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Evan Rosa: For the Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Visit us online at faith.yale.edu. This episode was made possible in part by the generous support of the Tyndale House Foundation. For more information, visit tyndale.foundation.

Fyodor Raychynets: We have now this statement that when we die, we are sure we will be in heaven because we've been through hell already. And the prophetic messages of Habakkuk and that, that song of hope, even if, you know. There will be no fruits. Even if there will be no milk, I will still trust in the Lord because we put our trust in the Lord and the empires put their trust in their power, you know, and there is this, this contrast that you see in the Habakkuk in the first chapter when he says that his God is their power and then he ends up with this song of hope and he said, but our trust is in the Lord.

Yeah. In my case, I, I, I go back to the prophet Jeremiah, the prophet Isaiah with his powerful images of gutted tree. And then there is this small kind of branches is growing. It gives me a hope that things will change. We just have to be a people of dignity and with the dignity we should face the trial.

That have happened on our lifetime and we just have to be these kind of people that will not will not turn in something else Rather than human, but rather will become a better human afterwards This is for the life 

Evan Rosa: of the world a podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity I'm Evan Rosa with the Yale Center for Faith and Culture.

Imagine war Becoming your new normal. Imagine getting used to things like airstrike sirens. Imagine sleeping through the distant bombs. Imagine passing through the rubble on your way to work or school or church. Over the past year, war has become the new normal for Ukrainian pastor and theologian Fyodor Raychynets.

Most of the expectations for how this war might have gone have fallen through. The worst case scenarios have come to pass, and the precarity and fragility of life outside of wartime, well, that continues too. A year ago, 20 days into the war, Fyodor joined Miroslav Volf to catch up with his former professor for a conversation on the immediate impact of Russia's invasion.

On Ukrainian life and culture at the time, uncertainty filled the globe, let alone Theodor and other Ukrainians. Now, after 387 days of war, the shock has numbed into weariness. But a consistent message of presence pervades Fyodor's mindset, providing humanitarian aid, friendship, and surrogate family in the wake of so much destruction and loss.

His church on the outskirts of Kiev has grown. And in this episode, Fyodor provides an update on life during wartime in a war zone, which includes not only the pain of war. But the pain of losing his wife prior to the war and his adult son just months ago. His faith persists in the face of all the cold reminders of how little control any of us really exert on world events like this.

He now turns to the minor prophets, Nahum and Habakkuk in particular, to hope for justice, to complain and expresses anger toward God. Even with God, and he continues to minister to soldiers and civilians holding their questions with presence and patience, preaching a message of hope and the good and resistance to evil.

Thanks for listening, friends.

Miroslav Volf: Fyodor, it's so wonderful to to see your news from Ukraine comes onto my various devices. And every time it comes, your face pops up as well. I'm thinking about. How you're doing and what's happening in your beloved country. Can you tell me first, how are you doing? It's been a year since we talked on the recording together.

Fyodor Raychynets: Well, there are positive developments and negative developments, negative or positive. How should I go? Yeah, it has been a challenging year personally, in a sense of a ministry, in a sense of a working, in a sense of a family, just. Less than six months, I've lost my son. So it was a loss upon a loss and um, it was in the midst of a cruel war.

That was something that have mixed up everything. And whenever I'm asked today how I am doing, I don't know whether I am doing bad because of, uh, cruel war that is still going on, or I'm bad because of the loss of that's the most kind of. thing. The second thing is that the war after a year is still on and there is no light at the end of tunnel.

At the moment, there are all kinds of prognosis and predictions when it may stop. But if I, I was thinking if I would be told back then when we were talking on the 13th of March that it will last a year or even more than a year, we were very on high. And we were thinking that something drastic happen, and this war cannot go on, that something will happen to Putin, some kind of, let's say, superhuman intervention will take place, or extraordinary things will take place, no war, just take it over, and the occupation of Kiev region took place, and we were horrified by the The things that we find, the things that I find in the church where I minister, the things that we find in the places where my apartment was located, my friend's apartment was located.

We went there with the president just right after the de occupation and it was, everything was mined. Everything was destroyed. There was apocalyptic scene and, and we were just overwhelmed with the things, especially in Bucha. in that genocide. And that's where my church is located. And, and then the, the Arko region was the occupied.

We went there with the humanitarian aid and we just see that. Things are similar, wherever the Russians came, things are very similar after that. That's just, uh, looting, murdering, places where they would torture people, execute people. I'm not talking about military people. Everything is ruined, everything is destroyed.

