The Bible tells Christians to analyze the past. “Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years…,” writes the author of Deuteronomy 8:2.
Keeping this in mind, we gladly look back on 2021 as the year of God’s help and presence.
This past year, REALIS continued to work on three main fronts: research, education, and Christian counseling. Our main task, as always, is to understand the Bible and contemporary culture. The goal of our efforts is to give Christians tools for implementing their theology in practice and to help all people understand the usefulness of Christian ideas for both individuals and society as a whole.
So, what did we do in 2021?
Research
• REALIS continues to take part in several international research projects, regularly collaborating with researchers from 15 countries and five continents.
• In 2021, REALIS completed the second stage of the “Building Forgiveness Around the World” international research project. Over 800 Ukrainian residents participated, many of whom made the journey from emotional pain to forgiveness.
What are our plans for 2022? We hope to implement the third stage of the “Building Forgiveness” project, which will encompass at least 1600 participants. Additionally, we are working on a project titled “The Role of the Church in Improving Societal Dialogue.”
Education
• REALIS offered three educational programs in 2021 with eight lecturers: four from REALIS and four from the U.S. and U.K. The classes were mostly (but not exclusively) online, which allowed us to accept international students from six other countries and four continents, though most of REALIS’s students are still from Ukraine.
• The new Christian Counseling cohort comprises 20 students, not only from Ukraine, but from the U.S., Turkey, and Kazakhstan as well.
• Twelve students graduated with a certificate from the “Leadership in Ministry” program. Six of them have continued on to an advanced level in the same program.
• The EAAA accreditation commission has marked the programs “Theology and Digital Culture” and “Leadership in Ministry” as candidates for accreditation at the master’s level.
What are our plans for 2022? We hope to gather new cohorts for our four existing programs and a new one. This new program, dedicated to Christianity, Work & Society, will be conducted in partnership with the Latvian Bible Center. We continue to work on accrediting all of our programs.
Counseling
• Our Christian counseling department, comprising five employees, spent 685 hours in counseling sessions, both in-person and online.
• The total number of clients in 2021 was 80.
Outreach and Publications
• The results of the “Reaching Forgiveness” research project were summarized in a scientific paper co-authored by REALIS Director Sergiy Tymchenko in the international scientific journal “Psychology of Religion and Spirituality,” published by the American Psychological Association. You can find it here.
• REALIS has begun collaborating with scholars from several European countries on researching the role of the church in societal dialogue, and with colleagues all over the world on the challenges facing the church in the 21st century.
• Representatives from REALIS presented at two international scientific conferences: Sergiy Tymchenko at the European Leadership Forum and Anastasia Salnikova at an event hosted by the American Association of Political Sciences.
• REALIS’s Educational Programs Coordinator Andriy Meleshko published an article titled “Mission in Creation” in the anthology “EcoHodos: Eco-thelogy, Mission, and Leadership.”
• REALIS began co-authoring a monograph with other researchers titled “Churches in Ukraine: Facing the Challenges of Digitalization”
Library
• In 2021, we completed renovations in our new library building in the village of Vorzel (Kyiv oblast). The new building is three times larger than the previous one.