Charismatic pastor urges “re-baptizing” UOC faithful to sever ties with RF
A Ukrainian Protestant pastor said he considers baptisms in the UOC invalid and called on Orthodox believers to undergo the rite again.
On December 29, 2025, Andriy Tyshchenko, the senior bishop of Ukraine’s charismatic evangelical churches, published a Facebook post urging believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to be baptized again, claiming this was supposedly necessary to “sever ties with the Russian Federation.”
In his post, the pastor addressed Christians “who were baptized in the UOC,” proposing that they undergo a second baptism. As an argument, he cited the Apostle Paul’s words about there being “one baptism.”
In the comments under his post, Tyshchenko questioned the validity of infant baptism, writing: “If you were a three-month-old baby, what could you promise? Nothing. That’s why baptism cannot be considered valid.”
In this way, the pastor effectively rejected the practice of infant baptism accepted in the Orthodox Church, where baptism is performed as a Sacrament in the faith of the Church, rather than on the basis of the baptized person’s personal, conscious promise.
Tyshchenko also said he was ready to take part personally in “re-baptizing” UOC believers, without providing any canonical or theological justification for such actions.
Earlier, the UOJ reported that in Poltava Region, a Protestant cleric was convicted for refusing mobilization.
