Key points:
- The Rev. Yulia Starodubets is a General Conference delegate from the Ukraine-Moldova Provisional Conference.
- She and her husband have joined other United Methodists in working with internally displaced persons since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
- At General Conference, she has made clear her and her Ukrainian colleagues’ commitment to The United Methodist Church.
The Rev. Yulia Starodubets came to the United Methodist General Conference from Ukraine, which is more than two years into a grinding war with Russia.
Because commercial air travel in her country remains impossible, her husband, the Rev. Oleg Starodubets, drove her to Budapest, Hungary. From there she flew to Munich, then on to Charlotte for the church lawmaking assembly that began April 23 and concludes May 3.
Starodubets said she is glad to be a General Conference delegate for the Ukraine-Moldova Provisional Conference, and serves on both the Committee on Reference and the Committee on Faith and Order.
“It’s more peaceful, more friendly,” she said of this General Conference, her third.
General Conference photos
But the war is never far from her thoughts, and she’ll soon return to the work she, her husband and other Ukrainian United Methodists are doing with internally displaced persons.
“We have mothers of killed soldiers,” she said. “All families have their own special story. All of them experienced tragedy.”
United Methodists in Ukraine have inspired many in the church with their mission-minded response to the war, and Starodubets and her husband have a fan in Nordic-Baltic Area Bishop Christian Alsted.
“They are excellent and committed leaders,” Alsted said. “I have the highest admiration for them, how they’re able to do ministry under these circumstances, the stress they’re under.”
Starodubets arrived in the U.S. on April 18, five days before General Conference convened. She was chosen to read Scripture at the pre-General Conference orientation for central conference delegates.
And late on the first day of General Conference, she learned that the U.S. Senate had given congressional approval for a $95 billion aid package to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. President Biden signed the measure the following day. About $61 billion will go to Ukraine.
“When it was approved, we were happy,” she said. “Actually, many of my friends posted in Facebook, ‘God bless you, USA, for the decision.’”
Not long before leaving for the U.S., Starodubets had another emotional lift. She, her husband and fellow United Methodists — including Alsted — gathered April 7 in the village Kamyanitsa, near the western Ukrainian city of Uzhhorod, for the dedication of a new United Methodist center for internally displaced persons.
A $1.5 million grant from the United Methodist Committee on Relief made possible the purchase of a former hotel that will, once certified, have a mission beyond housing.
“We all see it as a rehabilitation center in the future,” Starodubets said. “We want to receive people with physical and psychological trauma.”
Alsted noted that Starodubets is a pediatrician as well as a clergywoman. Indeed, she’s currently teaching remotely for a medical school in Kyiv.
“She will have an important role in relation to this center,” Alsted said. “She’s one of those in the church who will have real expertise in this (rehabilitation) area.”
The United Methodist Church remains small in Ukraine, with 10 faith communities. But Alsted said an established church outside Kyiv has asked to join the denomination, and a new United Methodist faith community for Ukrainian refugees is forming in Berlin.
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Starodubets is looking forward to a July summer camp that United Methodists are putting on in Ukraine — the first since the double challenge of the pandemic and the war.
She’s seen a revival of interest in religion during the war.
“People who didn’t pray before, they’re praying,” she said.
At General Conference, Starodubets is supporting regionalization, one of the key agenda items.
“Regionalization will allow us to live according to our beliefs and our culture but still be in connection,” she said.
One development at General Conference has had Starodubets having to answer questions.
On April 25, delegates approved autonomous status for four Eurasian annual conferences led by Russia-based Bishop Eduard Khegay. The departures will be effective next year.
Ukraine had been part of Khegay’s area, but, amid the tensions of war, came under Alsted’s supervision in April 2022.
Not everybody at General Conference is clear about that.
“Many people asked me, ‘Are you leaving?’ No, we’re not. We’re a United Methodist church,” Starodubets said.
Alsted has seen that identification strengthen.
“I think what they have experienced in this war, the support they have received from The United Methodist Church, not least through UMCOR but also through a number of churches and individuals — it’s just made such an impression,” he said. “They suddenly experienced that they had a whole denomination behind them. They experienced the power of the connection.”
Hodges is a Dallas-based writer for United Methodist News. Contact him at 615-742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free Daily or Weekly Digests.
