Episode 104: A Ukrainian Psalm with Fyodor Raychynets
Praying and Living the Psalms in wartime
On February 24, 2022, the nation of Ukraine was invaded by Russia. Since then, Ukraine has been under brutal assault by its larger neighbor which wants to erase the nation off the map. Ukraine is a budding democracy, something that threatens an authoritarian Russia run by President Vladimir Putin. In an environment where your city, your nation is under attack, where you see increasing suffering and where your freedom is threatened day after day, you might look to Scripture for succor. For Fyodor Raychynets, a professor at the Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary, you go to the Psalms. Or to be more precise, you write psalms. Since the fighting began Fyodor has written a daily digest of life in Ukraine in a time of war and suffering on Facebook. Each post is a way to tell friends around the world, that he is okay and it is a way to share his feelings at what the way has done to his homeland. Like a Psalm written against an enemy, Fyodor asks for salvation against a savage enemy and a prayer for Ukraine. Here are some highlights from his Facebook posts:
Kyiv 63rd day in Ukraine. Everything is blooming and green at Kyiv with more and more people out and about enjoying the beauty of spring in spite of all that's going on around...
While we are here trying to cope every day with emotions from what we have seen and heard, from what happened in Bucha (and in other cities of the Kiev region)…
The aggressor's decree is about "mass heroism and courage, resilience and courage" of the soldiers of this brigade who "defended the homeland and state interests"... I want to ask what was the heroism, courage and courage of this pack of looters?
from what or from whom, and what homeland did they defend in Bucha? What state interests were they pursuing here? Torturing and killing innocent Ukrainians, raping women and plundering other people's property, were these their state interests in Bucha? That was their heroism and courage?
What kind of country and army is this? If a country awards the military for looting and violence of civilians in the name of public interest, then something is wrong with this country and army…
And…
Kyiv 118th day of full-scale war in Ukraine... yesterday at Kyiv and afternoon and evening a siren was heard, a lasting siren warning of the air alarm.. those warnings did not turn out to be in vain... The Russian horde launched 14 powerful missile strikes in the south of the country (Odessa, Ochakovi, Belgorod-Dnistrovsk region)... invaders hit the Shebelin lawn oil processing plant in Kharkiv region…
An ideology that carries destruction and death cannot and has no future... her future is in a perverted interpretation of the past that lives itself today in the destruction of someone else by destroying herself... such ideology cannot have a future because it kills and destroys the very future on its way.. or as Jürgen Moltman put it eloquently: "God without future, generates a future without God"...
Fyodor and I will talk about life in Kyiv, suffering and the Psalms in the context of the largest land war in Europe since World War II.