The word everything begins with
The second chapter of Acts says that the first Christians continued in the teaching of the apostles, in koinonia, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers. Koinonia (κοινωνία) means shared participation: in faith, in the cup, in responsibility for one another. Saint Paul uses the same word both for the collection of money for the impoverished Church in Jerusalem and for communion in the Body and Blood. In his vocabulary, fellowship and generosity are one word.
We take that literally. A koinonia in the diaspora is not a folk society that appears at Christmas and it is not a service desk. It is people who hold to one faith and one cup while living five or six time zones apart.
What we do
- We keep a reference desk: the calendar, the prayers, a directory of the church structures of the diaspora with their official addresses.
- We explain the differences between jurisdictions and calendars soberly, without campaigning for anyone.
- We publish in five languages, so that children, spouses and neighbours who do not read Ukrainian can read the same texts.
- We collect practical answers to the questions people bring to a parish the first time: how to have a child baptised, how to go to confession, what to do when there is no church nearby.
What we are not
- Not a church jurisdiction: we have no bishop, no priests and no right to celebrate the sacraments.
- Not a charity: we neither collect nor forward money.
- Not a substitute for a parish: everything written here should lead to a living community near you.
- Not the voice of one church party: several structures exist in the diaspora, and we list them all with links to their official sites.
Five principles
- Truth before impression
- We do not write what we cannot support. Where something does not exist, the page says so.
- No money
- The koinonia has no account and will accept no donations. That removes the commonest way of abusing a good name.
- Language does not divide
- Ukrainian is the mother tongue, but a child raised in Madrid and a German wife need the same text in theirs.
- The parish comes first
- Our aim is to bring a person to a priest and to the cup, not to keep them on a website.
- No politics in church dress
- We speak of the war and its pain as something that happened to people, not as material for a party quarrel.
Where we stand
The organisation does not yet exist: there is no registration, no statute, no membership and no governing body. There is an intention, a domain and this site. Hence no forms, no bank details and no figures about the number of communities — until they truly exist.