The founding of the first Ukrainian Pentecostal church in New York City took place on July 1, 1919.
In 1917, Ivan Efimovich Voronaev moved to New York City to accept the pastorate of a small Russian Baptist congregation. Two years later in the month of June, Voronaev’s daughter, Vera, was Spirit-baptized and spoke in tongues while attending Glad Tidings Tabernacle, an Assemblies of God church, with a friend.
Voronaev met Robert Brown, the pastor of Glad Tidings, and studied the biblical record about the giving of supernatural spiritual gifts during the early church.
The most famous passage about this phenomenon is found in the Book of Acts, written by Luke. In chapter 2, Luke describes what happened when the day of Pentecost came:
“They were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” The disciples could all of a sudden speak and understand each others’ languages. It was a giddy experience. “Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? Then, how is it that each of us hears them in our native language?”
Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” Voronaev started to asked what did this mean for him in 20th Century New York City.
He became convinced that the experience of the Pentecostals at Glad Tidings showed that the filling of the Holy Spirit was till taking place. Voronaev prayed and received a similar experience in the summer of 1919.
Relatively quickly, Voronaev and about 20 others formed a new Pentecostal congregation — the Russian Christian Apostolic Mission in New York. They met together at 735 6th Street in the Emanuel Presbyterian Church, which had a history of serving immigrants, particularly from Germany.
Today, this church under the name of The Father’s Heart Ministries at 545 E 11th St has a strong ministry to the homeless in the East Village. It operates Alphabet Scoop, an ice cream shop, to prepare youth for the job market.
Several months later at a home prayer meeting, Voronaev received a prophetic message, “Voronaev, Voronaev. Go to Russia!”
Pentecostalism goes overseas to Ukraine and Soviet Union
By this time, the Bolsheviks had taken over Russia and declared the founding of the Soviet Union. They were not very friendly to religion, seeing it as a rival to their own movement. Still, the turmoil meant millions of people were trying to find a guide star through the times. Several members of the Russian Mission felt convicted that they needed to spread the news of the gospel and the spirit-filled life back in their original countries. The Voronaevs and a group of church members prepared to return to Ukraine in 1919. To support the effort, they joined the relatively new Pentecostal denomination, the Assembly of God, renaming their church the First Russian Assembly of New York. Then, Voronaev and his family with some supporters book passage on the ship “Madonna” to sail on July 13, 1920. After some detours, they arrived in Odessa, Ukraine on August 12, 1921.
The situation in Odessa was grim. The civil war and the Communist takeover created the most extreme conditions. The streets of Odessa were filled with the moving shadows of starving people wandering around. Corpses littered the sidewalks. The Bolsheviks made know their hostility toward religion.
Still, the Voronaev group found high receptivity to their message. There were also other Pentecostal evangelists at work in Ukraine. By November under the leadership of Voronaev, the Pentecostals established a new denomination, the Christian Evangelical Faith (Confession). By 1927, they counted over 350 churches with 17,000 members. Voronaev’s Odessa church grew to 1,000 members. However, the rapidly growing movement attracted the fearful attention of the Communists.
On July 6, 1930, Voronaev was among the 800+ Protestant pastors arrested as part of the emerging Great Terror administered by the Bolsheviks to their opponents, real and imagined. In all, tens of millions of Ukrainians and Russians were jailed and put to death. The classic books on this era are: Robert Conquest’s The Great Terror; George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four; and Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon.
Voronaev and his wife disappeared into the gulag prison system in Siberia of the Soviet Union. Their six children (Vera had died) were cast adrift, eventually being rescued by American and British Pentecostals. One son, Paul Voronaev, became known for his persistent criticisms of Communist totalitarianism and persecution of Christians. Perhaps, his most well-known book was Christian under the Hammer and the Sickle, which was originally published in 1935 and was republished in many editions. Surprisingly, Voronaev’s wife survived the Siberian exile and was released in the 1960s to rejoin her family in the United States.
Today, Ukrainian Pentecostal churches are active in supporting the people of their country undergoing a new onslaught, this time by a Russian nationalist dictator.
Dony K. Donev. 2011. The Life and Ministry of Rev. Ivan Voronaev. Spasen Publishers.
