Voice of Ukraine

From Lyuda (Day 216): Dear brothers and sisters, Yesterday my day was full of thoughts. Sergey and I often talk to people of our community and we need wisdom how to do it, because sometimes it’s hard to understand other people, their thinking and we need wisdom not to push people away if we do not agree with them but help them to find the truth.

I talked to Stanislav, the man from Kherson region. He and his wife Svetlana joined our refugee group several months ago. Their village is occupied and their house is turned into the casern for soldiers. Stanislav and Svetlana gladly joined the group and began to attend our church and Bible study. Stanislav thanked for the ability to be in the church and learn about God but somethings disturbed him and he wanted to share his thoughts. Few years ago, he travelled to India and spent several months there visiting different shrines, it was interesting for him to be in a new culture and see how people live there. He says he believes that there are many ways to God and people just choose what is better for them. Though he told that this is what he believes I think he came to talk to me because he began to have doubts. I told him that there is only one way to God – through Jesus Christ. There is one truth and one Savior. All other stuff is very deceiving. There can be many ways in the maze but there is only one way out, all other routes can lead you to death. I challenged him to seek the truth, pray and ask God to show him the true way.

And there is another difficult topic we often discuss with people around. Most of the people in our area are Orthodox, Odessa region has always been mostly a Russian-speaking area and main church here has been Russian orthodox. This church has always proclaimed the ideology and supported the state policy of Russia (Russian Empire). Their motto has been “There is nothing sacred, only Russia”. The priests openly proclaimed the dominance of Russian nation over other nations and tried to convince the people of their congregations to accept Russian identity. They were very hostile and even aggressive toward any manifestation of Ukrainian culture and to the existence of other churches.

Russia has spent years on the creation of its network of agents through Russian Orthodox church in Ukraine. Because worshippers have an unshakeable trust in the clergy, who, in their understanding, represent the best of human traits, everything that was told by the priests were taken for granted.

Some years ago a priest of Ukrainian orthodox church came to our town and started a worship there. His ministry was very different from the ministry of Russian priests. First of all he was very modest, he didn’t wear a massive golden cross and he drove a small old car, he visited people who became his congregation finding out their needs. He interacted a lot with school teachers trying to help them and help children from poor families, he gave care to the families of the soldiers. But his attitude that was completely different from the usual service of Russian orthodox priests who live in luxuery of wealth and act more like kings to whom all people around should serve. The activity of Ukrainian priest caused such an aggression from the Russian church that it was not safe for him to worship in our town. At some point the commander of our local military unit suggested to build a chapel on the territory of the military base where Ukrainian orthodox church started to worship feeling safe. It’s nice to see that many orthodox people started to attend that church now. But there are many people, mostly elderly people, who are so much confused because they always blindly believed their priests and would rather listen to them than turn on their critical thinking.

Not long ago our Parliament registered a bill banning the activity of Russian Orthodox Church in that form as it exists now being an instrument of Kremlin. They started a hysteria accusing the Ukrainian government of persecuting the church, although in reality this is absolutely not the case. There is a reality of a cruel and bloody war and any individual or organization that supports and collaborates with the enemy that came to steal, kill and destroy must be punished.
Please, pray for our people to see the truth and seek the true worship and true faith.
In Christ,
Lyuda