More than 120 religious and public figures, experts, politicians, and philanthropists from Ukraine, the USA, Moldova, and Poland gathered to analyze the causes and consequences of Russian aggression, discuss the current challenges faced by Ukraine, and consolidate efforts to overcome the humanitarian crisis, and provide aid to the suffering Ukrainians and religious communities.
An international consultation on the topic was held on November 10-11, 2022 in Nashville on the initiative of the Christian organization “Mission Eurasia,” reports the Institute of Religious Freedom.
The Chairman of the Board of the Institute of Religious Freedom, Oleksandr Zayets, presented the results of the IRF study on the impact of Russian aggression on the religious communities of Ukraine and brutal attacks on Ukrainian religious figures, especially in the occupied territories.
“The ideology of ‘Russian world’ has borne fruit in Ukraine in the form of a devastating war aimed at destroying Ukrainian identity, culture, history, sovereignty, democracy, and human rights, including the destruction of freedom of religion. Against this background, numerous facts of the justification of this aggressive war of aggression by Russian religious figures look even more dramatic. And this is not only the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill, but also the heads of evangelical and Muslim religious associations of Russia, local priests and pastors,” said Oleksandr Zayets.
The head of the IRF also reported the monitoring data and the main conclusions of the report “Russian offensive on religious freedom in Ukraine,” which the IRF presented in September of this year.
A large delegation from Ukraine arrived in the USA to participate in the event. Among the religious figures present were the leaders of the All-Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Christian Baptist Churches – pastors Valery Antonyuk and Ihor Bandura, first deputy senior bishop of the Ukrainian Church of Christian Faith Evangelical Anatoly Kozachok, Archbishop Yevstratiy (Zorya) of Chernihiv and Nizhyn with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, assistant bishop Oleksandr Yazlovetskyi of the Kyiv and Zhytomyr Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine, and Mykhailo Brytsyn, pastor of the Church “Blahodat” in Melitopol, Zaporizhia region.
