Anyone moving in Ukrainian religious circles knows the name Sandea “Sunday” Adelaja. He’s the pastor of the largest Protestant church in Ukraine, the Embassy of God, which claims over fifty thousand members. If you tell someone in Kiev that you’re an Evangelical, they’re apt to respond, “You’re a Sunday-ist?” Many, many people have come into the Evangelical church thanks to his work.

Having said that, I’ve never liked nor trusted him. I once attended worship at an Embassy satellite church. The entire service was about money, miracles and prosperity. It was nothing more than Benny Hinn with a Ukr-Nigerian twist. When the Orange Revolution came around, Sunday was pure opportunism, hogging microphones and telling Western media that HE had launched the Revolution. My strong impression has always been that the man is a money-grubbing charlatan. Local religious leaders agreed — in December 2008, Evangelical leaders sent him an open letter calling him to repentance.

So it was with a certain zloradstvo (evil joy) that I heard of his arrest on fraud charges.  Close on the heels of this came incredible sadness for the people he hurt and the damage he’s done to the cause of Christ in Ukraine. According to Ukrainian prosecutors, Sunday bilked millions of dollars from his parishioners, plowing it into a fraudulent corporation — King’s Capital. As one witness reported: “I personally heard you saying at a church meeting ‘who is against King’s Capital is against me personally.’ I saw you bringing a board to the stage and showing in a drawing how to put in pawn a flat and invest in King’s Capital. You did it at each meeting for the last two years. . .”

King’s Capital fell apart, taking the life savings of thousands of Ukrainians with it. Yet Sunday then had sufficient funds to open a bank in Lagos, Nigeria.

Sunday is charged with ‘financial machinations in especially large volume,’ and faces a sentence of 5 to 12 years in prison. If there is justice in this world, he’ll face an even stiffer sentence in the next life.