Linguistic Gap Analysis

Most Romans concepts have a settled Ukrainian equivalent thanks to the Ohienko translation tradition; the real gaps fall into two categories distinctive to Ukrainian: Reformation-specific compound doctrines absent from all three majority traditions, and terms requiring a deliberate Ukrainian-specific form to avoid a Russian-cognate spelling.

Terms requiring compound phrases or explicit definition

• Imputed righteousness (зарахована праведність — “reckoned/credited righteousness”): distinguishes righteousness credited to a believer from righteousness earned (заслужена праведність, explicitly rejected). This entire imputation framework is a specifically Western/Reformation theological category absent from Orthodox and Greek Catholic soteriology alike, and must be taught explicitly rather than assumed.
• Obedience of faith (послух віри): a compound that must resist collapsing into either religious duty (релігійний обов’язок) or ritual observance (дотримання обрядів), both of which risk a praxis-only reading of Christian life common to the majority liturgical traditions.
• Effectual calling / election (дієве покликання / обрання): Reformed predestination categories have no developed parallel in Orthodox or Greek Catholic soteriology and must be introduced carefully, distinguished explicitly from доля/фатум (fate), a strong current in Ukrainian folk fatalism intensified by wartime discourse.

Terms requiring a Ukrainian-specific form rather than a Russian cognate

• Jesus (Ісус, not Иисус): the single-vowel Ukrainian spelling versus the Russian double-vowel spelling is a small orthographic difference with outsized identity significance in the current context, where distinguishing Ukrainian usage from Russian influence carries active cultural and political weight.
• Justification (виправдання, not оправдання): the Ukrainian-specific prefix vy- versus the Russian-cognate o- prefix is the same category of deliberate distinction, applied to a core doctrinal term.
• Gentiles (погани): unlike the milder Russian cognate, the Ukrainian word has drifted further toward a derogatory everyday sense (“bad/wicked people”); this Language Package uses народи (nations/peoples) as a disambiguating alternative in mission-scope contexts where the drift could distort Paul’s meaning.

Gap-filling strategy

Where Ukrainian’s existing Christian vocabulary carries theological freight from one or more of the majority traditions, this Language Package prefers using the existing term with explicit clarifying context over avoiding it; and wherever a genuine Ukrainian-specific form exists alongside a Russian-influenced alternative, this Language Package always prefers the Ukrainian-specific form.