Sunday Adelaja

Who is Sunday Adelaja?

Sunday Adelaja is the founder and senior pastor of the Embassy of God, an evangelical-charismatic megachurch in Kiev, Ukraine. He immigrated to the USSR and Belarus as a scholarship student from Nigeria in 1986 to study journalism. After graduation and the breakdown of the USSR, he started several churches that he later handed over to other pastors before he moved from Belarus to Ukraine in December 1993.

After moving to Ukraine, he started a large network of churches known as the Embassy of God Church. The church is also active in Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Moldova, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, the United States and Uzbekistan.

Adelaja has faced criticism from local groups, other Ukrainian Evangelical churches, the Eastern Orthodox Church and from foreign-based Christian countercult organisations as well as accusations of involvement in fraud.