A History of Lutheranism in Ukraine 16th to 20th Centuries

Abstract

After a brief history of Ukraine, Mark Rohrback follows the threads of Lutheranism in Ukraine. He starts with the ripple effect of the Reformation from Lutherans coming in from Poland and how the Catholic Counter-Reformation and the Cossack revolts dampened the growth of the church. Also throughout the 16th-19th centuries, many Germans emigrated to Ukraine and brought their Lutheranism with them despite opposition from the Russian state and Orthodox church. Rohrback highlights the work of men like Yarchuk, Sodler, Socinsky, and Shobet in the Ukrainian Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession and also the recent work of the Lutheran church after the fall of the Soviet Union.