“Vladimir, repent! Repent of all your evil deeds, because you are not God!”
Presbyterian pastor Serhiy Nakul of the Grace Reform Church in Kyiv cannot possibly reply to the tsunami of messages prompted by his exhortation to the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin in an interview with the US network Fox News.
One does not have to be a believer to admire Nakul’s cheerful courage and compassion. Though he has never been to the US, Nakul speaks with an American accent, learned from the missionaries who converted him. “Awesome, awesome, awesome,” is one of his favourite expressions.
The 45-year-old pastor has sent 25 members of his flock, including his wife and two sons, to the Netherlands for safety. He now ministers to three parishes, because his colleagues ran away. A dozen church members live in the basement of his Grace Reform Church.
Nakul goes to the shelter only when the explosions are very loud and very close. The rest of the time, he walks around the Ukrainian capital, recording a video blog for the Far Eastern Broadcasting Company.
His goal, he said in an interview with The Irish Times by video link, was “to show Russia’s war crimes”.
Nakul says he would like to have a bullet-proof vest and helmet, but if he did, he would probably give them to the soldiers to whom he carries hot meals. As shown in one of his videos, supermarket shelves in Kyiv are almost empty. “We are not starving,” he insists. “We have bread. We have beans. We have basic products.”
Nakul finds Ukrainians more receptive to religion than before. “People are so open for it now, when they understand that their life could just end any moment,” he says. “Even those who had distance from the Bible and religious stuff are saying, ‘Pastor Serhiy, we are afraid. Please teach us how not to be afraid.’”
Is he never afraid? I ask. “Well, sure I am afraid, especially in the first days. Yeah, I am [a] human being... God gave us fear for self-preservation. The question is what I do with that fear.” He recommends Psalms as “precious remedy for the wounded soul” and says that prayer transforms his fear into action.
Nakul was born into what he calls an ordinary, nominally Orthodox, typical Soviet family. “Atheism was the state religion, but I always had a sense of the divine,” he says. “When I was a teenager I read library books on atheism, because they contained passages from the Gospel.”
Spiritual revival
Ukraine underwent a spiritual revival after the fall of the Soviet Union. Nakul was given a free copy of the New Testament on a street corner. He remembers the exact day and time in May 1994 when he was overwhelmed by a sense of his own sinfulness. Uncharacteristically for him, he began to weep and pray. He later attended the Presbyterian seminary in Ukraine.
Nakul served for many years as a pastor in the southern city of Kherson, the only Ukrainian city to have fallen to the Russians so far.
“Kherson is a completely Russian-speaking city,” Nakul says. “I was a Russian-speaking pastor there, with a Russian-speaking church. We never encountered pressure or restrictions on our right to speak the language. It is a complete myth that Russian-speaking people are persecuted.”
Nakul is in contact with pastors in occupied Kherson who participate in anti-Russian demonstrations. Russian troops opened fire on one such demonstration on Monday.
Because food is scarce in Kherson, the Russians have brought "so-called humanitarian aid, along with television propagandists", Nakul says. "They would love to film Khersonians coming to get humanitarian help from Russians. But the majority of Khersonians do not want any help from Russia. I am extremely proud of Kherson because I know that city. I have been impressed by the maturity of Russian-speaking Ukrainians."
In each place they conquer, the invaders attempt to install a puppet government, using collaborators like the former mayor, Vladimir Saldo, whom Nakul labels a traitor. "When I was pastor in Kherson, I found his speeches and actions too pro-Russian.The moment Russian troops withdraw, our people will destroy that government."
No repentance
Nakul says it may be too late for Putin to save himself. “The word of God says there are some sinners so rooted in sin that there is no repentance for them. That is not God’s problem; that is their problem.”
At his big rally at Luzhniki stadium in Moscow on March 18th, Putin quoted John 15:13: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Nakul’s parishioners were perplexed by the Russian dictator’s use of scripture. “I tell them, ‘Satan quoted the Bible too, when he was tempting Jesus in the wilderness.’”
Nakul has written in several Facebook posts that Putin is Satan. "Someone embodies evil in every historical period," he says. "Now it is Putin."
Many of the Russian soldiers who are now laying waste to Ukraine must believe in God. They too have mothers who pray for them. Whose side is God on? I ask Nakul.
“I have a question for these people,” he replies. “Does Jesus teach you to come to your neighbour’s country and kill civilians brutally? Just show me one passage in the Bible where Jesus is commanding you to do this. You will not find it. Repent of this. Throw your assault rifles away and run. Do not tell me about your faith, because demons also believe in God. Satan knows that there is God.”
Nakul grows emotional once in our 45-minute interview, when he describes the video of a dead mother lying on the ground beside her three-year-old child at Bucha, in the embattled suburbs northwest of Kyiv. “When I make videos of destroyed apartments, when I see children’s toys in the ruins, I just want to kill Putin.” Like Dietrch Bonhoeffer, he says. The Protestant theologian was executed for participating in a plot to kill Hitler.
Theologians have grappled with the problem of evil for many centuries. If God exists, I ask Pastor Serhiy, how can he allow this war to happen?
“I do not have all the answers,” Nakul replies. “I am an ordinary human being. I am telling people do not ask me why this happens. Because at these times I am not teaching. I am not lecturing... I do not know why this happens, but I know that I must act as Jesus did, here and now. All other answers I will receive in eternity... The people I see do not need answers right now. They need compassion. They need hugs, consolation and comfort.”
