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Missionaries of Faith and Culture: Evangelical Encounters in Ukraine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Catherine Wanner
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Abstract

In this article, Catherine Wanner explores the historical factors contributing to a greater degree of religious pluralism emerging in Ukraine compared to Russia and Belarus and illustrates some of the cultural and political consequences of these more permissive policies. Using the intersection of foreign missionaries and evangelical communities in Ukraine as a lens, this article draws on historical and ethnographic evidence to argue that faith-based communities are sites of cultural innovation where the legacy of Soviet culture blends with values and practices born of other historical experiences to shape notions of morality and attitudes toward the state. Evangelical communities in this traditionally Orthodox land increasingly represent robust social institutions that offer new sources of self-definition, belonging, and communal life that are at once intensely local and broadly transnational in orientation.

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 63 , Issue 4 , Winter 2004 , pp. 732 - 755
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2004

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References

The research for this article was funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Research Fellowship, a Social Science Research Council International Migration Fellowship, and a grant from the National Research Council Twinning Program. Special thanks go to Valentina Pavlenko and Mykola Polyhua for research assistance. Kathryn Dudley, Olga Filippova, Roger Finke, and Svitlana Shlipchenko all read an earlier draft of this paper, as did all the participants at the Kennan Institute's Multicultural Legacies Workshop, including Dominique Arel, Nancy Popson, and Blair Ruble. I thank them all for their insightful comments. I also benefited greatly from the valuable comments of the two anonymous reviewers and the editor, Diane P. Koenker, of Slavic Review. This paper is drawn from a larger research project that examines evangelicalism in Ukraine in terms of the dual processes of conversion and migration.

1. Fletcher, William C., “The Soviet Bible Belt: World War II's Effects on Religion,” in Linz, Susan J., ed., The Impact of World War II on the Soviet Union (Totowa, N.J., 1985), 91 Google Scholar.

2. In spite of some doctrinal differences, these denominations share a belief in the inerrancy of the Bible and in the necessity of a “born again” experience in which one confesses one's sins and accepts Christ in order to receive eternal salvation. Congregational life includes extensive lay participation and the practice of nonmediated religious rituals. Pentecostals, in contrast to Baptists, draw on a theology of Pentecost and a belief in spiritual gifts, yielding an experiential knowledge of God through baptism of the Holy Spirit as evidenced by glossolalia or speaking in tongues. Building on the Pentecostal tradition, the term charismatic refers to an experiential piety and a particular mode of worship that really only emerged in Ukraine in the 1990s.

3. Krindatch, Alexei D., “Religion in Postsoviet Ukraine as a Factor in Regional, Ethno-Cultural and Political Diversity,” Religion, State and Society 31, no. 1 (March 2003): 43 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 49, 50.

4. See especially Rambo, Lewis R., Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven, 1993)Google Scholar.

5. The parallels between the two worldviews contributed to the accessibility of religious teachings on a broad scale and facilitated the substitution. The philosopher Nikolai Berdiaev was one of the first to note the similarities between Orthodox religious doctrine, communist ideology, and Marxism more generally. He argued that the Bolsheviks adroitly exploited aspects of Orthodox belief and practice to make their secular ideology more palatable to a religious people, thereby ensuring their conversion to communism. Berdiaev, Nikolai, The Origins of Russian Communism (Ann Arbor, 1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Keith Ward notes that ideologically communism promised a “bright future” and a means of attaining it via a proletarian revolution and a redesign of political and economic relations, whereas religion offers eternal salvation, a blissful state of equality and freedom from need, in the afterlife. See Ward, Keith, Religion and Community (Oxford, 2000)Google ScholarPubMed. I would add that the Soviet evocation of impending nuclear war and catastrophic human suffering brought on by an evil (American) force parallels Christian eschatological thinking, its assertion of the existence of Satanic forces, and a belief in the Second Coming of Christ, or Rapture, when all believers will experience salvation.

6. For a discussion of conversion narratives and what they reveal about attitudes toward the Soviet past, see Wanner, Catherine, “Advocating New Moralities: Conversion to Evangelicalism in Ukraine,” Religion, Slate and Society 31, no. 3 (September 2003): 273–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. See especially Michael Bourdeaux, “Glasnost and the Gospel: The Emergence of Religious Pluralism,” in Michael Bourdeaux, ed., The Politics of Religion in Russia and theNeiv States of Eurasia (Armonk, N.Y, 1995), for a discussion of the impact of the millennium celebrations on the growth of religious participation. For Ukrainians, the fact that the anniversary was initially commemorated in Moscow, with only subsequent “regional” commemorations in Kiev, underlined the colonial nature of the relationship of Ukrainians, their language, culture, and church, to Russians and simultaneously advanced religious and nationalist resurgence. See Wanner, Catherine, Burden of Dreams: History and Identity in Post-Soviet Ukraine (University Park, 1998), esp. 140–69Google Scholar.

