Bahá'í Faith in Ukraine

The Bahá'í Faith in Ukraine began during the policy of oppression of religion in the former Soviet Union. Before that time, Ukraine, as part of the Russian Empire, would have had indirect contact with the Bahá'í Faith as far back as 1847.cite web | last = Momen | first = Moojan | title = Russia | work = Draft for "A Short Encyclopedia of the Bahá'í Faith" | publisher = Bahá'í Academics Resource Library | date = | url = http://bahai-library.com/encyclopedia/russia.html | accessdate = 2008-04-14] Following the Ukrainian diasporas, succeeding generations of ethnic Ukrainians became Bahá'ís and some have interacted with Ukraine previous to development of the religion in the country. There are currently around 1000 Bahá'ís in Ukraine,cite web | coauthors = Local Spiritual Assembly of Kyiv | title = Statement on the history of the Bahá'í Faith in Soviet Union | work = Official Website of the Bahá'ís of Kyiv | publisher = Local Spiritual Assembly of Kyiv | year = 2007-8 | url = http://bahai.kiev.ua/history9.html | accessdate = 2008-04-19] in 13 communities.cite web | url = http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35491.htm Ukraine | title = International Religious Freedom Report | year = 2004 | date = 2004-09-15 | accessdate = 2008-04-19 | author = Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor | publisher = United States State Department]

History of the region

At part of the Russian Empire

The earliest relationship between the Bahá'í Faith and Ukraine comes under the sphere of the country's history with Russia. During that time, the history stretches back to 1847 when the Russian ambassador to Tehran, Prince Dimitri Ivanovich Dolgorukov, requested that the Báb, the herald to the Bahá'í Faith who was imprisoned at Maku, be moved elsewhere; he also condemned the massacres of Iranian religionists, and asked for the release of Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith. In 1884 Leo Tolstoy first heard of the Bahá'í Faith and was sympathetic to some of its teachings.cite encyclopedia |last= Smith |first= Peter |encyclopedia= A concise encyclopedia of the Bahá'í Faith |title= Tolstoy, Leo |year= 2000 |publisher=Oneworld Publications |location= Oxford |id= ISBN 1-85168-184-1 |pages= p. 340] Also, orientalist A. Tumanskim translated some Bahá'í literature into Russian in 1899 in Saint Petersburg. In the 1880s an organized community of Bahá'ís was in Ashgabat and later built the first Bahá'í House of Worship in 1913-1918. In 1904 a play by poet Isabella Grinevskoy called "Báb" was presented in Saint Petersburg and lauded by Tolstoy and other reviewers at the time.Fact|date=July 2008

oviet period

Though Bahá'ís had managed to enter various countries of the Eastern Bloc through the 1950s, there is no known Baha'i presence in Ukraine from this period, though the head of the religion at the time, Shoghi Effendi, included Ukraine in a list of places where no Bahá'ís pioneer had been yet in 1952 and again in 1953. [cite book | last = Effendi | first = Shoghi | authorlink = Shoghi Effendi | title = Citadel of Faith | publisher = US Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1980 third printing | year = collected letters from 1947-57 | location = Haifa, Palestine | pages = p. 107 | url = http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/se/CF/cf-9.html#pg107 | isbn = ] [cite book | last = Effendi | first = Shoghi | authorlink = Shoghi Effendi | title = Unfolding Destiny | publisher = UK Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1981 edition | date = collected letters from 1922 - 1957 | location = Haifa, Palestine | pages = p. 318 | url = http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/se/UD/ud-396.html#pg318 | isbn = ]

Ukrainian descendents

There have been several Bahá'í converts from descendants of the Ukrainian diasporas. As early as 1954 Canadian Peter Pihichyn of Ukrainian decent translated Bahá'í literature into Ukrainian and by 1963 a Ukrainian Teaching Committee of the Bahá'í National Spiritual Assembly of Canada produced a bulletin, entitled "New Word". [cite book | last = Effendi | first = Shoghi | authorlink = Shoghi Effendi | title = Messages to Canada | publisher = Bahá’í Canada Publications | date = collected letters from 1923 - 1957 | location = Haifa, Palestine | pages = pp. 202-8 | url = http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/se/MC/mc-209.html#fn7 | isbn = ]

Canadian Bahá'í Mary McCulloch was of Ukrainian decent. After becoming a Bahá'í in 1951 and joining the first Bahá'í Local Spiritual Assembly in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan she was the first pioneer to Anticosti Island in 1956 becoming a Knight of Bahá'u'lláh. In later years she lived in Baker Lake with her family and promoted translation of Bahá'í literature into Inuktitut. She also assisted with translations into Ukrainian. In the 1990s she attended the Observances of the Centenary of the Ascension of Bahá'u'lláh and the Bahá'í World Congress and went on Pilgrimage, and died in 1995. [cite web | last = McCulloch | first = Kenneth | coauthors = includes letters from the Universal House of Justice and National Spiritual Assembly of Canada | title = Obituary of Knight of Bahá'u'lláh Mary Zabolotny McCulloch | work = Essays and Internet Postings | publisher = Bahá'í Academics Resource Library | date = 1996-01-08 | url = http://bahai-library.com/essays/mcculloch.html | accessdate = 2008-04-19]

