OFFICIAL STATEMENT OF SENIOR BISHOP OF UKRAINIAN CHRISTIAN EVANGELIC CHURCH TO PASTORS and MINISTERS OF UCEC
6 February 2013
Dear pastors and ministers of the Ukrainian Christian Evangelical Church (UCEC)!
Considering the fact that at the present moment a number of former bishops and ministers of our Union make intensive efforts to separate the churches, desseminate lies and slander about me and ministers, whose decision is to follow God together with me, to cause psychologycal tension to those pastors and churches that continue to serve God with me and reject withdrawal from UCEC, I address you with this statement!
First of all I ask you to love God with all your heart, to seek Him, to stay humble, to pray and to ask of His help and protection! Our Lord, Jesus Christ, called not only Peter, James, John and other disciples to follow Him. God called every believer! Follow Jesus Christ! Even if you have to pay the price nowadays, to suffer not from people of this world but from those who call themselves believers, brothers. Do not give up. God will support and strengthen everyone of you!
I also ask you, dear brothers, to love on another, as God has loved us, to support one another, and not to say bad things of those who speak evil of you. Do not listen to anyone saying I can dismiss from ministry or excommunicate. I fear God, believe in Scripture and will never do the same things they wanted to do to me. Everyone of you has an absolute freedom! God never hurries you up, pushes your back or frightens you. God loves you! If you are confused, don' t be in a hurry to make any steps or take any decisions. If you have decided to get out of the Union, you should know, anyway, that I love you with God's love and will always be ready to serve you, and I am not to judge you ever!
It should be noted that Mats-Jan Soderberg, V.Rudoy, V.Shabanov, A.Batanov, I. Poteryakhin, V.Lobodenko, S.Zaitzev, A.Bakala, E.Terekhov, G. Shikhovtsov, V.Korshun, A.Danilevskiy, N.Kryzhanovskiy are no longer the bishops of the UCEC Union. They announced their own freewill withdrawal and have no longer any right to influence pastors and churches of UCEC. For the present moment 28 churches out of 347 registered ones left the UCEC Union.
Dear brothers and sisters! God has good intentions for us! First of all I know that we will step on a higher level of evangelistic relations, based on commandment of Jesus Christ: love one another, as I have loved you. We will bring the Gospel to people of this world with new power and in fire of the Holy Spirit. Nowadays God especially focuses our attention on unselfish, absolute love towards people that live next to us. He also calls us to take care of them without any advantage or self-interest. We continue to build our church building, we have not stopped. "The gates to the nations" will be finished and together with you and other Christians we are to fulfill our mission - to bring the Word of God all around the world!
With true love in Jesus Christ to all of you,
Senior Bishop of UCEC
Leonid Padun
