Thousands take part in Kyiv’s Festival of Hope, which featured sermons delivered by non-denominational American Evangelist Franklin Graham
Thousands of people from across the country braved rain and brisk weather to take part in the Festival of Hope in Kyiv’s Olympic Stadium from July 6-8, which featured sermons delivered by non-denominational American Evangelist Franklin Graham, son of influential and prominent Evangelist Billy Graham.
Organizers claim the event was the largest of its kind ever to take place in Ukraine.
Organizers ordered special buses and trains to bring tens of thousands of Ukrainians into the capital for the three-day event.
Another 100,000 Ukrainians from the country’s regions watched live broadcasts of the event at more than a hundred locations around Ukraine via satellite transmission, organizers said.
The event, organized by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) together with the Christian Center for Spiritual Renewal (Vozrozhdeniye in Russian), gathered around 231,000 Ukrainian participants in all, according to the BGEA.
Organizers said this was the first time an event of this nature had been conducted in Ukraine, the goal of which was to “bring the Word of hope rooted in the historical Gospel to as many residents of Ukraine as possible.”
Over 4,300 churches in 15 denominations in Ukraine supported the event, according to organizers.
The festival program featured Christian musical acts from Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Russia and the US. Inspirational speeches were delivered by famous athletes, religious figures and Ukrainian government representatives.
A former central defender for Kyiv’s Dynamo soccer team, Stepan Smeshko, spoke on stage about his religious awakening.
Another highlight of the festival was the enormous 4,000-strong choir composed of Christians from 25 regions of the country, who sang hymns throughout the program.
The end of each evening’s program featured a sermon by Graham. He began his first sermon July 6 by remarking that the country’s many historical churches and cathedrals were proof that the country was a “historically Christian” nation.
His sermon on the festival’s opening day centered on the story of Nicodemus the Pharisee, a devout and deeply religious man who sought counsel from Jesus Christ to find out how he could be saved.
“If you are here tonight and you haven’t invited Jesus Christ the Savior into your life … I’m going to give you the chance tonight,” Graham pronounced to the audience, inviting all those interested to approach the stage and participate in prayer.
According to BGEA, more than 6,600 people “experienced newfound freedom and made a decision to follow Jesus Christ” during the festival.
“I personally believe that this is a strategic plan for Ukraine, which will touch off the mobilization of ordinary church members in evangelism,” said Valery Antoniuk, a member of the festival’s Organizational Committee from Kyiv.
“We believe that Ukraine, thanks to this campaign, will sense the importance of continuing to evangelize today.”
The festival had been in preparation for more than a year-and-a-half, and included a series of informational, mobilization and charitable events across the country arranged by the festival’s organizational committee. One such event was the “1+” youth project, an automobile rally publicizing the festival in various regions of Ukraine and a children’s festival entitled the “Pathway of Hope.” The Committee also held a charitable event for orphans.
“In your own nation of Ukraine, people are searching for direction in their lives, for greater meaning and purpose,” Graham had told Ukrainian Christians in a 2006 address. “We want to answer their questions by pointing them to Jesus.”
The Christian Center for Spiritual Renewal, a non-denominational ministry with locations in Moscow and Chisinau, Moldova, began work in Ukraine in the spring of 2004. Its main activities include conducting large-scale evangelistic festivals, training events for Christian workers and church members, and publishing and distributing Christian literature and films in the CIS and Baltic States.
Ukraine’s major religious confessions historically have been the Orthodox and Greek Catholics (Orthodox liturgical rite subordinate to the Catholic pope), and a small community of adherents to Protestantism.
However, Protestant sects have multiplied over the last two decades, driven in part by a growing population of mostly US-based missionary and evangelical groups, which started arriving in the country after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The popularity of non-denominational and Protestant sects may benefit from power struggles between Ukraine’s Orthodox churches. Orthodoxy’s branches in Ukraine include the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kyiv Patriarchate, and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.
Reverend Ihor Yatsiv, the Greek Catholic Church’s chief of information, said he had not heard about the Hope festival. However, he expressed no disapproval of such an event being organized by any Christian denomination.
“The Protestants have already been in Ukraine for many years,” said Reverend Ihor. “It’s a normal process for believers to have the opportunity to belong to the religious group they want.”
“The Greek Catholic Church, along with the Orthodox and Protestant churches, all belong to the All-Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, which unites different churches and religious organizations with the goal of uniting and organizing events and initiatives. This is to say that at the present moment, we have a calm and even friendly relationship with Protestant churches.”
Reverend Ihor said there was nothing necessarily wrong with the festival and it could even be a “new” method for uniting Christians, but stressed that it depends “on the intentions of the organizers and what they want to achieve.”
“If evangelists want to organize such a festival, they have every right to, as do Greek Catholics. What matters are their intentions in organizing such a festival. If it is done to preach about Christ, to confirm belief in Christ, then there is nothing wrong with that.”
According to a poll covering the period of June 19-July 2 of this year, over 50 percent of respondents stated their religion was Orthodox and about 10 percent said they were Greek Catholic, while only 0.8 percent described themselves as Protestant. Of the poll’s 2,000 respondents, 23 percent stated they had no religious creed.
Of the slightly more than 50 percent of respondents who said they were Orthodox, 32.4 percent said they were Kyiv Patriarchate Orthodox, as opposed to the nearly 21 percent who said they were Moscow Patriarchate believers.
The poll, conducted by the Democratic Initiative Fund together with the Ukrainian Socialist Service Firm, has a margin of error of 2.2 percent.