8. Much has been written about the role of religion in enhancing claims to national distinctiveness and about how nationalist movements helped to bring an end to seventyfour years of Soviet rule. A review of this enormous literature is beyond the scope of this article. It is key to note, however, that Protestants and other religious groups that are transnational and “nontraditional” rarely lent active support to nationalist political agendas.

9. See Sysyn, Frank E., “The Third Rebirth of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church and the Religious Situation in Ukraine, 1989-1991,” in Batalden, Stephen K., ed., Seeking God: The Recovery of Religious Identity in Orthodox Russia, Ukraine and Georgia (DeKalb, 1993)Google Scholar, and Bociurkiw, Bohdan, “The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in the Contemporary USSR,” Nationalities Papers 20, no. 1 (Spring 1992): 17–30 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other studies note the importance of religious participation for creating and maintaining a Ukrainian diaspora that is politically influential on issues relating to Ukraine. See Myron B. Kuropas's study of immigrant communities in the United States, The Ukrainian Americans: Roots and Aspirations, 1884-1954 (Toronto, 1991), and Luciuk, Lubomyr Y., Searching for Place: Ukrainian Displaced Persons, Canada, and the Migration of Memory (Toronto, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. Tolz, Vera, “Conflicting ‘Homeland Myths’ and Nation-State Building in Postcommunist Russia,” Slavic Review 57, no. 2 (Summer 1998): 267–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 279.

11. For a discussion of this process, see Plokhy, Serhii, “Kyiv vs. Moscow: The Autocephalous Movement in Independent Ukraine,” Harriman Review 9, nos. 1-2 (Spring 1996): 32–37 Google Scholar; Krawchuk, Andrii, “Religious Life in Ukraine: Continuity and Change,“ Journal of Ecumenical Studies 33, no. 1 (Winter 1996): 59–68 Google Scholar; and Fagan, Geraldine and Shchipkov, Aleksandr, “'Rome Is Not Our Father, but Neither Is Moscow Our Mother': Will There Be a Local Ukrainian Orthodox Church?” Religion, State and Society 29, no. 3 (September 2001): 197–205 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12. Casanova, José, “Between Nation and Civil Society: Ethnolinguistic and Religious Pluralism in Independent Ukraine,” in Hefner, Robert W., ed., Democratic Civility: The History and Cross-Cultural Possibility of a Modern Political Ideal (New Brunswick, 1998), 215 Google Scholar.

13. Taras Kuzio, “The Struggle to Establish the World's Largest Orthodox Church,“ RFE/RL, Newsline 4, no. 171, pt. 1 (5 September 2000). See also Krindatch, “Religion in Postsoviet Ukraine,” 40.

14. For a complete breakdown of the number of registered communities as well as a listing of infractions against their rights, see the U.S. Department of State's “International Religious Freedom Report 2003,” http://www.sUte.gOv/g/drl/rls/irf/2003/24441.htm (last consulted 23 July 2004) for Ukraine and http://www.state.gOv/g/drl/rls/irf/2003/24430.htm (last consulted 23 July 2004) for Russia. I am grateful to Brian Grim and Roger Finke for bringing this to my attention.

15. Vasyl Markus, “Politics and Religion in Ukraine: In Search of a New Pluralistic Dimension,” in Bourdeaux, ed., The Politics of Religion in Russia and the New States of Eurasia, 163.

16. In addition to the Stalinist policies of the 1930s, Nikita Khrushchev's antireligious campaign (1959-64), symbolized by the infamous dictum “We will see the last religious believer!” disproportionately affected Ukraine. In 1958, 54 percent of all registered religious communities were located in Soviet Ukraine; during this campaign, 43 percent of them were closed down. Davis, Nathaniel, “The Number of Orthodox Churches Before and After the Khrushchev Antireligious Drive,” Slavic Review 50, no. 3 (Fall 1991): 612–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see Anderson, John, Religion, State and Politics in the Soviet Union and Successor States (Cambridge, Eng., 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17. Mitrokhin, Nikolai, “Aspects of the Religious Situation in Ukraine,” Religion, Slate and Society 29, no. 3 (September 2001): 173–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18. See “International Religious Freedom Report 2003: Ukraine,” 2-3.

