The main thing in our faith in our life is getting closer to God.
The settling of God in our hearts and the manifestation of His presence in us.
Bishop Mykhailo Komansky (Anishchenko)
The solution of global problems of modern man, the search by scientists for the development of new technologies and models of human existence, and the processes of modernization of Ukraine are largely determined not only by empirical scientific knowledge but also by the depth of religious ideas about the driving forces of the cultural development of modern civilization. It is important to note that the life of universal Orthodoxy cannot be reduced only to temple worship and the observance of certain rituals since Christian theology is, first of all, science, true knowledge of God, which the saints of the Church of Christ called the science of Christ. In this context, service to the Ukrainian state, the free people, the descendants of the glorious Cossacks, the multifaceted processes of education and science is a certain service to Ukrainian Christianity without confessional definitions of the historical path: the UGCC, the RCC, the UOC and the OCU.
Ukrainian Orthodoxy faces a difficult task, which consists in solving many problems for Orthodox Christians in Ukraine. Metropolitan Dimitriy (Rudyuk) of Lviv and Sokal, Doctor of Church History, Professor, and Director of the Institute of Church History, reflects: “The Orthodox Church of Ukraine faces many problems, and the main one is not to repeat the mistakes of previous centuries when the Church was tried to be transformed into the office of the Chief Prosecutor. This task is very important. It requires good analytics, knowledge, and a sense of the spirit of the times from us. By the way, this situation that we are experiencing, first quarantine restrictions, and now aggression and war, in many ways, oddly enough, helps the entire Church to reconsider some points incompatible with the Truth of Christ and His Teaching.”
The mission of the Christian Church should be based on the semantic, value, ideological, and fundamental principles of theological science. The question is how to identify these meanings and essences. This leads to different approaches to understanding Christian theology, especially in secular universities, where there is a certain creative freedom, plurality, and free competition of opinions. However, secular scientific and true church thought also share a common characteristic: communication, fellowship, idea exchange, and the desire for compromise.
The sacred and sacrificial events of the world-historical struggle of Ukraine for freedom and democracy begin with upbringing, education, and study of its own culture and religious philosophy. And on this path, the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management (IAPM) reaches significant heights in journalism, psychology, literature, publishing, sports, spirit, courage, courage, courage, innovation and the future of the free world of all of Europe.
The global historical and cultural transformations that Ukrainian education is undergoing contribute to positive changes not only in economics, politics, and culture but also in attitudes toward religion. The socio-value principles of the development of Christian theology in the modern historical situation are not just a condition for changing the system of social relations but also have a significant spiritual influence on church dynamics and the development of the Christian mission in Ukraine.
The mission of the Church requires scientific reflection according to the laws of theological science in the paradigm of the socio-value principles of Christian morality and real communication of the Christian world, which cannot but be detached from today’s social and cultural reality. Despite the extremely idealized nature of many Christian ideas, the spiritual aspirations of a Christian still have a real basis in human communication as a space for the development of Christ’s love and communication in understanding. In general, the spiritual ideas of Christianity, theology, and anthropology of the holy fathers of the Church have long gone beyond their historical period of early Christianity or the era of the Ecumenical Councils and have determined for various societies of Europe a clear vector of spiritual-religious, scientific-humanitarian development for millennia, including in the aspects of the formation and implementation of the mission of religious communities and democratic society as a whole. An analysis of historical works on the history of the Orthodox Church that have come down to us from the depths of millennia gives grounds to determine that the Christian apostolic mission is a certain space of spiritual-religious communication.
Sermons, divine services, spiritual instructions, and social service of the apostles formed the space for implementing church communications, and theological language was only a tool — as scientists would write today — a technology of church communications. The communication orientation of the church mission, which the holy apostles laid down, is continuous and dynamic. This function plays a role no less important than the academic theological mission, the liturgical life of the Church, which ultimately requires the constant attention of secular and ecclesiastical scholars.
That is why the presentation of the first edition of the liturgical Apostle in the aprakos format in the modern history of Ukraine was an important event in the life of Ukrainian Orthodoxy. Let us recall that an aprakos (lectionary) is a type of liturgical books of the Holy Scriptures, where the apostolic text of the New Testament is compiled according to the annual calendar schedule of liturgical readings. This first in several centuries, the Apostle-aprakos in Ukrainian is a new improved translation from Greek for liturgical use during divine services. The presentation of the important liturgical book took place in the Stavropegium of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Ukraine on December 13, 2023, on the day of the patronal feast of the Stavropegium — the Holy Apostle Andrew the First-Called, in the great shrine of the Ukrainian people — the St. Andrew’s Church on the St. Andrew’s Descent of the capital.
Attending this important event, Denys Martyshyn, Doctor of Science in Public Administration, Doctor of Theology, Associate Professor, Head of the Department of Theology and Christian Communication of the Educational and Scientific Institute of Psychology and Social Sciences of the IAPM, Director of the Spiritual and Educational Center named after the Holy Apostles, communicating with the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Ukraine, Bishop Mykhailo Komansky, Orthodox hierarchs, clergy, translators, and scholars, shared his experience in church communication, apostolic preaching, and presented theological literature published by the Department of Theology and Christian Communication.
It is important to note that the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Ukraine, Bishop Mykhailo Komansky (Anishchenko), is a talented church speaker and preacher who knows how to organize church communication at a high level in the spirit of brotherly Christian love, unity, mutual respect and tolerance, which is a continuation of the mission of the holy apostles on the holy Ukrainian land and the “social dimension of the proclamation of the Gospel” [Pope Francis. The Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium. Lviv, 2014. P. 189].
It would seem that we can confidently say that Christian unity in the world, the constant mutual enrichment of the cultures of Western and Eastern Christianity through dialogue, and the relentless movement of Christians towards unity in Christ are the most important and urgent spiritual issues. However, the reality of the church in Ukraine shows that such expectations have not yet been fully justified, although modern church intellectuals discuss these issues and dare to translate them into the focus of Ukrainian Orthodoxy’s practical life.
Thus, the study of the history of the Christian Church, its unity, role and real impact on the modern world are inextricably linked with the evolution of the development of theology as a science, worship, communication, education, social service, the development of book publishing, which is the foundation of the sacred mission of Christianity. We can say that theology is the circulatory system of the sacred mission of the Church. And this thesis has a stable historical and cultural basis because the activities of any modern religious community cannot take place in a theological, value and information vacuum. All theological processes of church life are inextricably linked with the search, accumulation, preservation and dissemination of reliable and truthful information about the history, theology, mission, present and eschatological future of Christianity.
