K i e v – Hans Guderian (Berlin), president of the European Baptist Federation (EBF) took part in the National Prayer Breakfast for Parliamentarians in the Ukraine. The meeting of 20 International guests with an equal number of members of parliament took place in a hotel in the Ukrainian capital of Kiev for only the second time. It is the brainchild of Baptist politician Pavel Unguryan. Among those attending the meeting was the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Filaret (Kiev). The theme was: “The Mission of Christians in the World Today: Duty, Service and Love.” Orthodox speakers at the gathering especially lamented a “downfall of Christian values”, resulting in immorality and threats to marriage and family life, which must not be accepted. The meeting included guests from the USA, Germany, Russia, Belorussia, Latvia and Belgium. Guderian encouraged the politicians of all Parliaments not to allow the softening of Christian values. All politicians who care about values could be assured that Christians were praying for them, to give them strength. To emphasize the power of prayer, Guderian referred to the example of the peaceful revolution in Germany in 1989. Prayers and candles brought down the Iron Curtain between East and West.

Along with the prayer meeting, Unguryan had also organized a much larger “All-Ukrainian Family Forum” with as many as 300 participants. Among those present at that meeting were the president of the Ukrainian Baptist Union, Vyacheslav Nesteruk, and the former president, Grigory Komendant, who now leads the Ukrainian Bible Society.