L a d u s h k i n -- Recently, 200 Ukrainian evangelicals travelled to Washington, D.C. in order to participate in a government-sponsored "Ukrainian Week" from 3 to 8 February. More than a few of them were then present at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in that city on 6 February. Roughly 15 pastors arrived from Russia to attend the Breakfast.
Opinions on Facebook leading up to the Breakfast were vicious, with Ukrainian nationalists demanding that the Breakfast organizers disinvite all guests from Russia. The armed Pentecostal pastor and military chaplain Gennady Mokhnenko, now residing in Slaviansk near the current front, wrote on Youtube on 2 February: "In a few days, Putin's Reichs-bishops (sic), the perpetrators and participants of the genocide in Ukraine, will attend a prayer breakfast in Washington. Like Hitler's Reichs-bishops, they travel the world, embracing Western Christian leaders, even though their hands are stained with the blood of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians and Russians."
A text from Mokhnenko published by Sergey Demidovich on Facebook on 12 February maintained that "Putin's Reich-bishops" are "direct participants in the genocide in Ukraine". The text calls Russian bishops "liars, hypocrites and murderers, much more than the soldiers and officers of Russia who (have) killed tens of thousands of children and old people in my country". They have the blood of Mokhnenko's relatives and family on their hands. Other texts published by Ukrainian evangelicals during February contain vulgarities. Demidovich, a Pentecostal/Charismatic pastor in Slaviansk, gets read: He has 18.000 followers on Facebook, many of them in North America.
Mokhnenko had concluded on 2 February: "At a time when thousands of Ukrainians are dying defending their land, and the democratic world is uniting in the fight for freedom and human rights, such invitations are absolutely unacceptable!" A kind of boycott was attempted during the event. At least several of the Ukrainians conceded a willingness to pray jointly with the Russian guests, but to otherwise shun them entirely.
Commentary
Eduard Grabovenko, the Ukrainian-born senior bishop of the Pentecostal "Russian Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith", was part of the delegation from Russia. He was born in Krivoy Rog in 1969 - the city in which Volodymyr Zelensky saw the light of day nine years later. Grabovenko moved to Perm/Russia in 1991. He is known to have suffered, even long before 2022, mental duress and agonizing soul-searching regarding the conflict between Russian and Ukrainian believers. To label this ethnic Ukrainian a "Reichsbischof" soars far beyond the constraints of Christian ethics.
The activities on 6 February was among other things a last ditch effort by Ukrainian evangelicals to retain the affection of pro-Trump conservatives. Their probable defection will leave Kiev's evangelicals with strange bedfellows. Their last US-based comrades-in-arms may well become "Rhinos" (Republicans in Name Only) and Democratic liberals with a worldview highly at variance with their own.
More than a few of my Western acquaintances will read the "New York Times", but not Moscow's "RT". A distinction regarding the editorial independence of the two is becoming foggy, since recent revelations on USAID indicate that a vast number of Western and Ukrainian periodicals, including NYT, have enjoyed US-government funding.
Tarik Cyril Amar, currently teaching in Istanbul, is a Turk from Germany. He conceded in "RT" on 4 February that Russian media have too hastily accepted reports on Ukrainian war crimes as fact. He wrote that "Amnesty International" had condemned judicial procedures against Ukrainian POW'S as "unfair" and that a UN commission had in 2023 found abuse in Russian-run detention facilities. But Amar added that one needs "to apply the same standards to every state. . . . You cannot quickly decide to disbelieve anyone just because you feel you are 'on the other team'."
Including the Russians, he wrote: "No one has remained innocent. The West – its politicians, intellectuals, and media representative – in particular, will have to admit its abysmal, essential contribution to making this war happen and keeping it going." One could conclude that the Muslim Cyril Amar is closer to the teachings of Christ than many pro-Kiev evangelicals.
The future
In numerous instances, Ukrainian evangelicals loyal to Kiev have demanded that we from Russia apologize. Generally, the Russian choice to remain silent is motivated by more than simple fear. They see too much guilt on the Ukrainian side – they regard it as unjust if only they are expected to seek forgiveness. They see the current conflict as beginning in at least 2008 or 2014. Apologizing could only work if it were mutual in nature. Though it might appear so at first glance, Ukrainian evangelicals are not of singular opinion. Since Maidan in 2014, thousands of them have fled eastward. The grand total of refugees in Russia from Ukraine during this period is listed as high as five million.
Since the current war operation began three years ago, I better understand the viability of a non- or unpolitical faith. The apolitical can keep their priorities straight, not holding one nation higher than another. They are less susceptible to hatred of other peoples, less liable to replace the Holy Writ with politics.
Around 10 years ago, a young friend from Western Ukraine called politics a "satanic" matter. He never got close to serving as a soldier; today he resides in Germany. Though I too am "political", it does appear that "apolitical" Ukrainians will be most capable of reconciling with their Russian brothers and sisters once the warmaking ceases.
In the political sphere, Russian evangelicals remain heavily traditionalist in outlook. I want to believe that Ukraine still has enough traditionalist evangelicals to keep the dream of reconciliation alive.
The most rabid Protestant supporters of Kiev appear to be post-1990 Pentecostals and Charismatics without roots in the apolitical church tradition of the Soviet era - or they have renounced their traditionalist pasts. Demidchik, Mokhnenko and Kiev's Mykhailo Panochko are all Pentecostals; Panochko is senior bishop of the large "Ukrainian Pentecostal Church".
Baptist leaders are also Ukrainian patriots or "nationalists", if you like. Yet it remains a hope that they in contrast will not be beyond meaningful discourse with the Russian side after the cessation of hostilities. As heirs of the church's Soviet past, they may indeed remain capable of introspection.
Amar wrote on RT: "Most of those fighting (now) are not rapists or murderers. And when this war is over, everyone will need to remember this if they want a better future."
Originally from Webpage "The FEA"
CCD reprinted with permission