Then, then the Kherson took place, the, the, the occupation of Kherson. Which again, give us a kind of uplifting or, or, or a hope that things will go on. But parallel with that, the occupation and the Ukrainian military progress, we would have this constant rocket terror in Kiev, in other places, and the, you don't know where it will land.

You don't know what will be the after effect of it. You don't know what. What the consequences of that will, will be then there was this horrified winter without electricity, without connections, thanks God in our situation, we at least had water, we would have heating system, but we know that dozens of people would have nothing of these basic things.

And here we are again, entering spring. And now I will start with the positive things because there are also positive things. Well, last time when we were talking, I was sitting in the, in In, in the office of someone else, today I am sitting in my own office. Back then I was living, sleeping on the floor in, in the, in the office of the Bible Society.

Nowadays I'm sleeping in my apartment. I can go to my church, though the situation is in the church drastically, uh, we would have growth in the, in the tendency. But I think I can say for sure up to 70 percent of the people that attend the church nowadays are not our members of the church. So these are just the people who came to our church after the butcher, the occupation, and these are new people to the church.

So we have to learn how to minister, how to preach, how to communicate. So it's, it's, it's a challenge, but this is a positive challenge. We can serve to those who have been through horrible things, who have lost either something or someone, and it is a challenge. We are continuing with our programs in, in the seminary.

It has also changed because we cannot invite students to our campus because it is not safe. We cannot risk again to bring them to the campus because there is this threat that the Russians may invade again from the Belarus, though there are different takes on that. But we have learned over this year that we should be prepared for the worst and hope for the better.

And that's which we follow at the moment, that even if there is this talking in the media that there is this possibility, we should be ready for this kind of wars development. If it will not take place, good. But we were laughing recently because we have pulled out these notes that we wrote before the war.

And that was the first scenario, second scenario, and the worst scenario. And we were then thinking that this is unreal, this worst scenario, but it exactly happened, the worst scenario took place, but there is also some positive developments that I would not like to ignore because to sleep in your own beds, though with the sirens, either late in the night or early in the morning, we just get used to it.

And we, we begin to ignore them. We don't run into the basements anymore. We just, we just. We are so tired of the, of it that we, we are just about whatever it takes 

Miroslav Volf: when we. During the war in former Yugoslavia, in Croatia, in Ossetia, I had an uncle and after a while he would, he would stop doing exactly what you say, the Ukrainians are doing sirens, no sirens, attack, no attack, you can't control it.

And he was, he lived on the fourth floor in the apartment building. Top floor. And when we had the, when the shelling started, he would go into the balcony and observe the show. In a sense, that was a way to spite what was completely incapable or impossible to control in any way. At least he could get control over himself and where he is.

You cannot 

Fyodor Raychynets: plan anything when you control nothing. How can you plan anything? Yeah. Yeah. 

Miroslav Volf: Can you tell me before, before we go further, when I've heard the news of your, your son's death, I was devastated because it came after the death of your wife. He was 

Fyodor Raychynets: back with me in Kiev. Actually, he died while sleeping in our apartment.

That was so shocking to me because it. took place prior to his birthday, which we plan to celebrate prior to the death. He was quite depressed, depressed by three things. He was very close to his mother and he hardly coped with, with, with the loss of father. Then he had to break up with his girlfriend and then he, he was not this, uh, military type guy.

He was it guy. Very smart speaking five languages. He learned Japanese. He was so much into a Japanese culture. Japanese language passed all kinds of tests in a Japanese cultural center in Kiev. He would talk to the friends Japanese. He, he dreamed to travel there, and then the war just was too heavy on him.

And, and I think that these three things he, I cannot. Say exactly which one was that he just while sleeping, he sees are just stop eating. And I found him death in his bedroom. So yeah, I've learned after that with the psychotherapist that depression can be one of the, it is one of the indicator that you are.

Hardly coping with the loss, 

Miroslav Volf: but all the psychological and issues of the soul that we might, we might have a get magnified in the situation of this radical uncertainty that you were describing and that kind of future is completely out of one's, one's hand, or even out of the scenarios. I was struck when you said, well, we had this.

three scenarios and the worst one came to be that your rational planning seem, seem to be quite, quite impossible in a situation of this sort. Where do you, where does one find, where do people find, where do you find hope in those situations? 

Fyodor Raychynets: Well, I know that some people prefer to read Psalms, but I find hope in the prophets and why I find my hope in the prophets because I.

I think that when they prophesied, they were in a very kind of difficult circumstances, and they did not understand what was going on around them. And they did not understand what they were communicating to the, to the time and surrounding. And I find that explanation in Walter Brueggemann, who used to say that if you ask the prophet, would he mind to interpret what he prophesied or would he mind to explain what he prophesied?