19. In addition to the “International Religious Freedom Report 2003: Ukraine,” see Roudik, Peter, “Ukraine,” in Religious Liberty: The Legal Framework in Selected OSCE Countries (Washington, D.C., 2001), 149–58Google Scholar. This study was conducted by the Library of Congress Law Library. Other studies examining the same issues include Boyle, Kevin and Sheen, Juliet, eds., Freedom of Religion and Belief: A World Report (London, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an in-depth comparison of the politics of religion in Ukraine and Russia, see Plokhy, Serhii, “State Politics and Religious Pluralism in Russia and Ukraine: A Comparative Perspective,” in Danchin, Peter G. and Cole, Elizabeth A., eds., Protecting the Human Rights of Religious Minorities in Eastern Europe (New York, 2002)Google Scholar; Tataryn, Myroslaw, “Russia and Ukraine: Two Models of Religious Liberty and Two Models for Orthodoxy,” Religion, State and Society 29, no. 3 (September 2001): 155–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Markus, “Politics and Religion in Ukraine.“

20. Russian Federal Law, “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations,“ no. 125-82 (9/26/1997). For an assessment of this law and its relation to the Russian Constitution, see Emory International Law Review 12, no. 1 (Winter 1998), which is entirely dedicated to analyzing the legal ramifications of this law for various religious denominations. In this issue, see especially T.Jeremy Gunn, “Caesar's Sword: The 1997 Law of the Russian Federation on the Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations,” 98-99. The aim of the law was to restrict “totalitarian sects” and “dangerous religious cults.” In practice, however, the law discriminates against less-established religious groups, especially Protestant and para-Christian denominations, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, by making it difficult for them to establish institutional bases.

21. See David Litde, “Religious Minorities and Religious Freedom,” in Danchin and Cole, eds., Protecting the Human Rights of Religious Minorities in Eastern Europe, for a discussion of the use of registration procedures and other administrative mechanisms to discriminate against or repress minority religious groups.

22. See Felix Corley, “Belarus: Europe's Most Repressive Religion Law Adopted,” Keston News Service, 2 October 2002. For more on this law, see reports from Forum 18, an organization that monitors violations of religious freedom in formerly socialist countries according to Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at http://www.foruml8.org (last consulted 23 July 2004). See especially “Belarus: Religion Law Stunts Church Growth,” Forum 18 News (13 October 2003) at http://www.foruml8.org/Archive.php?article_id=162 (last consulted 23 July 2004), and an article that details the state's new provisions for the criminalization of religious education of youth at “Belarus: Authorities Check Up on Sunday School Pupils,” Forum 18 News (13 October 2004) at http://www.foruml8.org/Archive.php?article_id=161 (last consulted 23 July 2004).

23. Felix Corley, “Belarus: Europe's Most Repressive Religion Law Goes for Final Signature,“ Keston News Service, 2 October 2002.

24. A spokesman for the Pentecostal Union claimed that, of their 494 registered communities, 250 have already had their registration obstructed. See Felix Corley, “Belarus: How Many Religious Communities Will Be Driven Underground,” Keston News Service, 2 October 2002.

25. See “International Religious Freedom Report 2002: Ukraine,” 3.

26. Biddulph, Howard L., “Interconfessional Intolerance in Ukraine,” East-West Church and Ministry Report 10, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 7 Google Scholar. A career missionary with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Biddulph spent 1991-94 in Kiev. The emergence of the White Brotherhood of Maria Devi Khrystos after the fall of the Soviet Union inspired the Verhovna Rada of Ukraine to consider, albeit not adopt, legislation concerning the “psychologically dangerous influence of cults.“

27. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate is the only Orthodox church in Ukraine that is canonically recognized.

28. Roudik, “Ukraine,” 157.

29. In contrast, in 2001 more than 2,200 missionaries were working in Russia, but only about one-third of them, or 794, were American. In Belarus, 44, or approximately half, of the 82 missionaries were American (and 13 were Belarusan). Johnson, Patrick and Mandryk, Jason with Johnson, Robyn, Operation World: 21st Century Edition (Waynesboro, Ga., 2001), 645 Google Scholar, 540, 100.

30. Although there were no reports of violations of rights filed on behalf of evangelical organizations in 2002, leaders of these same organizations nonetheless pointed to instances of individual believers encountering difficulties, including job loss, as a result of their evangelical affiliation. “International Religious Freedom Report 2002: Ukraine,” 5.

31. Fletcher, “The Soviet Bible Belt,” 91.

32. Elliott, Mark and Richardson, Robert, “Growing Protestant Diversity in the Former Soviet Union,” in Uri Ra'anan et al., eds., Russian Pluralism—Now Irreversible? (New York, 1992), 200 Google Scholar.

