From Classroom to Conflict Zone: The Role of Theological Education in the Ukrainian Church’s Response to Russia’s War

WCIU Journal: Education Topic

April 10, 2022

by Eric Oldenburg and Lois Thorpe Cox

AUTHOR BIOS:

Eric Oldenburg is Programs Administrator and Adjunct Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at Talbot School of Theology, Biola University in La Mirada, CA, and PhD candidate at Melbourne School of Theologsy. From 2004–2016, Eric taught at Kyiv Theological Seminary in Ukraine with SEND International, where he also administered Talbot’s MA extension program.

Lois Thorpe Cox is Administrative Coordinator for the English Language Program and Rhetoric & Writing Center at Biola University in La Mirada, CA with an educational background in Intercultural Studies, TESOL, and Applied Linguistics. Lois taught at Kyiv Theological Seminary in Ukraine from 2002–2013 with SEND International.

Introduction

“I’m convinced that if the church is not relevant at a time of crisis, then it is not relevant in a time of peace” (Ostryi 2022). These words of Vasyl Ostryi, pastor of Irpin Bible Church and Professor of Youth Ministry at Kyiv Theological Seminary (KTS), serve as both an exhortation to the Ukrainian church and a description of just how the church is responding to the death and destruction wrought by the Russian army since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Ostryi and Mykola Romanyuk, the lead pastor of Irpin Bible Church, remained in Irpin during the early weeks of war, initially serving the community and then helping hundreds flee once Russia’s attack on Irpin escalated (BBC 2022; Gall & Kramer 2022). Once the city was almost completely evacuated, they and the rest of their ministry team moved to western Ukraine, where they began finding ways to care for the hundreds of thousands fleeing the disastrous conditions in the central, eastern, and southern parts of the country.

What are the factors that lead Christians to stay in conflict zones and serve people when so many around them are evacuating to safer countries or safer parts of their own country? And for those Christians who evacuate but find new avenues of assistance in their new locations, amidst all of the trauma they are experiencing themselves, where do they find the fortitude to serve rather than be served? One aspect of the answer may be found in the nature of the biblical, theological, and practical teaching that such servants received in seminary. This report intends to explore and substantiate this claim. Many serving amidst the atrocities of this war were trained up in such a way that self-sacrifice is the intuitive response. Eduard Borysov, Professor of New Testament and Theology at KTS and On-Site Director of the Talbot School of Theology Kyiv Extension, attests that the war has brought deep meaning for many believers to Jesus’ words in John 15:13, “Greater love has no man than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” For Jesus followers all across Ukraine, this verse has become painfully real but spiritually motivating (Borysov personal communication, March 13, 2022).

While this report will focus on those who have chosen to stay and serve in Ukraine during the first month of the Russia-Ukraine war, the authors, as well as many Ukrainian leaders highlighted herein, acknowledge that staying and serving is not the only legitimate choice that Ukrainian Christians are making. Nor should it be inferred that staying and serving is morally or spiritually superior to the other choices available. Denys Kondyuk, Head of the Missiology Department at the Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary (UETS), clearly articulates the necessity of multiple options as war victims decide how to respond:

There is no right decision in this situation. There are people who have opportunities and skills to help locally and many are doing so. On the other hand, there were many who did not evacuate in time and endangered their own lives and those who are trying to save them. Staying is not always an act of love and leaving is not always the act of cowards (personal communication, March 11, 2022).[1]

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is an unmitigated catastrophe, altering the external landscape of the country and the internal landscape of people’s hearts forever. Under such dire circumstances, Ukrainians must decide for themselves which is the appropriate response. With that broad qualification in mind, the remainder of this article will give attention to theological education’s influence on the decision of Ukrainian Christians to stay and serve, and what the current crisis demands of theological education moving into the future.

Doctrinal Motivations Behind Staying and Serving

Anyone who has thoughts about God is a theologian (Wilkins & Thoennes 2018). The question is whether you are a good theologian or a poor one. The Ukrainian Christians who are risking their lives for their fellow countrymen—and for those from more than seventy other ethnic groups living in Ukraine (Joshua Project, n.d.)—are displaying just how good their theology is: in the churches converted to bomb shelters and refugee centers, in the evacuation buses and passenger vans loaded with food and supplies, and in the trenches as they assist and minister to soldiers. Those interviewed touched on themes in theological anthropology, as well as ecclesiology as driving their decisions.

