Faith in the Face of Fury: The Church of Ukraine, Brilliant in its Darkest Hours

In the dawn of 2022, the Baptist Union of Ukraine sensed a gathering storm. They sent word to local district leaders to prepare for displaced peoples before what they saw as an inevitable invasion by Russia, despite popular dismissal of the idea.

Viktor Pugash, in the Ternopil district, reached out to local pastors. He called on them to work diligently to transform a local church camp into a refugee center. He also reached out to Converge Missions Catalyst Bob Marsh, outlining their initial plans and asking for any help possible.

On February 17, Converge sent its first refugee aid. Dozens of missile strikes, signaling invasion by Russia, began one week later. The local church also deployed those initial funds for an army surplus field kitchen and fuel to provide meals for the displaced. In subsequent months, Converge funds have assisted with generators, food, hygiene items, and even a new, deeper well for a village overrun with displaced families.

When Christians Respond to a World at War

Marsh marvels at the subsequent transformation of public perception of evangelicals in Ukraine. Previously viewed with suspicion by the predominantly Orthodox population, today evangelical Churches are overflow their capacity, some holding prayer meetings with full sanctuaries every night since the invasion—nearing 1000 days.

Jim Capaldo, former Regional President of Converge Heartland and missionary to Russia for 18 years, describes the unprecedented growth of the Ukrainian church as “the greatest movement of God in Europe since the Reformation.” Thousands have come to faith and been baptized. Ministry continues to widows, orphans, and wounded soldiers; churches provide families blankets, food, necessities—as well as counseling an entire nation suffering beneath post-traumatic stress.

Marsh likens the cultural sea change to the early Church’s history when the Roman Empire viewed Christians as a disturbing, blood-drinking, Jewish sect. How did Christianity become the religion of the empire? When everyone else fled from the Antonine Plague, Christians weren’t afraid to die. They remained, caring for the sick.

In the same way, the evangelicals of Ukraine display the face of a compassionate God to a reeling nation. The mayor of a major city in Ternopil recently pointed to Pugash and said, “It was the Baptists who led the way! They immediately began to serve and care for the displaced people who rushed into our city. The rest of us followed their example.”

The Converge Crisis Response Fund has sent over $1.2 million since the invasion, and Converge regions across the U.S. sent nearly an additional one million. With the flow of funds dwindling, the Crisis Response Fund now supports local pastors, most of whom are bi-vocational and struggling to stay in ministry in light of their need to feed their families. Many are under 40, with young children. Converge longs to help those shepherds remain with their flocks.

Putin’s “Holy War” against “American faith”

Pastors, many of whom are traumatized themselves, are exhausted by nearly three years’ load of daily air raids, missile attacks, and the loss of a generation of men. Yet they continue to persevere with their congregations, despite grave consequences should their regions fall to Russia.

Russia specifically targets pastors for abduction, torture, murder, interrogation, home destruction, forced expulsion, and imprisonment.

Time magazine explains, “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is accompanied with a strategic effort to repress, control, and crush religious groups outside of the Kremlin controlled Moscow Patriarchate, the Russian Orthodox Church.” Indeed, the Russian Orthodox Church has deemed the invasion a “Holy War” defending “Holy Russia.”

Dubbed the Bible belt of Eastern Europe, evangelical roots ran deep in Ukraine long before the Iron Curtain. In fact, Ukraine boasts Europe’s largest evangelical population. It’s now sending out missionaries to other countries of the former Soviet Union—who might view Americans as suspicious or even spies, but Ukrainians as fellows beneath the boot of Russia.

Though evangelicals make up 2-4% of the population, Protestants absorb a disproportionate brunt of the persecution, at 34%. Baptists have suffered 13% of all persecution, making them the most heavily targeted group. Time quotes a Ukrainian pastor explaining the specific hatred of Baptists by the occupying forces, who “thought and spoke like this: you are the American faith, the Americans are our enemies, the enemies must be destroyed.”

Indeed, about 400 Baptist congregations have been lost to the war. And the Church is working overtime to make up the gap in leadership far more than bombed-out buildings. One bishop affirms that tragically, “evangelical believers are being killed on an everyday basis.”

The Undaunted Church

Yet the fierce, fervent Church in Ukraine isn’t so easily snuffed out. One director at Ukraine Evangelical Theological Seminary points out, “Ukraine is the main missionary-sending country for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. … As far as Europe is concerned, the Ukrainian church is perhaps the strongest and is doing the most for education, training, and sending out workers.”

“Sasha” and “Katya,” a young couple pastoring a church in the Donbas region, had just completed building a home for their family and were pastoring a new church when a particularly brutal attack on Bakhmut scattered their church, destroyed their building, and eventually destroyed their new home. Undaunted, they’ve joined a new church plant in Ternopil.

Former Converge pastor and ministry leader Rick Post and his wife Beth, continue to partner with Converge after two decades of ministry in Ukraine. Their ministry, Potential Endeavors, traces its legacy to Love Lift Ukraine, a Converge endeavor to reach Ukraine initiated directly after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Dozens of local Converge congregations developed sister-church relationships, man of which endure to this day.

Empowered by the prayers of Converge’s Ukraine Consortium, the Posts equip pastors, ministry leaders, and church planters—like Sasha and Katya. Through intensive biannual retreats, where pastors and their wives are given much-needed care, they are trained in techniques like effective leadership, gathering and leading a group, and more. Each cohort is then catalyzed toward specific directives for the next six months before the group reconvenes.

Converge assists in assessing, training, and deploying church planters across Ukraine to meet the vast needs for leadership—and thus, fanning into flame gifts God has placed for such a time as this (2 Timothy 1:6).

“What Can We Do to Help the Church in Ukraine?”

Paul’s letters to beleaguered churches like the Thessalonians reveal his deep empathy—and God’s—as their hearts lean toward the suffering Church. In Acts, God internalizes his people’s persecution to the point he accuses Paul of persecuting Jesus Himself (9:4).

What can we do to help the Church in Ukraine? Marsh weighs in.

• Pray regularly for steadfastness, courage, provision, and protection for the church and its leaders.
• Give to the Converge Crisis Response Fund to help keep local pastors with their flocks.
• Join Converge’s Ukraine Consortium which prays together virtually every month and seeks synergy to serve God’s purposes in Ukraine. Contact: bobm@converge.org
• Multiply Leaders Marsh is seeking experienced church planters willing to serve as church planting coaches and trainers and travel twice yearly to train pastors in Ukraine. If interested, email bobm@converge.org

Amid tragedy after sweeping tragedy, the Church in Ukraine serves as a city on a hill, which cannot be hidden (Matthew 5:14). As they daily overcome an unseen enemy even more intent than Russia, God proves that what others intend for evil, He intends for good—for the saving of many lives, even on an eternal scale (Genesis 50:20, Ephesians 6:12).

And they have conquered [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Revelation 12:11