At the first Meeting for Worship in 2025, Ukrainian Quakers shared good wishes for peace in Ukraine and the world in the new year and rejoiced at the visit of Kristen Richardson, who donated spiritual literature for the library of our religious community. Among the good news, it was noted that serving the society through blood donation has saved human lives, including cancer patients; that the man our friends were worried about is alive and contacted his family; and that the Christian community in Pakistan that we keep in the light has gratefully received the blankets with the help of May-May Meijer and Peace SOS.
In this joyous and hopeful New Year’s season, we must hold in the light those who are suffering because of war and other injustices. The recent report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights revealed evidence of the serious violations of international humanitarian law by the Russian army during the war of aggression in Ukraine, turning occupied territories into a zone of captivity and suffering, as well as the violations of human rights on the Ukrainian side provoked by Russian aggression, including systematic brutal persecution of conscientious objectors to military service. The truth told in the report can be ignored or dismissed by sinful officials because of the state satanism in Moscow and the pride in Kyiv. Therefore, we must loudly repeat this truth so that those in power hear the call of conscience and fulfill their duty to protect human rights. We wish everyone peace and justice in the new year; may truth and love reign in heaven and on earth.
Yurii Sheliazhenko:
Friends, I want to thank Kristen Richardson for her Friendly Visit from the United States of America and the spiritual gifts she brought. Sometimes I really want to get together and have a meeting for worship in person and a Friendly chat. We had a wonderful time in the circle of Friends at the Italian restaurant these days, and it would be good if the whole next year moves in the same spirit of excitement and faith. Thanks to Kristen and the Chatham Summit Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, we received a lot of religious literature and we are opening a Quaker library in Kyiv.
I particularly appreciate Pendle Hill’s pamphlet, “The Fundamental Principle of Quaker Spirituality: Light in the Conscience,” written by David Johnson. He asks, where did the early Quakers who turned the world upside down got the life and power to do such amazing things. And he explains that the first Quakers several centuries ago rediscovered the early Christian experience that we can access Divine guidance through our conscience. In this pamphlet, you can read Paul Lacey’s recollection about how his faith helped him to overcome hesitation and doubt and become a consistent conscientious objector who does not rely on violence to achieve any goal.
In this joyful and hopeful New Year season, I wish you happiness and comfort in your homes and high spirits. We also need to keep in the light those who are going through sufferings due to war and other injustices. As the prophet Isaiah said, 1:17, learn to do good; seek the truth, defend the oppressed.
The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report on human rights violations due to Russian aggression, which describes horrible harms to civilians through the use of aerial bombs, missiles and killer drones, Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, torture and execution of wounded Ukrainians and prisoners of war by the military of the aggressor state, arbitrary detention, torture, rape and execution of civilians in areas of Ukraine occupied by Russian troops, dishonest pseudo-trials, militaristic and hateful indoctrination of children against Ukraine, open robbery by the occupiers. On the cover of this report is a photo of a residential building in Zaporizhzhia, destroyed by the Russians. The report also testifies to systemic violations of human rights in Ukraine provoked by Russian aggression: individual cases of ill-treatment of Russian prisoners of war, imprisonment of civilians for collaboration with Russian occupation authorities despite they were under coercion, persecution of entire religious communities due to exaggerated and not always confirmed sins of individuals. The report highlights violations of the human right to conscientious objection to military service, — imprisonment, inhumane treatment and torture of conscientious objectors. One of the Christians, whose conscience forbids killing, was even threatened with cutting off his genitals. The truth of this report is denied with theatrical anger both in Moscow and in Kyiv: in Moscow because of the state-sponsored satanism, where the sinful is declared to be righteous on a daily basis, imperial brutality falsely presented as “pacifism,” aggression as “defense,” and in Kyiv because of pride, since Ukraine can really be proud of the Government’s respect for international law, but one should not fall into hubris and consider oneself sinless, because pride drowns out the voice of conscience and people begin harming themselves and others with unscrupulous thoughts, words and deeds.
Following Solomon’s Proverbs 31:8, let us open our mouths for those who are silent, for the rights of those in need. Let’s say it, like it is written in the book of Wisdom 1:1, — love justice, you rulers of the earth; think of the Lord in goodness, and seek him in simplicity of heart.
Let’s focus on the light in our conscience and walk in the light. Let there be peace and happiness in every home in the new year.
Kristen Rishardson:
My Friends, I’d like to say how very happy I am and grateful for this opportunity to be here, not only in the same time zone, but in the same city, to worship with you all, despite the cold winter weather and the air raids and the risk of war. I feel nothing but warmth being here among you and the Ukrainian people.
What I’d like to share is that a common problem we have as Friends is that we’re better at speaking about what we don’t do, than what we do. We say: we don’t have ministers; we don’t have fancy churches; we don’t have structured prayers. But describing an absence isn’t really conveying the truth of who and what we are.
We need to be bolder at talking about what we do: the fact that our witness in the world, our testimony are not written words, but our actions.
So, there was someone mentioned in an old lecture, I forget his name, it is sad.
And instead of conscientious objection he preferred to refer to conscientious obligation.
Now, “conscientious objection” is the phrase that is legally recognized.
But if we think about conscientious obligation, what we are obliged to do, rather than what we don’t want to do, it may help guide us, our actions as individual Friends and as a group to help bring about more peace and justice.
Artem Denysov:
Friends, I want to say thank you for your prayers and for upholding in the light Sergiy Herashenko. On the 1st January he had a call with his family after 25 days in ugly places, on a frontline. We still have no news about the second guy, but Sergiy is alive, and I am happy with his family.
Also I had a good news: at the end of 2024, the DonorUA network shared with me information about our donations of blood and platelets, and it became known that Quakers in Ukraine saved approximately 13 lives. We helped people with injuries and those fighting with cancer.
Andrii Vyshnevetsky:
Thank you for your prayers and support, Friends. Now it is difficult with work and you can’t move freely at the streets. I tried to find work online, but it needs learning. When I wrote and called after ads, I came across some fraudsters, for example, online casinos. I need to improve my computer skills, and a battery in my ancient laptop lasts only one hour, I bought it for my daughter to watch cartoons.