33. For an overview of the growth of Baptist sects in the Russian empire and in the early years of the Soviet Union, see Coleman, Heather J., “Becoming a Russian Baptist: Conversion Narratives and Social Experience,” Russian Review 61, no. 1 (January 2002): 94–112 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and the work from which it was drawn, “The Most Dangerous Sect: Baptists in Tsarist and Soviet Russia, 1905-1929” (Ph.D. diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1998). For a more comprehensive overview of the Soviet period, see Savinskii, S. N., Istoriia Evangel'skikh Khristian-Baptistov Ukrainy, Rossii, Belorussii (1917-1967) (St. Petersburg, 2001)Google Scholar. The most comprehensive studies of Pentecostalism in the Soviet Union, each from a different perspective, are Fletcher, William C., Soviet Charismatics: The Pentecostals in the USSR (New York, 1985)Google Scholar, and Moskalenko, A. T., Piatidesiatniki (Moscow, 1966)Google Scholar. For a concise study of Baptists and Pentecostals in the former Soviet Union, see Sawatsky, Walter “Protestantism in the USSR,” in Ramet, Sabrina, ed., Religious Policy in the Soviet Union. (Cambridge, Eng., 1993)Google Scholar.

34. Elliott and Richardson, “Growing Protestant Diversity,” 191.

35. Johnson and Mandryk, Operation World, 644-45. The structural differences between Protestant and Orthodox congregations account for the high number of Protestant communities in Ukraine. Protestant congregations often serve a small group of highly active and committed believers, most of whom are official members of the church. This is in sharp contrast to Orthodox cathedrals that serve a large and amorphous group of local believers whose allegiance to a particular church may only be nominal.

36. Historically, Pentecostal believers maintained an even more adversarial relationship to Soviet state authorities than did Baptists, objecting to the state's insistence that they be subsumed in an administrative unit with Baptists. They refused to an even greater extent to comply with formal registration procedures and as a result were obliged to gather clandestinely in private residences. For detailed depictions of how Pentecostal communities functioned under such circumstances, see Moskalenko, Piatidesiatniki, and Klibanov, A. I., Religioznoe sektantstvo i sovremennost’ (Moscow, 1969)Google Scholar.

37. See Elliott, Mark R., “Guidelines for Guest Preaching, Teaching, and Cross- Cultural Communication,” East-West Church and Ministry Report 10, no. 2 (Spring 2002): 8–12 Google Scholar, and Lingenfelter, Judith E. and Lingenfelter, Sherwood G., “Teaching Cross-Culturally,“ East- West Church and Ministry Report 11, no. 4 (Fall 2003): 15–16 Google Scholar.

38. Pentecostal missionaries evangelized in Latin America with little success until the late 1940s when indigenous missionaries became active in the process. Since that time the growth of Protestantism has been explosive. See Martin, David, Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (Oxford, 1990)Google Scholar. By the year 2010, scholars estimate that Pentecostalism will be the dominant religion in parts of Latin America, challenging the historic role of the Catholic Church. See O'Shaughnessy, Laura Nuzzi, “Onward Christian Soldiers: The Case of Protestantism in Central America,” in Sahliyeh, Emile, ed., Religious Resurgence and Politics in the Contemporary World (Albany, 1990)Google Scholar.

39. I have changed the names of all respondents to ensure confidentiality. All interviews cited here were conducted between October 2001 and January 2003.

40. For a discussion of the interrelationship between visual arts and religious practice, see Morgan, David and Promey, Sally M., eds., The Visual Culture of American Religions (Berkeley, 2001)Google Scholar, esp. “Introduction” and “The Public Display of Religion” by Sally M. Promey, 1-48.

41. The differences in style do not necessarily imply a generational split among believers. A number of elderly attend these tremendously youthful Charismatic services that boom out Christian rock at volumes I can barely tolerate. Similarly, the older congregations offer a full spectrum of youth activities. The growth in the number of new members is, perhaps not surprisingly, higher among Pentecostals and Charismatics. Yet, as Baptists are fond of pointing out, no one keeps track of the number of new converts who leave. Anecdotal evidence suggests that fewer Baptists abandon the church after a lengthy period of spiritual instruction (usually several years after repenting and before baptism at approximately age 18) than do Pentecostals and Charismatics.

42. For an analysis of the effect of music on faith, see Wuthnow, Robert, All in Sync: How Music and Art Are Revitalizing American Religion (Berkeley, 2003)Google Scholar.

