Ukraine

Ukraine
Celebration of the Bicentenary of Bahá’u’lláh, Ukraine, 2017.
Location of Ukraine
National Assembly		Ukraine
Statistics:
Total Population
-	UN 2021	43,531,422
Bahá'í pop.
-	Bahá'í source	1,000
-	Non-Bahá'í source	219
History: Firsts
-	Local Assembly	1990, Kiev
-	National Assembly	1992, with Belarus & Moldova 1996, Independent
Official Website		http://bahai.ua/
Related media
Categories: Ukraine • People

Ukraine (formerly also referred to as The Ukraine) is an Eastern European country and post-Soviet republic located on the Black Sea. It is home to a young Baha'i community of about 1,000 members.

It has been settled since prehistory, and in the Middle Ages came to be ruled by the Kievan Rus', but by the 13th Century the region was contested by several foreign powers. The Ukrainian Cossack Hetmanate briefly held power in the region in the 17th and 18th centuries, but the region eventually became dominated by Russia and Poland, and was incorporated into the Soviet Union in the early 20th Century. Ukraine established itself as an independent country in 1991, and is geographically the largest country to be entirely within Europe.

The Bahá’í Faith was introduced to Ukraine in the 1990's, following relaxation of Soviet era restrictions, and the community has continued to develop since the country's independence.

History

Background

The Bahá’í Faith did not reach Ukraine in the Pre-Soviet era, despite Bahá’í communities being established across Russian territory in Central Asia and the Caucasus and also as far as Moscow, Leningrad, and Kazan by 1917. Soviet era restrictions largely beginning in the 1930's led to most Russian Bahá’í communities ceasing to exist.

Though Bahá’ís had managed to enter various countries of the Eastern Bloc through the 1950's, Ukraine remained unopened to the Faith and Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, included Ukraine in a list of places where no pioneer had yet been in 1952 and 1953.

Engagement of the Ukrainian diaspora

Despite the Faith not being established in Ukraine itself during the Ten Year Crusade, some contact with the wider Ukrainian community outside of the country was established. A Canadian of Ukrainian decent, Mary McCulloch, became a Bahá’í in 1951 and was elected to the first Local Spiritual Assembly in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She became the first pioneer to Anticosti Island in 1956 and was named a Knight of Bahá’u’lláh. She also assisted with translations into Ukrainian. As early as 1954 another Canadian of Ukrainian decent, Peter Pihichyn, was producing translations of the Bahá’í Writings into Ukrainian, and by 1963 a Ukrainian Teaching Committee of the National Spiritual Assembly of Canada produced a bulletin, entitled New Word. Brazilian-American Bahá’í Flora Purim's father was a Ukrainian who settled in Brazil.

Community establishment

Ukraine itself was opened to the Faith in 1990 with Bahá’ís pioneering to the country; Iraj and Jinus Victory from Canada and Riaz Rafat from Norway. A group was established in Kyiv and by August that year there were twenty-one Bahá’ís in the city. The first Nineteen Day Feast in the country was held on 6 August 1990, during which the first Local Spiritual Assembly of Kiev was established.

By January 1991, the number of Bahá’ís in Kyiv had reached fifty five. A number of teaching trips to expand the Faith beyond Kiev were organised, starting with Lvov, Chernovtsy, Dnepropetrovsk, Vinitsa, Chernigov, and Kirovograd. These trips were reinforced by international pioneers to Chernovtsy and Lvov.

In 1991 a National Spiritual Assembly of the USSR was elected, and Ukrainian Marina Pavlova from Kiev was elected as its first secretary. In April 1992 Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova formed a regional National Spiritual Assembly and in 1995 Belarus established a separate National Assembly, and in 1996 Moldova did the same, leaving Ukraine with an independent National Spiritual Assembly.

As of 2001 there were twelve Bahá’í communities across Ukraine, by 2004 there were thirteen, and as of 2007 the size of the Ukrainian Bahá’í community was estimated to be 1000 people.

See also

• All articles about Ukraine
• National Spiritual Assembly of Ukraine

External links

• An extensive archive of materials in Russian exists, referenced at Bibliography of articles and books in Russian on the Baha'i Faith in various editions.
• Some online content is at Bahá’í Academics Resource Library in Russian.
• Bahá’í Community of Ukraine

• Bahá’í Community of Kyiv (in English) at the Wayback Machine (archived 2010-07-15)

References

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Bahá’í Faith in Ukraine, 21 July 2008‎.