Igor Bandura in CNE Podcast: Pastors killed and churches destroyed in war
Pastor Igor Bandura. Photo CNE
Christian Life
What is it like to live under autocratic regimes and in times of war? How, as a Christian, do you take a position in extreme conflicts, as congregations have to close down, and more people seek relief for their uneasy lives in the message of the Gospel?
Somebody who knows about these questions is pastor Igor Bandura, a Baptist pastor in Ukraine and vice-president of the Baptist Union. Starting this week, Bandura will regularly contribute columns and articles to our platform. Evert van Vlastuin and Bart-Jan Spruyt spoke with Igor for our podcast to introduce him to you.
Igor, born in 1970, grew up under the anti-Christian regime of the Communists and experienced a life-changing conversion when he was fifteen years old. After the collapse of the Soviet regime, Ukraine experienced a long period of freedom. This all changed dramatically when Putin’s Russia invaded and occupied some Ukrainian regions and in 2022 started an outright war against the country.
Of the 320 Baptist congregations in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, 120 have disappeared. As a pastor, Igor had to answer complicated questions about pacifism and find ways to uphold Christian communities, exhausted by the war, with prayer and humanitarian support.
He notices that more and more people attend Church services in this situation. He longs for an end to his war, but he also realises that Western liberalism may equally be a threat to the well-being of his Ukrainian people.
In the podcast, Igor tells us about his life, his experience of the war, his hopes and concerns. And in his first column, which we have also published today, Igor informs us about the situation of Christians in Ukraine.
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