43. Stark, Rodney and Finke, Roger, Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion (Berkeley, 2000)Google Scholar.

44. Thousands of evangelicals from the former USSR have relocated to the United States thanks to the 1989 Lautenberg Amendment, which offered the possibility of emigrating as refugees. See Hardwick, Susan Wiley, Russian Refuge: Religion, Migration, and Settlementon the North American Pacific Rim (Chicago, 1993), 36–37 Google Scholar. Some of these Baptists and Pentecostals periodically return to their homeland to evangelize and engage in sustained missionary work. The double benefit of local cultural knowledge and western missionary training and resources makes them highly effective in garnering new converts.

45. For an analysis of these types of activities, see Wanner, “Advocating New Moralities,“ 281-85. For a fascinating discussion and analysis of the extraordinary (and largely unrecognized) contribution of church-based social services in the United States, see Cnaan, Ram A., The Invisible Caring Hand: American Congregations and theProvision of Welfare (New York, 2002)Google Scholar.

46. For a depiction of faith healing ceremonies among Soviet-era Pentecostal believers and their justifications for preferring them to traditional, science-based medical services, see Klibanov, Religioznoe sektantstvo, 160-63.

47. After 11 September, Jerry Falwell, speaking on The 700 Club with Pat Robertson, said, “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way—all of them who have tried to secularize America—I point the ringer in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.'” To this statement, Pat Robertson replied, “Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted their agenda at the highest levels of government.” Later Falwell was forced to issue an apology for his comments and for using this tragedy to;advance his particular vision of social and political life in America. See Ramesh Ponnuru, “The Uses of'War,” National Review, 14 September 2001, for a comprehensive analysis of dieir comments and how they were received.

48. These attempts to comprehend the seemingly unjustifiable punishment of the innocent are reminiscent of attempts to explain the purges of committed communists, devoted party members, and average citizens during the Stalinist regime.

49. Van der Veer, Peter, ed., Conversion to Modernities: The Globalization of Christianity (New York, 1996), 7 Google Scholar. ComarofF and ComarofF have made a similar point writing about the colonization of South Africa: “The missionary encounter must be regarded as a two-sided historical process: as a dialectic that takes into account the social and cultural endowments of, and the consequences for, all the actors—missionaries no less than Africans.“Jean ComarofF and ComarofF, John L., Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa (Chicago, 1991), 54 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50. Approximately 500,000 evangelicals from the former Soviet Union currently reside in the United States. Many factors make counting the number of Soviet evangelicals difficult. Refugees are not tracked according to religious affiliation. Once in the United Sates, refugees use the Family Reunification Act to invite extended family members who have been denied refugee status to join them, thereby bringing evangelicals from the former Soviet Union into the United States through other channels. Finally, immigration to the United States is often a “theologizing experience,” meaning that immigrants from many regions, the former Soviet Union included, often become religious and assume a religious affiliation once in the United States. See especially Warner, R. Stephen and Wittner, Judith G., eds., Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration (Philadelphia, 1998)Google Scholar, and Ebaugh, Helen Rose and Chafetz, Janet Saltzman, eds., Religion across Borders: Transnational Immigrant Networks (Walnut Creek, Calif, 2002)Google Scholar.

51. Martin, David, Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish (Oxford, 2002), 9 Google Scholar.

52. Lancaster, Roger N., Thanks to God and the Revolution: Popular Religion and Class Consciousness in the New Nicaragua (New York, 1988), 115 Google Scholar.

53. See Harding, Susan Friend, The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics (Princeton, 2000)Google Scholar.

54. Krindatch, “Religion in Postsoviet Ukraine,” 37.

55. Plokhy, “State Politics and Religious Pluralism in Russia and Ukraine.“

56. See Jenkins, Philip, The Next Christendom: The Rise of Global Christianity (Oxford, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a detailed demographic analysis of the projected growth of evangelical believers. Jenkins argues that although we are accustomed to thinking of Christianity as a western (First World) phenomenon, the locus of believers is shifting to the southern hemisphere. He details what he sees to be the potential negative political consequences of its expansion. This view is challenged by Shah, Timothy Samuel, “Evangelical Politics in the Third World: What's Next for the Next Christendom?” The Brandyxuine Reviexu of Faith and International Affairs 1, no. 2 (Fall 2003): 22 Google Scholar, who argues that the penchant for splintering and autonomy among evangelical groups will preclude them from ever forming a united political front. Rather, Shah chooses to stress the role these Christian churches, and specifically those of an evangelical variety, have for the development of civil society and the fostering of overall democratic values.