For a couple of years already CCX has started each new school year with the “Month of Faith and Science” project. This year was no exception! During September-October, Christian students from Kyiv, Kharkiv and Lviv organized a series of public lectures with Michael Green , a famous theologian and a Anglican priest; Darryl MacCarthy, vice-President of European Leadership Forum; and Kosta Milkou, PhD and Master of Arts from Oxford.
Telling about the trustworthiness of the New Testament, Michael Green was able to uncover the essence of the Gospel, clearly showing the difference between Christianity and other religions: without telling about Christ the history of the New Testament makes no sense. “Why does faith in Allah contradicts Christianity?”, “Which is the oldest New Testament manuscript?”, “Why don’t Christians acknowledge the Gnostic Gospels?” – these were only a few of the questions that Michael Green addressed after his lecture.
Darryl MacCarthy held lectures in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Lviv on rather non-standard topics like “Murder, Mystery and Sеx: Sellers of World Classic Literature”, “Trends in Modern Education”, “Books that Change Lives” and others. In every lecture Darryl showed how Scripture and its translations influenced the development of humanity on the whole and literature in particular. Thanks to Darryl MacCarthy, CCX Kharkiv centers were able to start their activity in the Law Academy. Previously its administration held a negative attitude towards our ministry and gave no permission to arrange any events there. Darryl’s lectures were the first event we could do there officially and showed who we are. Darryl MacCarthy impressed the administration and the students with his lectures of the literary nature of the Bible to such an extent that we were granted permission to hold our coming events in the academy officially. Darryl McCarthy’s lectures in Kharkiv helped us find more Christian students and teachers who got interested in CCX’s ministry.
Renowned scholar on Orthodoxy and Protestantism Kosta Milkou was able to talk academically with non-believing students, reaching them with the beauty of faith with no regard to denomination, uniting Orthodoxy and Protestantism. His speeches were also apologetic as he spoke of the Gospel to students. He was in two universities in Odessa (Mechnikova and Christian), led a “Living Library” event in Odessa, and gave lectures at East-European Leadership Forum and three Kyiv universities (Linguistic, Polytechnic and Dragomanova).
All in all, the project’s lectures were attended by about 900 students and many of them got interested in Christianity and CCX. After the “Month of Faith and Science” in Dragomanova University we managed to start a club “Uncovering Christianity” that has welcomed more than 100 students over the last month. Students from other universities started to come too. The “Month of Faith and Science” was a mighty push for opening new CCX chapters in Kharkiv and Odessa. We are thankful to all who became a part of this project.