Mark McDonnel, cross-cultural worker with WorldVenture and Director of the Biblical Studies Program at KTS, regularly emphasizes in his classes the deep meaning and practical implications of the fact that humanity is made to image God to the world. Genesis 1:26-28 declares that God makes men and women in His image, but there is much debate over just what the phrase means. Throughout history, Christians have offered various proposals for what sets humans apart as “made in God's image.” Does it refer to an identity that cannot be lost? Or does it refer to a certain capacity (rationality, morality, or relationality) or function (such as procreation or rulership).[2] McDonnel is convinced that the functional view, which highlights that humanity is meant to rule over and care for creation, including all aspects of society, makes the most biblical, theological, and practical sense:

We are called to be in the world as God’s ambassadors and representatives. I believe that this means that Christians are called to rule as kings and priests in this world now. We do this by caring, serving, and loving people, as well as managing the planet. We engage with society and culture not from a position of abandonment or conquest, but from a position of service. We serve and meet needs. In my mind this perfectly positions students to engage and serve Ukraine in a variety of jobs, from service to refugees to fighting in the military. There is no one way to serve in so far as there are a variety of gifts and callings. So each serves as he or she is given grace (personal communication, March 11, 2022).

McDonnel’s consistent and passionate teaching on the relevance of the image of God for the here and now, especially in wartime, has given hundreds of church leaders the theological grounding they need to serve others in a myriad of ways, while facing grave dangers moment by moment.

Many Ukrainian pastors evacuated their besieged cities but immediately figured out ways not only to continue ministering to their church members but also to meet the needs of others in distress. Igor Fedorovych is Director of the Evangelism and Church Planting Program at KTS and pastor of Resurrection Church in Kyiv. Fedorovych evacuated his wife and three children to Romania in the early days of the war. Although the Ukrainian government passed a law that men aged 18-60 could not leave the country, an exception was made for men with families with three or more children (Gettleman & Pronczuk 2022). Rather than stay with his family, Fedorovych joined a team of leaders that now loads a van full of food and supplies in Romania and then takes it into Ukraine to those with needs. On a recent trip, he returned to Kyiv and visited members of his church still in the city. On the way back to Romania, he encouraged and helped others to evacuate to safety. Now he has church members in Kyiv, in Romania, and everywhere in between. From an organizational perspective, this scattering of members might put a strain on the idea of a “local” church. But a grounded, spiritually robust ecclesiology guards against such fractured thinking. Fedorovych declares, “We, the elders and leaders of the Church, pray every day together over Zoom. The Church is not a location, it’s people who work for love every day, even there amongst the bombs and barricades” (Métreau 2022). And in the intensity of the current struggle, Fedorovych sees how God might use this experience to mobilize the Ukrainian church to reach the world for Christ in the future:

In the time of the early Christians, it took persecution to spread the Gospel beyond Jerusalem, to accomplish the Great Commission of Christ. Ukraine is a land of missionaries. Who knows? Perhaps God is going to use this desperate situation to spread the Gospel throughout Europe? (Métreau 2022).

Spiritual Authenticity in Wartime

The Bible is full of warnings and admonitions against mere religiosity. God wants the transformed hearts of His people to issue in true Kingdom activity; He is not pleased with mindless obedience or passionless ritual (see I Samuel 15:22; Psalm 51:16-17; Isaiah 29:13; Matthew 23:13-33; James 2:14-26). In a crisis, the heart reveals itself. The pressures and stresses of the crisis bring to the surface what a person truly feels, just as much as one’s actions in a crisis evidence a person’s core values and commitments. Ukrainian Christians, as the world is witnessing, are exhibiting their commitment to love and care of neighbor—their service is neither perfunctory nor heartless. But such commendable and exemplary Kingdom sacrifice is accompanied by deep anguish and intense mourning. This war is requiring many to wrestle with God in a way they never have before in order to remain spiritually grounded and sensitive to God’s work in this time.