And he said, he put it in a very kind of eloquent way that what the prophet would do is he would simply repeat the same thing to you again. And that's the first part of the answer. The second part of the answer that in the prophets, I found a very powerful images of especially in the prophets Isaiah.

than in the Prophets of Habakkuk. I begin to like the Prophets Nahum during the wartime, and it was interesting how I was invited to deliver a lecture this year in Amsterdam. I was talking whether should we, should we turn the other cheek or love our neighbor in the midst of war, in the midst of barbaric war.

And then the, the professor from the free university who responded to my paper, he challenged me with the Nahum, with the prophet Nahum. And I decided to read this prophet again and again. And then I, I just found, find a hope, a powerful message of hope in this. rather strange prophet, because there are two prophets that addressing their prophets, prophecy to Nineveh.

So we have Jonah's prophet who is refusing to give a message of hope to Nineveh. And then you have a Nahum prophet who is giving a hope to Judea on in the site of the upcoming destruction of Nineveh. So there are different kinds of messages. But both of them are messengers, uh, of hope. In first case, Jonah refused to give a hope to those whose existence threatening your existence and Nahum is giving a hope in spite of this, a powerful empire, which is by its very breathing, uh, threatens your existence.

And he He gives some very poetic images, a beautiful poetry, how he would describe upcoming destruction of this powerful empire, which in a human sense, and in what you see and how you, how you envision the power of that empire, you just cannot even in your most brave dreams, you cannot envision. That this power can collapse, and yet it collapse.

And then he ends with a, with a very interesting statement. I will translate it from Ukrainian, because there might be different translation in English. He ends his prophecy with a statement that there is no cure. There is no medicine from this sickness of imperialism. And when you read the prophets in, in, in, in my kind of situation, you are just overwhelmed that there are certain things.

They are always there. There will be there until we leave in this time and space and, and how they will repeat though the phrasing may be different, though the empires may be different. So. I'm finding a lot of hope in the prophetic literature, and I am trying to share that hope with the people in the church, especially in Arbucha church, where most of the people who come every Sunday, they have, they have been through hell.

You know, we have now this statement that when we die, we are sure we will be in heaven because we've been through hell already. And the prophetic messages of Habakkuk and that. that song of hope, even if, you know, there will be no fruits, even if there will be no milk, I will still trust in the Lord because we put our trust in the Lord and the empires put their trust in their power.

You know that. And there is this, this contrast that you see in the Habakkuk in the first chapter, when he says that, His God is their power. And then he ends up with this song of hope and he said, but our trust is in the Lord. Yeah. In my case, I, I, I go back to the prophet Jeremiah, the prophet Isaiah with his powerful images of cut the tree and then, then there is this small kind of branches is growing.

It gives me a hope that things will change. We just have to be a people of dignity. And with the dignity, we should face the trial that have happened on our lifetime. And we just have to be these kinds of people that will not, will not turn something else. Uh, rather than human, but rather will become a better human afterwards.

Miroslav Volf: Yeah. You have inspired me to go and read Nahum, uh, and you know, I must say for myself, those are the prophets that never get very much attention. You just look over them, you know, yeah, why are there, there are these little, little ones, Isaiah and Jeremiah. That's yeah, I will, I will do exactly, exactly that.

I wanted to ask you about the people you mentioned that 70 percent of the people who come to church who are not people for used to becoming, they're not to the. Uh, old believers, quote unquote, speak, or at least not all members of that congregation. I put it jokingly, they not believe in our way, they believe in their way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So what is it? What motivates them to come? Do you, do you have a sense of 

Fyodor Raychynets: that? Well, let me answer this way. I don't have an answer. Let me put it this way. I will try to explain how I see why they have come to our church and stay. We know the reason why they come. The reason why they came was that when the UN World Food Program came into Bucha right after the, the occupation, uh, the director of that program of, of UN, United Nations, he was in our church in the basement.

There is a picture of that as he's staying there, he's talking to us and he says that they find the church. as the only infrastructure at the moment, which is capable to cope with such a humanitarian crisis. So our church became an epicenter of distribution, not only of these packages of world food program, but we also distributed a certain amount of money that came through you and through our church.

So I, I I can recall, we can find the figures because our deacons would have the exact figures, but thousands of people would come to our church to get the basic things, food and money. So we would have, for example, first Sunday, when they came after the occupation, the average Sunday attendancy was like 150.

