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As Igor speaks, I imagine that I am seeing a preview of an evangelicalism that in a few years will spread out to Russia, Moldova, and even Central Asia. Ukraine, a key political and cultural influence in a strategic location, has introduced previous waves of Christianity to Slavic nations. Although they are few, Ukraine's evangelicals realize that they are leading the evangelicals in the former Soviet republics.

Anatoly Prokopchuk, president of Kyiv Theological Seminary (KTS), says many Slavic nations are looking to Ukraine as an example in both religious rights and politics: "They think that if Ukraine succeeds, it will give hope that Russia [will do the same]. So we are like a touchstone, experimental country." While Ukraine's evangelicals are confident in God's power to strengthen the movement, the unique challenges they face make it unclear exactly what the Great Commission means in their context.

Ukraine, a fertile steppeland crisscrossed by ancient trade routes, hasn't been independent for much of its existence. In the 800s, Scandinavians established Kyiv as the capital of Kyivan Rus', a predecessor state of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth picked up the pieces of Ukraine a couple centuries after Mongols had sacked it.

Fast forward to the 19th century, when western Ukraine fell under Austrian rule, and the rest of the country was incorporated into the Russian Empire. There, the distinction between Ukrainian and Russian was blurred. During the Soviet era, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic was one of the places hardest hit by Stalin's food policies. Up to 10 million Ukrainians starved to death during the Great Famine of 1932.

It was in the late 1980s, shortly after the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster, that Ukrainians "smelled freedom," says Vasily Lopatin, vice president of development at Odessa Theological Seminary. Even before the ussr officially fell in 1991, many Christians had already begun to feel safe enough to practice a more public faith.

Igor Agapoff of the Christian Broadcasting Network describes the mid-1990s in Eastern Europe and Russia as "a time when evangelism and growth were incredible; it surprised everybody. It was the harvest time. You could double your church size in a month in those days."

Archimandrite Cyril Hovorun of the Orthodox Church–Moscow Patriarchate says, "The church happened to be the only authority, the only trustworthy institution in this society after the collapse of the Communist regime and the Communist Party," so seekers overwhelmed all of the existing churches.

The growing churches soon turned inward, spending their energies on discipling new converts. Evangelism nearly stopped. When the churches noticed, they cranked up outreach again. In Ukraine, however, a period of prosperity sabotaged spiritual interest, and stagnation set in.

Konstantin Goncharov, vice president of KTS, explained, "Ukraine is like a hub of Christianity in a sense because we have the largest number of churches and percentage of Christians of all Soviet countries. But if you look at how we are doing as evangelicals after all these years—almost 15 years of freedom—the statistics show a decline. It started to disturb us. Weak churches can't fulfill the Great Commission."

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October 2008, Vol. 52, No. 10