Ukrainian evangelicals are standing firm in their faith as their country faces a challenging and unpredictable future.
“We are in a very difficult situation, but not without hope,” says Igor Bandura, the Ukrainian Baptist Union’s vice president for international relations. “People in Ukraine are tired. But I believe the majority of people are still standing strong and believe that Ukraine should have a just and lasting peace.
“It’s a time of uncertainty. In uncertainty our faith is challenged and tested, but we rely upon God,” he adds, noting that while political leaders or allies may disappoint, “we have never, ever been discouraged by our God.”
The ongoing conflict is “brutal”, Bandura says. Ukrainian parents, like Bandura, live in fear of their children being conscripted to the army, while at the frontlines, people live under constant threat of bombing.
“Living three years under this pressure is exhausting,” Bandura states. “Russia sends drones and missiles on our heads every day and every night.”
But Russian aggression isn’t limited to bombing. In the Russian-occupied zones, churches and other places of worship have been shut down and in some cases forced underground since the Russian troops arrived.
Although religious repression has been ongoing since Russia’s first invasion in 2014, from 2022 persecution of religious groups has only increased, with reports of arrests, kidnapping, abuse, and killings of religious leaders in the occupied zones.
Christians in particular are targeted, with perceived associations between evangelical Christianity and the West marking them out as American spies in the eyes of the Kremlin.
“The activities of most Christian churches are prohibited in the occupied territories of Ukraine,” says Anatoly Melnyk, pastor of House of the Gospel in Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine, in a statement addressing American Christians. “This is a direct violation of freedom of religion, one of the key values we all hold so dear.”
Since the start of the war, one of the biggest blessings to Christians in Ukraine has been the support and prayers of the church around the world, Bandura states. “This is one of the main sources of our strength and encouragement,” he explained.
However, relationships between Christians in Russia and Ukraine have sadly deteriorated since the war began.
Alexei, whose name we have changed to protect his identity, is a pastor in Moscow who is against the war. He estimates that most Christians in Moscow and Russia are pro-war, although there are some, like him, who are “grieving deeply” over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We think this is an evil,” he explains. “We have in our church quite a few people who are against the war, but they are keeping silent.”
According to Alexei, Russian Christians who oppose the war face harsh consequences for speaking out. “We would be criminalised immediately because we have laws that would imprison us pretty soon,” he says.
One such case is Yuri Sipko, a Russian Baptist pastor and former president of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christian-Baptists who publicly denounced the war in Ukraine. A criminal case was opened against Sipko in 2023, forcing him to flee the country to avoid arrest.
But the silence of many Christians in Russia has not gone unnoticed by their Ukrainian brothers and sisters.
“We used to have a lot of contacts and friends,” Alexei says. “Some of them stopped writing me back but some still keep the lines open. They are in great pain. Many of them want us to be in Red Square right now.”
Despite the suffering, Ukrainian Christians are taking every opportunity to reach the lost with the hope of the gospel.
“Most of our churches are very active,” Bandura says. “This is our time. This is the best time for churches to minister to people. When the need is the deepest, this is when the grace of God shines the brightest.”
“What has been evident all the way through this awful war is that God has been working through His people to meet the needs of the body,” says Mark Foster of the Slavic Gospel Association.
By providing humanitarian aid and meeting practical needs, the church in Ukraine is growing its reach and influence.
“Many of our churches became not only churches but community centres,” Bandura says. “His grace is sufficient; not only to survive, but to minister to other people.”
According to Bandura, people are being baptised at a far greater rate than prior to the war, and Ukrainian refugees are even taking the gospel abroad with 164 new churches planted in Europe. “God is doing something much, much bigger than Ukraine,” he said.
“Ukraine is at the crossroads of historical, social and spiritual changes,” says Roman Vecherkivskiy, who coordinates the missionary work of the Ukrainian Baptist Association. “Today more than ever there is a need for new spiritual centres that will serve communities, bringing hope, support and the light of the gospel.”
“People are open because they are traumatised,” he adds. “They are more naturally open now than at any time in the 30 years of independence.”
“God can work in awful circumstances to bring about good,” says Foster regarding the many testimonies of people in Ukraine coming to faith in Christ.
“We need to be careful that we don’t tie the gospel to a particular political outcome,” he explains. “There’s things to pray for, but I don’t know the mind of God.
“God can be trusted and God is over all. Whatever that means, we are still to live for Him.”
