Manual on PR for churches 'Church and Media: Seven Steps Towards Understanding' Presented in Kyiv

On February 16, in Kyiv, a roundtable discussion “Will PR help the Church?” was held at St. Thomas Aquinas Institute of Religious Studies in Kyiv, during which the manual on PR for churches “Church and Media: Seven Steps Towards Understanding” was presented.

The discussion was attended by the Director of the Religious Information Service of Ukraine (RISU) Taras Antoshevskyi, Director of St. Thomas Aquinas Institute of Religious Studies Fr. Wojciech Surówka, representatives of other organizations, journalists, and analysts. Journalist and teacher at the Ukrainian Catholic University Otar Dovzhenko acted as the moderator at the event. The event was organized by RISU and St. Thomas Aquinas Institute of Religious Studies.

Director of RISU, Taras Antoshevskyi stressed that church press services and priests need to learn to communicate with journalists. “Journalists who intend to write about the church often do not know whom to approach, how to address priests properly, and priests make no steps toward media,” said Antoshevskyi. He is convinced that the manual published by RISU will help church press services engage in professional work.

“It is simply a good manual on journalism. It is also a good manual on church media, interaction between the church and society and secular media. It presents in a professional way everything one should know without unnecessary meditations and complicated words,” commented Ukrainian theologian and philosopher Yurii Chornomorets, Ph.D.  

The manual was compiled by the PR manager of the Kana magazine Svitlana Babynska, Deputy Chief Editor of the Credo magazine Yulia Zavadska, Development Director of RISU Mariana Karapinka, and Coordinator of RISU training programs Olena Kulyhina.