The Russian regime is actively persecuting Christians, in Russia itself and in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.
L ate last month, a National Prayer Breakfast was held in Kyiv. The event brought together 1,200 guests from 55 countries around the world.
Among the participants were General Keith Kellogg, U.S. special representative for Ukraine; Mark Burns, American evangelical pastor of the Harvest Faith Center; Elijah Brown, general secretary of the World Baptist Alliance; Edward Graham, executive director of the Samaritan’s Purse organization; and Bob McEwen, chairman of the U.S. National Policy Council.
Also among the participants was Maxim Kulik, a member of the Pentecostal Church. His family was killed in a Russian missile attack in Kryvyi Rih last November. When Kulik recalled his family and recounted everything that had happened to him, many were in tears. Last year, Christians who had suffered from Russia’s actions also attended our prayer breakfast.
This year, the night before the event, a large prisoner exchange took place. We brought two Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests back from Russia. Their names are Bohdan Heleta and Ivan Levitsky. They were serving in Berdyansk, in the parish of the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. On November 16, 2022, occupying Russian forces captured them and since then had kept them in captivity. They beat them up, tortured them, and initiated fake shootings to intimidate them.
It is hard for you to imagine how emaciated they looked. Skinny, with marks of beatings on their faces, practically blind. They were beaten and tortured simply because they were Greek Catholics. Because they were not the right faith for the Russian authorities.
Sadly, this is all too common. The Russian regime is actively persecuting Christians, in Russia itself and in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.
Indeed, hundreds of Protestant ministers and evangelical Christians in Ukraine itself have suffered a fate similar to that of these Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests. Since the beginning of its full-scale invasion, Russia has destroyed 652 churches in Ukraine and killed 67 pastors and priests. The brutal persecution of representatives of various religious communities began back in 2014, right after Russia occupied Crimea and established hybrid control over Donetsk and Lugansk.
People began to be detained, tortured, and physically destroyed for their faith. Thus, in Slavyansk on June 8, 2014, Russian militants shot four members of the Protestant church “Transfiguration of the Lord.”
Alexander Khomchenko, the pastor of the Protestant church, was detained by the Russians and tortured with incredible cruelty by being hoisted on a rack. Khomchenko later died from the torture’s physical toll.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion, all these crimes continued and intensified. Mikhail Britsyn, a presbyter of the Church of Evangelical Christians “Grace” from Melitopol, said that after the occupation of the city, the Russian military tried to induce the clergy to cooperate. But they did not agree. In spring 2023, during the year when Melitopol was occupied, all churches in the city were closed, except for those subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate. The largest Protestant church was taken for an office by the Wagner Group, the private military contractors who do what regular Russian soldiers cannot.
Sergei Anokhin, pastor of the Baptist church “Bethany” from the town of Bucha, hid hundreds of people in the basement of his church during the Buchan massacre. He and his parishioners literally miraculously survived. The Russian soldiers who stormed the church thought they were Orthodox Christians of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Now, more than a hundred Protestant pastors and ministers have been arrested and tortured in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine. The occupiers are also destroying representatives of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, as well as Greek Catholics. In February 2024, it became known that in Kalanchak, in Kherson region, the Russian military tortured local priest Stepan Podolchak. After the occupation, Podolchak had continued to hold services in Ukrainian. The Federal Security Service of Russia repeatedly summoned the priest for a conversation and demanded he go to the Moscow Patriarchate, but he refused. For this, he was tortured to death.
Before the occupation of territories in Zaporizhzhya region, there were more than 20 parishes of the Greek Catholic Church. Now there are only seven. All are in the Ukrainian-controlled part of the region.
The most persecuted are Protestants: Baptists, Pentecostals, Seventh-Day Adventists. The favorite target of the Russian occupiers is Jehovah’s Witnesses, who are completely banned in Russia. The Russian authorities cannot tolerate any dissent and any religious freedom, any impulse to God or to truth, except that which comes from the Moscow Patriarchate.
