NASHVILLE (BP) — “Pray for the transformation of our nation,” Ukrainian Baptist Theological Seminary (UBTS) President Yaroslav “Slavik” Pyzh implored Southern Baptists at the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission’s (ERLC) trustee meeting Sept. 10 in Nashville.

“Next time you mention Ukraine to God, please pray that our people will love God and respect the law,” Pyzh asked, presenting the lingering war as an evil that has given an uncommon opportunity to spread the gospel, even as he prays for peace and victory.

Although Ukraine’s population is not precisely known, the number of Protestant believers has doubled since Russia launched its latest attack on Ukraine in February 2022, Pyzh said. Hope has countered the death and hopelessness the war has wrought.

As he searched for a reason for the war, “my answer that God gave me,” he told ERLC trustees, “is that war is an opportunity to transform the nation.”

UBTS, in Lviv and about one hour from the Polish border, is increasingly affected by the war that began on Ukraine’s eastern border with Russia. Six days ago, a Russian missile struck a neighborhood near the seminary, damaging windows and exterior walls of a dormitory housing 20 female UBTS students.

“It was less than 100 yards away from our school,” Pyzh said. “One of our dormitories lost all the doors and all the windows, and 20 ladies that were staying there, it scared (the) life out of them. So we had to let them go because they couldn’t study after that.

“That’s what Russia is doing,” he said, speculating whether it was a targeted attack on UBTS and its spread of the gospel.

“But one thing that I know for sure,” he said, “when Russia comes to Ukraine, Baptist (religion) does not exist anymore.”

Ukraine’s victory is crucial, as defeat will mean the end of Christianity in the nation.

“Whatever you can do as a country,” he said, “and whatever you can do as a church is critically important to us. … There’s no room for church there (in Russia). There’s no room for Christians there.

“Whatever you can do in order to help us, it’s not only helping the country, but it’s helping us as believers to proclaim God there,” he said. “So every effort you put there has a whole lot more meaning than you can think of.”

UBTS students planted about 55 churches in the 18 months spanning January 2023 to June 2024, Pyzh has said. As the war has closed some 500 churches, destroying some church buildings and displacing members, UBTS and Baptist leaders in Ukraine, including the All-Ukrainian Union of Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists, have worked to minister to internally displaced people and offer them the gospel. Many have come to Christ, leaders have said.

Concurrently in partnership with Southern Baptist Send Relief and others, UBTS has opened 18 WeCare Centers, providing humanitarian, spiritual, educational and counseling support, legal aid, medical care, child care, home repairs, generators and other supplies. Combined, such centers typically serve between 20,000 and 25,000 individuals a month, Pyzh said. Send Relief is a major partner in five centers located in cities on the frontline of the war.

Send Relief, working with local Baptist partners and churches in Ukraine, Poland and 17 other nations, has served about 1.9 million survivors through projects inside Ukraine and around Eastern Europe, according to sendrelief.org.

But even as many are coming to Christ, others are rejecting Him, Pyzh said, with the number of atheists also doubling during the war and having major growth among 18-25-year-olds.

“I understand why these young people are calling themselves atheists,” he said, “because they cannot make sense out of that reality” of war.

UBTS continues to thrive during the war, he said, enrolling 700 new students this year, exceeding an anticipated 500. Three Southern Baptist seminaries, including Southwestern and Midwestern Baptist theological seminaries and Gateway Seminary, partner with UBTS in preparing men and women for ministry. Pyzh is a Southwestern graduate.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Diana Chandler is Baptist Press’ senior writer.)