During his time studying in the Talbot School of Theology Kyiv Extension, earning an MA in Biblical and Theological Studies in the Eurasian Context, Romanyuk took a course on spiritual formation. He recalls reading and reflecting on “The Dark Night of the Soul,” an article and lecture by Talbot Professor of Spiritual Theology, Dr. John Coe (2000). The teaching addresses a particular experience of new believers as they mature, wherein certain spiritual feelings, often tied to particular spiritual practices, begin to wane so that they will learn to pursue God for Himself, rather than for those positive feelings. Coe stated:

The dark night is precisely what it implies—it is an experience in the dark for the one traveling through it. That is, it is intended to set beginners along a path in which they will not know what to do on their own and in the power of their own strength and cleverness. It is supposed to bring them to their end. (Coe 2000, p. 306).[3]

While certainly not a new believer, Romanyuk describes his spiritual experiences in the early days of the war as similar to a dark night of the soul. In that first week, he found it difficult to pray and read the Word of God. But with time, he learned prayers appropriate for such a devastating season of life—prayers of imprecation, lament, and cursing (Romanyuk personal correspondence, March 16, 2022). And it is this learned openness and honesty with God that enabled him to share the following painful but settled reflection upon the death of a member of his church, Anatoly, killed while helping others evacuate (Addario 2022; Kramer 2022). “We miss him very much, it is a tragedy for his family and the church. … God has a plan beyond our understanding, but it is difficult” (Casper 2022). War is a shocking, tragic blow to everything normal and predictable in this life. But spiritually well-formed souls that are trained to walk with God through the painful disruptions of life can minister to others as both experience the Dark Night of the Ukrainian Soul.

My emotions are mixed. There is a part of me that just hates Vladimir Putin, his authority, his attitude, all that he represents. I believe that I’ve come to truly detest him. He lies. He is unjust. He is utterly in the wrong. He appears to be another Adolph Hitler (Métreau 2022).

These words of Fedorovych, echoed by many others, are hard to reconcile with Jesus’ call to His followers, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” (Luke 6:27-28). But when experiencing the kind of struggle and trauma that war precipitates, the Psalter stands as a model for being completely vulnerable before God, even when one’s thoughts and feelings seem to run counter to the biblical ideal. Borysov expressed the new depth of meaning he and those in his church found in the Psalms as they sheltered during the first days of the war:

Since the beginning of the aggression, our church opened her doors to those who need shelter and support. Every hour we read a Psalm … and two people pray. I have never experienced the Psalms that speak of deadly threats from enemies, God’s sovereignty, His protection of the innocent, and judgment on the unrighteous as I do now (Dilanchyan 2022).

What Fedorovych expressed and what Borysov and his church members experienced is the tension of the imprecatory Psalms. Talbot School of Theology Associate Professor and Chair of Old Testament, Dr. Charlie Trimm, described the role these Psalms are to play in our lives:

One of the main goals of the Psalter is to be able to express what you're feeling. You want to engage with the text and then use that as a way to express what you're feeling inside. One way to read the Imprecatory Psalms is to read them during times of anguish and of being disturbed at evil doing. Many of the Imprecatory Psalms are when David or some other author is interacting with someone who has done an extreme evil act, or with the exile, or something like that. Of course, you're going to be angry, and you want God to do something. … These really are prayers. You want God to act, and in your desperation, you're giving God a variety of ways of acting. … It's a call to stop the evil doing in whichever way God chooses (Rae & McDowell 2020).[4]

In the past month, Ukrainian Christians have made the drastic move from devotional theorizing to the painstaking practice of ceaseless prayer. Everyone is crying out to God in desperation, asking Him to deliver them from the onslaught of their enemy. Fortunately, they have a template for how to do this in the spiritual classics and in Psalms, and they have models of painfully authentic and scripturally faithful spirituality in the students and graduates of Ukraine’s theological education institutions.

Rethinking Practical Theology

During the early days of KTS, students were living out practical theology in unusual ways. The building that was given to the Evangelical Baptist Union of Ukraine was in disrepair  (Kyiv Theological Seminary n.d.) and classes began before the building was completely restored. Students spent time outside of the classroom hauling materials and helping as they created a more habitable dormitory and classrooms. KTS and many of the other theological institutions in Ukraine have come a long way since those days in the mid-1990s. Ukraine’s seminaries now offer multiple programs and prepare their students for practical ministry in other ways.