Ukraine, on the contrary, was and remains a highly religious country that respects the rights of believers. Those religious groups Russia persecutes are free to practice their faith in our country. There is a confessional diversity of registered religious organizations. The largest union of Evangelical Christian Baptists in Europe is in Ukraine. Ukraine is called the “Bible Belt of Europe.”
We are a nation of believing people. According to a nationwide survey, the number of believers in Ukraine has grown to 70.5 percent since the beginning of the all-out war in 2022. This figure is one of the highest in Europe — on par with Greece, Montenegro, and Croatia.
There are more than 1 million Protestants in Ukraine. We have complete freedom of religion.
Ukraine is in no way opposed to the parishioners of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (which is still affiliated with Russia) or to its doctrine. The only thing we ask as a state is that legal ties with Russia be severed. The relevant bill was passed last year. The adopted regulations essentially require the UOC to inform Moscow that the UOC is no longer part of the Moscow Patriarchate, as well as to request in writing that its bishops and priests be removed from the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. That is all that is required. This is the only thing the state is asking for under the law passed last year.
At the same time, we are glad that there are many people in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church who truly serve Ukraine and fight for our country. We respect and love them as we do any other Christians. At our National Prayer Breakfast, there were parishioners of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church — military and public figures.
There are accusations that you have heard from Tucker Carlson that Ukraine is allegedly arresting priests of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. So, in our country, the rule of law prevails, and if someone works against the country by helping the enemy, they will be punished regardless of their position.
In total, since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine, according to the Security Service of Ukraine, more than 180 criminal proceedings have been initiated on the facts of illegal activities of clergymen of the UOC (MP). Among the clergymen against whom investigations have been initiated, there are 23 bishops. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, 38 clergymen of the UOC (MP) have already been sentenced by the court.
At the same time, there are 9,000 priests of the UOC (MP) serving in the country. At the same time, there are 9,000 priests of the UOC (MP) serving in the country. 180 criminal cases have been opened against 9,000 people, and only against those who actually worked for Russia. What persecution are we talking about?
Based on these facts, you can understand for yourself how much truth there is in Tucker Carlson’s words. He interviewed Putin, the dictator who attacked Ukraine, with basically no pushback.
Once again, we love and respect the UOC. The only thing we ask is to sever legal ties with Russia. Because otherwise, the UOC acts as a branch of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine. The very same Patriarchate that blesses the killing of Ukrainians.
The Russian Orthodox Church also supports religious persecution. It supports Russia’s war against Ukraine. On March 27, 2024, the cathedral congress of the World Russian People’s Council declared the war waged by Russia against Ukraine and the West “sacred.” At the same time, it “blessed” the killing of Ukrainians.
Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, claimed that Ukraine is a pro-Western state and that Russia is a holy country. Is it holy to torture, kidnap, kill and rape Christians and Christian ministers in Ukraine, as Russian soldiers have done?
Russia uses religion as a tool of political influence. Patriarch Kirill recently thanked God for creating the Oreshnik missile. Any churches that carry a different ideology are “accomplices of the enemy” for Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin. This is especially true of Ukrainian Protestants and Catholics. According to Russian authorities, such people have ties to the West. They are simply considered foreign spies and then imprisoned at best and shot at worst. To Moscow, they are enemies.
For Ukraine, enemies are any country or group of people that oppresses faith in God, restricts freedom of open worship, and authorizes the bombing of innocent families for teaching their children to love God and love their neighbor as themselves.
I express my support for our brothers and sisters who, like Ukraine, are suffering at the hands of oppressors. There is such an enemy on every continent. He wants to persecute and destroy us because we believe in God, our country, and the principles of freedom that are realized through our faith.
Ukraine is meeting this enemy face to face. We will not submit. And not only because of our patriotism. We will fight because our faith in God demands it.
The freedoms and religious liberties we have won in the past should not be given up because Putin decided to invade our country. If we give up our land, as many are calling for, we are essentially abandoning our brothers in Christ who are left there, suffering. We will not give up our religious freedoms.
Remember us as we remember you.
Pray for us as we pray for you.
We followers of God are one people, and we need each other.