In, in best Sundays would be up to 200. I came to a church. There were about 800 people, 800 people. The next Sunday, we would have 1, 114. We know the exact number because we know how many packages we distribute to the people. And we know that the first impulse or the first interest in our church was not a spiritual hunger, was not because they have suddenly realized that, that they should believe in God and follow him and so on.

But there was a basic. material need. And we were afraid that the moment we stopped to distribute this humanitarian aid, well, most of them will be gone. But we were surprised because Sunday after Sunday, we would have 500 people. We would have 600 people. They would come and we would announce every Sunday that we will not distribute any humanitarian aid because we don't have it anymore.

But they would still come. So somehow these people finding material help and finding a place because I thought and I said to our leaders in the church that the most important thing now for our church is not just to become for them a humanitarian centers, but if we can have for them a safe space where they can have this emotional home.

outpouring and we can just let them speak whatever they want because they have been through a hell. So if we can create that space where they don't feel that someone judged them because they have these negative emotions, but rather create a space where they can find someone else who have suffered and share with him whatever she or he wants.

And we would just create a nice warm space for them to do that. People who have lost someone close in the family, they were looking for a new kind of family. Those who have lost friends, they were looking for a new kind of friends. And I think that that's how it, it worked and it is still working. And, and we are not trying, I've said to the leadership that we have to change the preaching style.

You cannot say in the sermon that, well, you know, What the Bible says, well, they don't, they don't, you have to explain everything. You be, you have to be as blunt, I mean, clear in, in, in the things that you want to communicate as you can. You have to, you have to forget the things that they know something in the Bible or they follow our tradition.

They are aware of that tradition. They are not. You just have to talk with them as you talk with the foreigner, but you would like to introduce him to your, to your fellowship, to your faith, to you have to be as clear when you preach the gospel or when you preach the prophets, you have to, uh, draw them a kind of a clear context and what you want to communicate, but then you have to lend it to our butcher situation and to the worst situation in the country and things like that.

And, and I, I cannot say that we are doing it exactly the way I just explained it, but we are trying to be as, as understandable to them as we can. And people just come and they, they like to come to me after the sermon. They like to come and ask me all kinds of questions. And then I don't have the answers to these questions.

And after this war, I changed my. Attitude to the questions. Before that, I would be afraid what I will do if I don't have an answer to the question. Well, now I am not afraid of it. I think that the question is just an invitation to continue a dialogue. Uh, I don't have to give an answer. I just have to talk to this person and maybe in some, at some moment I will have an answer, but to have an answer for one person may not work for another person.

So. You just use these questions to learn more about the person. And then with the time, if the answer will come, will come, if not, not that's so they, they probably above the material helps about the financial health, they have find a kind of a space that is safe for them. They have find new friends, I hope they have found a new family.

Miroslav Volf: You know, you're describing the situation, the role of the church and the faith that is both helping materially and psychologically and spiritually holding these people if by nothing for the moment, but then by honoring their questions and being with them through the questioning that they are. They're going, which is absolutely wonderful.

Now, if one kind of flipped and look at the other side, there's the other side of the church's role. At least people talk here about the role of the church in the war in Ukraine, which was a motivator for war, especially the way in which a Russian Orthodox church has functioned in the course of the war and as war is progressing, how have you come to think about that kind of negative function of the, of the church, especially, I would say, um, of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Does it continue to be important or is it a matter of, uh, you know, power has its own dynamics and maybe it needs a little bit of holy water on it, but it can do without it as well. 

Fyodor Raychynets: I always like to say that the unity of the church is possible in two ways. The first one, it is spiritually mature. And the second one, there is this great needs or necessity for, for its unity.

And because the first thing is not threatening us, we are, we are on the, on the way to be mature. We are not mature. We are far not mature, but I think that in Ukraine, what, what this war has, has done, it's hard for me to say what. what, what is really taking place in Russia. Next week is if I will get permission to leave the country, I will attend one of the, of, of international gathering in Turkey.

And there will be a lot of Russians. Honestly, I'm kind of nervous because I, let me go back. A year ago, when we talked with you at that time, we had this expectation that the church in Russia should do something. Should raise their voice, should, I don't know, write a letter to Putin, uh, do something at least if not to stop, but at least to take a public stand and say, well, you know what?

We are against this cruel war, aggression, invasion, and so on and so on. At the moment, even in our circles, church circles, I'm afraid that we, we become indifferent. That's, that's not a good word, but that's how we feel at the moment. We just become indifferent. What they are thinking about this war going on, what they, whether they will take sides or they will not take side, whether they will do something or not.

