational. Their attitude is imperialistic, says Diandre: "The average missionary who comes over here sees himself as an insider and Ukrainians as outsiders and heathens." The more established churches (Lutherans, Episcopalians and Methodists) are primarily doing relief work. It's the fundamentalists that are looking for souls.

So what does this mean for Ukraine's new Protestants in power? Will foreign funding, together with the discipline and faith that they developed as a result of their surviving Soviet repression, make them Ukraine's leading religion, or at least a powerful wild card in the corridors of power? Or will homegrown organizations like the union of Baptists be tainted by their foreign association? Lastly, do either of these two questions depend on whether Ukraine moves West or East? One thing is for sure. If Protestants in Ukraine have endured up until now, they will be no less influential in the future. If democracy, rule of law, plurality and tolerance is what they thrive on, than the whole country stands to gain from their success.

[Prawnik]

The article is not inaccurate inasfar as the "Embassy of God" has a lot of adherents among pro-westerners, nationalists, members of the current government, and other dubious types, and it is quite large. However, to suggest that it has 25,000 members is a bit extreme. Probably they rely on the old canard of counting everyone who has ever appeared at their spectacles as a "member".

I do know that the "Ukrainian Observer" is wholly useless as a source of anything except as a gauge of the wishful thinking of expats.