This practical theology has informed and shaped graduates’ decisions to remain in these conflict zones and serve their communities. John White, cross cultural worker with WorldVenture and teacher of missiology at UETS, helps educate psychologists and chaplains (personal communication, March 11, 2022). Many of their graduates have been actively serving those who have been affected by trauma since the initial Russian invasion of Eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014. The school promotes holistic mission to all of their students, instilling the idea of serving not only spiritual needs but also people’s physical and emotional needs. Kondyuk (personal communication March 11, 2022) reported that their students are influenced by teaching that the Kingdom of God is present in the here and now. Some students have been influenced by German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who emphasized that in Jesus Christ, God lives and suffers with humans in the midst of everyday life (Godsey 1991). Courses in ethics, apologetics, and philosophy have exposed students to critical thinking (Kondyuk personal communication, March 11, 2022). Psychology courses have helped students understand how to counsel others. Knowing the history of Ukraine has been valuable as students discuss the influence of the past on present-day politics. However, Kondyuk says, now that war has arrived, "our students lament that we did not have at least a short medical training."

In the first month of the war, many have been inspired by Mordecai’s words to Esther (Romanyuk personal communication, March 16, 2022) from Esther 4:14:

​​ If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?

Ukrainians who have chosen to stay and serve are responding to the need to speak up rather than to be silent, to be involved in helping others find safety and refuge. They find themselves in an unprecedented situation in their lifetimes, saying that they are here “for such a time as this.” This is in contrast to the years under communist repression when Ukrainian believers had to secret away and be silent (Lingenfelter 2017; Spolar 1997). This generation of seminary graduates find themselves ready to stand up and act publicly, not knowing what the outcome will be but knowing that along the way the love of Jesus will be seen through their action and sacrifice.

Borysov (personal communication, March 13, 2022) honestly admitted that he was not ready for war nor had he prepared his students for this time. However, as Russian troops amassed on Ukraine’s borders, KTS made the decision in January to transition to an online format. This allowed students to remain with their families and serve in their churches in the case of war (Dilanchyan 2022). In the last few years, the seminary’s leadership was asking how to be most relevant in Ukraine—will graduates be able to respond to society’s needs in general? Borysov remarked:

I am not sure any Ecclesiology course can prepare students for all the possible issues of life, especially for cases like war. We all learn new things every day. How do you cope with your own fear and anxiety and how do you help others? How do you pray the Psalms of lament and imprecation without uncontrolled hatred and revenge? What do you tell people who seek answers to unspeakable evil? How do you fulfill Jesus' words about loving your enemy? Current and future generations of Ukrainian theologians have much work to do rethinking our theology and teaching (personal communication, March 13, 2022).

“Ukraine will not be the same as before if we are able to survive… this tragedy,” observed Borysov (Dilanchyan 2022). Moving forward, seminaries will continue to prepare students to find answers to current issues on their own with the biblical training they have received. Seminaries will also certainly be teaching students how to counsel those who have faced unspeakable evil and how to live out Jesus’ words about loving our enemies. 

Even in these times of interrupted courses, seminaries are continuing to provide sound biblical training to Christians. As Ukrainian seminaries look to the future, they will need to respond to the challenges of a new reality. Church leaders in the post-war context will need to be able to respond to psychological traumas (Dilanchyan 2022), financial struggles, and even be ready to learn the basics of emergency medical training (Kondyuk personal communication, March 11, 2022). Seminaries may need to return to a practical theology that involves not only finishing off a seminary building but also helping neighbors rebuild their homes and lives in post-war Ukraine.

Kingdom in Community

In Ukrainian seminaries, professors and students interact not only in the classroom but also around the table. It is not uncommon for professors to visit students in their hometowns to join them in ministry in their churches. Time spent drinking hundreds of cups of tea together, talking together in the hallways and cafeteria, has allowed students and professors to learn from one another about how to live out the questions of theology in the unique context of Ukrainian society (Geychenko personal communication, March 11, 2022).

These moments have added up in the lives of Ukraine’s seminary graduates. McDonnel recalls one moment when a student began to weep during his Church and Society class. She had been longing for this kind of teaching about how the church should relate to society and the larger culture (personal communication, March 14, 2022). When professors make themselves available to interact with students and their lives intersect on a daily basis, theology moves from theoretical to practical.

