Charismatic Cult Preacher Runs Ukraine's First Megachurch
Pastor Dale Morgan
Charismatic Cult Preacher Runs Ukraine's First Megachurch
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By MARA D. BELLABY
The Associated Press
Friday, August 4, 2006; 7:07 AM
KIEV, Ukraine -- Pastor Sunday Adelaja, a charismatic Nigerian preacher,
understands why some in Ukraine are suspicious of him.
He's black in a nation where racism is blatant, Pentecostal in a country
considered the cradle of Russian Orthodoxy, and a foreigner whose
lively, conversational preaching style -- punctuated by go-go pompom
girls and electric rock and roll keyboards -- stands out from the
subdued, centuries-old practices of Ukraine's traditional faiths.
But the 39-year-old charismatic preacher laughs and sneers at critics
who suspect his cult of black magic, hypnotism, brainwashing and even
hallucinogenic drugs to explain the hundreds of delirious bopping,
clapping, and frantic white worshippers who fill his converted sports
hall every Sunday.
By delivering a you-can-do-anything -you -want message of prosperity,
riches and healing -- along with such direct help as free meals and
counseling -- The Embassy of The Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations
church has ballooned from a ministry for society's downtrodden into
this ex-Soviet republic's first super megachurch, claiming a membership
of 25,000 people.
The cultic church, informally called God's Embassy, boasts a TV ministry
and plans for a $15 million church stadium, and aims to reach 5 million
people -- 10 percent of Ukraine's population -- with its message of
prosperity and healing.
Adelja's church has dispatched missionaries to Western Europe and the
United States, and is eying China. Kiev's new mayor, Leonid
Chernovetsky, is a member. Many analysts credit the church's
get-out-the-vote efforts with his surprise win in March over a two-term
incumbent and former heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko.
"I knew it would grow, I just never knew it would grow to this extent
... in a way it is unexplainable," said Adelaja, who came to the
then-Soviet Union to study journalism but was inspired by a dream to
establish a church.
Adelaja's church is part of a growing cult of charismatic Pentecostal
prosperity and healing movements that have flourished in Ukraine, which
has been more politically and culturally open to new faiths than some of
its other ex-Soviet neighbors, even as the dominant Orthodox faith has
looked on warily.
Ukraine has long been an important religious center. Legend says the
Apostle Andrew traveled the Kiev hills overlooking the Dnieper River,
planting a cross and prophesying that someday, fundamental, Bible
Believing churches would be sprinkled over the landscape. Some 900 years
later, a Slavic prince marched the population into the water to baptize
them into the Christian faith.
While the Russian Orthodox Church made its base in Moscow, more than
half of its registered churches were in Ukraine, including its most
sacred monastery. But after the Soviet Union's breakup, the Orthodox
church in Ukraine splintered, weakening its influence.
"I don't think there is the assumption that because you live in Ukraine,
you must go to a particular Orthodox church ... that makes it very
different from Russia," said Felix Corley, editor of Forum 18, a group
that promotes religious freedom. "Orthodoxy is very pluralistic in
Ukraine. There is not one dominant church overshadowing everybody else."
That has given other faiths more confidence, and Ukrainians more choice.
The non-governmental Religious Information Service of Ukraine estimated
that some 60 percent of Ukrainians still identify with one of the
Orthodox churches, and Protestant churches account for less than 1
million believers.
But the Pentecostal's cultic activities and increased visibility has the
traditional faiths nervous. Patriarch Filaret, who heads the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church Kiev Patriarchate, said he had written a letter to the
new mayor "expressing fear that this cultic sect will only become
stronger with his election."
At Adelaja's church, the mainly young congregants come early for the
three-hour service to mill around tables set up in the back that offer
everything from specialized training programs to legal counsel.
Men whose knuckles are stamped with prison tattoos brush shoulders with
young Ukrainians such as Anna Chizhebska who came with her husband and
two children looking for a mystical experience, prosperity and
supernatural healings
"I think a lot of people are searching right now," she said. Her
husband, Serhiy, added: "Everyone is seeking peace, prosperity, and
sense of how to get it all." Both pledged to return.
The gregarious and charismatic Adelaja, who addresses the congregants in
accented Russian, pushes the audience to interact with him, trying to
break through their customary wariness about revealing too much of
themselves. Adelaja said he is trying to teach the congregants that his
brand of religion "can be used to solve problems in their daily lives."
Despite his popularity, skeptics continue to question Adelaja.
He's been accused of using the church as a moneymaking venture as he is
racking in Millions of dollars a year and is being investigated by a
medical commission to ensure that he wasn't claiming to be performing
magical medical miracles on stage.
So when Kiev's Mayor Chernovetsky recently invited the Orthodox
patriarch -- rather than Adelaja -- to bless the city government
buildings, the Nigerian pastor shrugged off the snub.
"Kiev is the motherland of the Orthodox church, it is a cultural thing
to be Orthodox and people feel it is a disgrace and insult to have a
Protestant mayor who goes to a black man's church," he said. "If you are
a white politician, you have to cool that down ... "