Inside Ukraine

There is evidence of a Bahá'í Local Spiritual Assembly forming in Ukraine around 1977, and that the Bahá'í Faith started to grow across the Soviet Union in the 1980s. In 1991 a Bahá'í National Spiritual Assembly of the Soviet Union was elected but was quickly split among its former members. In 1992 the Christian Research Institute conducting an informal survey including "Which of the sects are creating the greatest problems?" managed to find a trace of the Bahá'í Faith. [Citation | last = Carden | first = Paul | editor-last = Miller | editor-first = Elliot | title = Cults Gaining Ground in Eastern Europe, Former USSR | periodical = Christian Research Journal | pages = p. 5 | volume= 1993 | issue= Winter | url = http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/text/cri/cri-jrnl/web/crj0122a.html] In April 1991, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldavia formed a regional National Spiritual Assembly — in 1995 Belarus established a separate National Assembly, and in 1996 Moldova did the same, leaving Ukraine having its own National Spiritual Assembly. [cite web | last = Hassall | first = Graham | coauthors = Universal House of Justice | title = National Spiritual Assemblies statistics 1923-1999 | work = Assorted Resource Tools | publisher = Bahá'í Academics Resource Library | url = http://bahai-library.org/asia-pacific/Notes%20on%20Research/national_spiritual_assemblies.htm | accessdate = 2008-04-02 ]

Modern community

In 2007 the numbers of the Bahá'í community in Ukraine totals about 1000 people, with 12 Bahá'í communities in 2001, [cite web | url = http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2001/5708.htm Ukraine | title = International Religious Freedom Report | year = 2001 | date = 2001-10-26 | accessdate = 2008-04-19 | author = Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor | publisher = United States State Department] and 13 in 2004.cite web | url = http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35491.htm Ukraine | title = International Religious Freedom Report | year = 2004 | date = 2004-09-15 | accessdate = 2008-04-19 | author = Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor | publisher = United States State Department] In February 2008 the Ukrainian government rose in support of a declaration by the President of Slovenia on behalf of the European Union on the deteriorating situation of the Bahá'ís in Iran. [cite press release
title = Declaration by the Presidency on behalf of the European Union on the deteriorating situation of the religious minority Baha’i in Iran
publisher = Office of the Slovenian Presidency of the European Union
date = 2008-02-07
url = http://www.eu2008.si/en/News_and_Documents/CFSP_Statements/February/0207MZZ_Baha.html
accessdate = 2008-05-24 ] See Persecution of Bahá'ís.

ee also

*Religion in Ukraine
*Religion in Russia
*Religion in the Soviet Union
*Bahá'í Faith in Moldova
*Bahá'í Faith in Kazakhstan

References

*An extensive archive of materials in Russian exists, referenced at [http://bahaiarc.narod.ru/aboutbahai.htm Bibliography of articles and books in Russian on the Baha'i Faith in various editions] .
*Some online content is at [http://www.bahai-library.com/russian/ Bahá'í Academics Resource Library] in Russian.

External links

* [http://bahai.ua/ Bahá'í Community of Ukraine] :* [http://bahai.kiev.ua/index_en.html Bahá'í Community of Kyiv] (in English.)
* [http://www.bahai.az/ The Bahá'í Community of Azerbaijan]
* [http://www.bahai.by/ The Bahá'í Faith in Belarus] :* [http://www.bahai.by/minsk_en.html Bahá'ís of Minsk] :* [http://www.bahai.by/vitebsk_en.html Baha’i Community in Vitebsk] :* [http://www.bahai.by/byprayer.html Bahá'í Prayers in Belarussian]
* [http://bahaitiraspol.narod.ru/ The Bahá'í Faith in Tiraspole] , Moldova
* [http://www.cis.ru/~bahain/index.html The Baha'i Community Novosibirskaya] (Novosibirsk Oblast).
* [http://ulanbahai.narod.ru/ Bahá'í Community of Ulan-Ude]
* [http://bahai.ru The Bahá'ís of Russia] :* [http://www.axios.narod.ru/ Axios Education Centre] with William Hatcher. :* [http://www.onecountry.bahai.ru/ On Country] in Russian:* [http://personal.primorye.ru/arka/ "Bahai Herald" from Vladivostok] :* [http://bahaiarc.narod.ru/ Bahá'í Archives in Russian]