Oxana Kotenko, a Sunday school teacher and camp director at First Baptist Church in Kyiv, studied at KTS, first for a degree in Christian Education and later for the MA from the Talbot Kyiv Extension, and found a war-time application for how we as the Church can live in society. When the supply of bread in Kyiv was disrupted in February 2022, her son asked her to bake bread for him and his friends. She then decided to bake bread for her neighbors and others in need in Kyiv. Her generous outpouring of bread, a staple of the Ukrainian diet and usually readily available at small corner kiosks, inspired others to also bake their own bread (Kotenko personal communication, March 20, 2022).

In the village of Yarmolyntsi, closer to Moldova and Romania than Kyiv, Oksana and Volodymyr Bohomaz have been serving at their church since 2004 when they completed their education at Kyiv Theological Seminary. Volodymyr, pastor of this local church and director of the Khmelnytskyi Regional Bible College, stated that he cannot overestimate the value of their time in seminary to form a biblical worldview, emphasizing that relationships with their professors played a large role in this (March 12, 2022, personal communication). The Bohomazes have six children—five are adopted—and on the second night of the war, took in 60 more orphans along with their caretakers and their families from the city of Melitopol, which was overtaken by Russian troops within a few hours of the start of the war (Santora & MacFarquhar 2022). Along with a team from their church, they have continued to host refugees in their church building, feeding them and housing anyone who comes in need (Bohomaz personal communication, March 12, 2022). Besides church members, many in the community are also contributing to meet the church’s needs. Their electricity consumption “quadrupled this month because we are hosting refugees,” Volodymyr stated. This is a “hardship and a blessing.” One particularly vivid story they told was of a woman who began to cry after receiving a bowl of soup one evening. She had not eaten any hot food for six days. These events have moved other young families to join the Bohomazes in this ministry, as they attempt to live out the words of Matthew 6:15, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Valeriia Chornobai (Eastern European Institute of Theology 2022b), who teaches sociology and Christian ethics, also reported that this kind of Christian service is bringing unbelievers to serve alongside their church so that 90% of the people coming through the doors of their church in Dnipro every day are unchurched. She feels called to be present with refugees at this time of suffering, when their lives have been turned inside out and many have lost everything. Bonhoeffer’s (2010/1951) words on suffering, “It is infinitely easier to suffer in community with others than in solitude” (p. 49), are being lived out by those who have chosen to stay and serve.

Conclusion

Theological education in any part of the world carries with it a healthy, and sometimes unhealthy, sense of competition. Schools need either paying students or generous donors, or both, to make ends meet, and can participate in any number of worldly strategies aimed at getting ahead at the expense of others. These unhealthy aspects of competition, in the context of war, could intensify should institutions decide to prioritize the needs of their particular school over the overwhelming needs of the entire country. Thankfully, theological education leaders in Ukraine are unifying, and intentionally standing against the temptation to selfish provincialism. In a recent meeting calling for Christians to unite rather than divide, Taras Dyatlik, Regional Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia of the Overseas Council of United World Mission, made the following plea:

My only constant request is that we not turn this into a competition. That is dehumanizing. Let us be a community, the community of hope. Even though we do have to admit that we are without jobs, without salaries, without support, let us still be a single community of hope in the Kingdom of God. Even in the raising of funds, the sharing of funds, and supporting one another, let it all be done with dignity (Eastern European Institute of Theology 2022a).

Given the way the evangelical church in Ukraine has responded in unity to the widespread calamity of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the way that theological institutions have led the charge, the prospects are hopeful.

But fighting against competition and a shared approach to meeting financial and resource needs seems to be a surface-level problem compared to the life and death struggle that so many Ukrainians are facing. Ukrainian Christians, led by both church and seminary, must learn to process their own pain, but also to bear the pain of their neighbor. Oleksandr Geychenko, President of Odesa Theological Seminary, at the same meeting, expressed the bearing of the burden in this way:

We died with the pregnant lady and her child severely wounded during the bombing of the maternity hospital in Mariupol. We were hit by a mortar together with those people who lined up for bread in Chernihiv. The Russian soldiers shot us together with those who were trying to flee Irpin, Hostomel, Bucha, Kharkiv, and Sumy. Many souls are burned into ashes (Geychenko, Eastern European Institute of Theology, 2022a).