We just decided that we should focus on serving to our nation, helping to our soldiers, encouraging them. And that's what we do. I was just a few weeks ago in Bahmut and solidar. And you know what the soldiers would ask us at the moment, they said, you know, these are good things, the food and the clothing that you bring us, but you know what we want, we want you to stay with us, to pray with us, to talk to us, not just come in, give the humanitarian aid back and run away, stay with us.

And, you know, they have good questions and they, they not test you on your bravery. No. They just need your presence. And I just realized that when the chaplains would tell me that I, I always ask them because even now, I just a few days ago, a military man from the ministry of defense of Ukraine, they, they, they want our school to help them to trade chaplains at the moment.

And when I ask them, what is the mission of the chaplain, they would say in one word presence. So now when we, when, when we begin to travel there and talk to the military people. I realize on a more profound level what it means just to be present next to them. They are ready to create for you a safe zone.

a connection, internet connection, you know, but just stay with us. And when we have time, talk to us. And the second thing to visit injured soldier in the hospitals and just to sit to them and, and, and yeah, I don't have answers to their questions, but just to be present with them in their suffering, in their disillusionment, in their despair.

Uh, hold their hands and, and, and it's, it's, it's just so moving and powerful. So that's what we refocus. We a year ago, we would, we, we, we were expecting, and that was our wrong expectation. We were expecting that the church in Russia will act as the church in Ukraine would do as we did with the revolutions, as we did with, with other things.

But we realize that Ukraine is, is, is a very different country from Russia. And when our second president wrote a book, I read it a long time ago and I should re read it again. Ukraine is not Russia. Yeah. And, and of course he would have a political, a societal, a cultural, a national arguments to put it.

And I think that now we can add freely theological arguments to that. Russia is not a Ukraine. We are just, we are different. And that's what we have to realize. And the way the church behaves in Ukraine and the church behaves in Russia is a very different thing. What it does with, with the Ukrainian churches, we have more united than we were before.

I will tell you many stories with the Catholics, with the Orthodox, how we would do a joint projects and, and we would pray together and we would talk to each other. We would help each other here in Ukraine, but we don't know what is going on in Russia. And, and I'm afraid that we don't care anymore what's going on in Russia.

We are so fed up with this violence, with this cruelty, with this rocket genocides and terror, that I think God will, God will understand our indifference to our. Russians, brothers and sisters for the 

Miroslav Volf: end of our little conversation. And I hope, I hope we continue sometime relatively soon, maybe, maybe after you have gotten permission and gone to Turkey, but I was going to ask you, do you know what you're going to preach on Sunday?

Yes. Can you, can you tell us and lead us with that message? 

Fyodor Raychynets: Uh, well, I, I like either prophets or parables. So this Sunday there will be a parable about wits and what is the English word for tears? Tears. Yeah. Yes. Because I want to explain why so many evil around us and what is the most effective fight against evil.

Jesus gives some hints into that parable that the most, the most effective, effective way to fight an evil is to remain good and become good because that is our calling. Our calling is not to fight the, how you call it, the tears, but to become a witch. And in the midst of evil, that is, that is a tough calling.

That is a challenge. But that's, that is what we are called to become, to remain, to form. in that way. And I hope that that message will, uh, encourage us that this coexistence of evil is in the time of Eschaton is just unavoidable. So that that's how things works. 

Miroslav Volf: What would we do without that evil? Well, uh, it will be wheat, that's what I take as your message.

And that's, that's our 

Fyodor Raychynets: calling to, to, to become a wheat. Yeah. And God will do with, with the evil in his own way. Yeah. So that will be just an encouragement to the people in the church to remain human, to become more human in a true sense. Yes, in the midst of, of, of this, uh, horrible war. 

Miroslav Volf: Yeah. Fyodor. Thank you so much.

As always, a great pleasure and a wisdom among all these things that are happening in Ukraine and your own life. I see, as you put it, a shoot, beautiful green shoot of wisdom and of slightly different hope than we imagined, but nonetheless, hope. What an encouragement that is. And I hope that we can find ways in which to support you, stand by you, and so that you can go through those, uh, incredibly dark times.

Fyodor Raychynets: Well, it is a pleasure to talk to you, Miroslav, and, uh, we can do it whenever you want. The main challenge is now to survive, just to survive through this war. Yeah, because there are many, many good things to do afterwards. Fyodor. Life

Evan Rosa: of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured theologians Fyodor Raychynets. And Miroslav Volf. Production assistance by Macie Bridge and Kaylen Yun. I'm Evan Rosa and I edited and produced the show. For more information visit us online at faith.

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