Russia is engaged in a sweeping crackdown against evangelical Christian churches and religious groups in areas of Ukraine it has occupied, part of a campaign by Moscow to assert dominance over the territories and reshape them in its own authoritarian image, according to WSJ.

Ukrainian and US officials along with clergymen report that evangelical pastors have been disproportionately affected in Russian occupied areas, with dozens abducted, tortured, and forced into exile from their hometowns. In one instance, a deacon from a Pentecostal church in Kherson Oblast and his 19-year-old son were found dead in a forest in the fall of 2022 following their arrest by Russian forces.

Ukrainian officials say the Kremlin is deliberately targeting evangelical faiths, which it views as instruments of American cultural influence and opposition to Russia’s control. According to a February report by the International Religious Freedom or Belief Alliance, Russian forces have killed at least 30 Ukrainian clergymen of various faiths and held 26 captive since the invasion began.

Ukrainian officials contrast Russia’s religious repression with their country’s traditions of religious pluralism and freedom of worship. They accuse the Kremlin of reverting to Soviet-era tactics of shuttering churches and jailing clergymen.

Underground evangelicals

In the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, a pastor’s evangelical church was raided during a service by Russian troops in September 2022. The building was later taken over, adorned with murals glorifying dead Russian fighters, and converted into a culture ministry promoting pro-Moscow propaganda.

“You don’t run a church. You run a nest of American spies,” Russian soldiers told the evangelical pastor Mykhailo Brytsyn after interrogating him for hours.

For Brytsyn, whose century-old church was seized by the Soviet government in 1939 and again in 1946, its recent conversion into a monument to Russia’s war signifies a full return to its troubled past.

“The devil has not changed his face, or his goals,” said the pastor, now helping other evangelicals persecuted in occupied areas. “They’ve learned nothing from history.”

Some evangelical churches have continued operations by pledging allegiance to the Russians, while others, including Brytsyn’s church and those in the villages around Melitopol, meet secretly in private homes. They conceal Bibles and instruments whenever Russian patrols are suspected nearby.

“We have gone underground,” said one minister now leading secret prayer services.

Related:

• Why Ukrainian-American Evangelicals don’t lobby for Ukraine
• Obey to pray: Russia’s ruthless crackdown on faith in occupied Ukraine
• Melitopol mayor: Moscow relocated at least 100,000 Russians into city since 2022 invasion outset
• Russia destroying churches, persecuting clergy in occupied Ukraine, church leader warns
• Moscow’s labeling of Protestant groups with Latvian and Ukrainian links ‘undesirable’ has other Protestants in Russia worried (2021)
• Russia, other former Soviet republics persecuting Christians, new Notre Dame report says (2017)