The Ukrainian church, led by those who have been influenced by or are influencing through her training institutes, Bible colleges and theological seminaries, is making a distinct impact in this war. Light is shining in the darkness. Truth is breaking through the lies. Good is conquering evil. Whatever post-war theological education becomes in Ukraine, future generations of global Christians have much to learn from the response of the Ukrainian church today.[5]

End Notes

 [1] During World War II, German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer conspired to bring an end to the Nazi Regime. He was ultimately hanged for his opposition to Adolf Hitler. At one point, special arrangements were made to get him out of Germany, in part out of a concern for sparing him from various political troubles he would face as a conscientious objector to the war. He traveled to New York, but he found no peace until he decided to quickly return home to share in the fate of his fellow pastors and Germans. Reflecting later on the decision to flee, he wrote the following to Reinhold Niebuhr, words that show a personal conviction and appropriate sensitivity to individual choice similar to what Ukrainians are expressing in the current moment: "I have come to the conclusion that I have made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period of our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people. My brothers in the Confessional Synod wanted me to go. They may have been right in urging me to do so; but I was wrong in going. Such a decision each man must make for himself. Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive, or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose; but I cannot make that choice in security…." from “To Reinhold Niebuhr, New York, end of June, 1939,” by D. Bonhoeffer, in J. W. de Gruchy (Ed.), Dietrich Bonhoeffer works: Vol. 15. Theological education underground: 1937-1940 (p. 210), 2012, Fortress Press.

[2] Important studies surveying the identity, capacity, and function interpretations include The Liberating Image: The Imago Dei in Genesis 1 (pp.15–42), by J. R. Middleton, 2005, Brazos Press; Dignity and Destiny: Humanity and the Image of God (pp. 85–133), by J. F. Kilner, 2015, Eerdmans; and The Imago Dei as Human Identity: A Theological Interpretation (pp. 23–79), by R. Peterson, 2016, Eisenbrauns. McDonnel credits Middleton as influencing his formulation of the image of God, as well as After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters (pp. 73–100), by N. T. Wright, 2010, Harper One.

[3] John Coe’s article and lecture build on the work of St. John of the Cross. For the latter’s classic work in this area, see Dark Night of the Soul, by St. John of the Cross, in E. A. Peers (Ed.), 1959, Doubleday.

[4] For a similar expression of the appropriate understanding and use of the imprecatory Psalms in the context of horrible injustice, both in the Old Covenant era and today, see The Ethics of Vengeful Psalms, by C. J. Imes, 2019 Center for the Study of Bible & Violence,  https://www.csbvbristol.org.uk/2019/10/05/guest-blog-vengeful-psalms/. Tetyana Gerasymchuk, translator and assistant at Odessa Theological Seminary, describes the current situation in Ukraine with these words, acknowledging yet another expression of imprecatory prayer: “As my husband, who is an Old Testament lecturer, said, quoting renowned scholar, Walter Bruggeman (2009), ‘The practice of grief is an exercise in truth telling.’ I agree, and I think that our primary task now is to be faithful agents of God’s truth in today’s reality darkened by tremendous falsehood and distorted perception. … People around the world are praying these days for Ukraine. A substantial part of my prayers now about Russia—I pray for Russia to change. I don’t ask God to make them miserable and poor or hungry or sick with all kinds of diseases. My prayer is that God would open their eyes, somehow, and that something would change in their minds and their hearts” from The Russia-Ukraine War: Women Voices, by Eastern European Institute of Theology, 2022 YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHywgboM9NM Used with permission.

[5] The authors wish to express extreme appreciation to the following theological educators and seminary graduates for their correspondence in the research phase of this article: Volodymyr Bohomaz, Dr. Eduard Borysov, Dr. Valeriia Chornobai, Taras Dyaltlik, Igor Fedorovych, Tetyana Gerasymchuk, Dr. Oleksandr Geychenko, Denys Kondyuk, Oxana Kotenko, Mark McDonnel, Vasyl Ostryi, Mykola Romanyuk, and Dr. John White. The authors also wish to thank the following people for sharing editorial and content suggestions: Chris Baker, Philip Cox, Dr. Carmen Imes, Josie Oldenburg, and Dr. Charlie Trimm.

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