Photo via risu.org.ua

Ukrainian Baptists celebrate 400th anniversary

From the 26 to the 30 of August, 2009, in Kyiv will take place a Pan-Slavic Baptist Conference, marking the 400th year of Baptism, reports RISU. Leaders of Unions of Baptists of countries of the CIS and emigration unions will come to the event. On the last day of the conference, in the National Palace “Ukraine,” there will be a festive evening to celebrate the jubilee.

In addition to senior pastors there will be close to three thousand Baptists taking part. More than a thousand of them will be international guests: leaders of missions, pastors, and other honorary guests. This story was posted on RISU's Ukrainian-language website.

Representative of the Informational Service of the Evangelical Union of Baptists of Ukraine (EUBU) Karolina Volynko informed RISU the themed meeting is divided up into a few different blocks, which correspond to different historical stages of the life of Baptism: the foundation, the awakening of the movement, times of religious persecution, and the period of freedom. In every block there will be a video of a historical subject, musical and song performances, and theatrical shows.

This year in Europe there will be a series of events, dedicated to the jubilee of the founding of Baptism. The EUBU confirms that the Ukrainian presence will be the largest since the Evangelical Union of Baptists in Ukraine is the largest in Europe.

The organizers of the conference and the festive evening feel that in the average citizen there exist wrong conceptions of Baptists. This is rooted from the Soviet anti-religious propaganda.

“During the seventy years of Soviet rule people were told horrors about Baptists. Almost 20 years have passed since Ukraine gained independence, but in the hearts of people there still live negative conceptions about Baptists. Today I hope that people will realize what it really means to be a Baptist: that these are people who live by the Gospels and love God. We will discuss this during the events dedicated to the jubilee. We also want to celebrate our Lord, pray to Him, and thank him for the historical path on which Baptism came to Ukraine and to the world,” commented V’yacheslav Nesteruk, the president of the Evangelical Union of Baptists if Ukraine.

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TAGS: Ukraine 400th anniversary Evangelical Union of Baptists anti-religious propaganda

[08/26/2009]

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