Prior to the complete Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022, the Tavrisky Christian Institute (TCI) located in Antonivka, a town situated on the Dnipro River in the Kherson region, possessed one of the most expansive Christian libraries in all of eastern Europe.

Valentyn Syniy, the pastor and rector, stated to VOA that a collaboration with Pioneer Bible Translators from the U.S. has been initiated to commence a Bible translation project for Central Asia. The project has been ongoing since 2014 and has also provided assistance to numerous Ukrainians who were displaced due to the Russian occupation of Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions.

In March of 2022, TCI’s campus was occupied by Russian troops, causing the evacuation of 40 staff members and 300 students. The campus was converted into a military base and items such as computers, equipment, Bibles, and books were looted or destroyed. As the Russian troops retreated from an incoming Ukrainian offensive, the campus was shelled and left in ruins.

According to the Protestant pastor, the Russian soldiers referred to us as “sectarians” and deemed our faith as “false.” Due to the presence of Ukrainian and English books at the seminary, they also labeled us as “Nazis” and “American agents.”

Syniy reported that a number of pastors who chose to remain in the area were arrested and physically abused by the Russian authorities. They were informed that individuals labeled as “sectarians” are not accepted in Russia and could even be subjected to a brutal fate of being buried alive. Additionally, Russia has unlawfully seized control of numerous regions in eastern Ukraine.

Viktor Yelensky, the head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience, reported that since the start of the extensive invasion, the Russian military has been responsible for the deaths of 39 priests, pastors, and monks. Additionally, they have caused destruction, damage, or looting of 640 places of worship, including churches, monasteries, mosques, synagogues, and theological institutions.

According to Yelensky, on February 29, during an online discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the 39th individual to fall victim was a pastor in his late 50s from Kupiansk, a city in the Kharkiv region. He was killed in his Protestant Church of Jesus Christ during a Russian air raid on Kupiansk the day before.

According to him, members of the Russian military intentionally caused the death of numerous priests and pastors. Their focus was on those who were Protestants or belonged to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which they view as competition to the Russian Orthodox Church.

A report from the Ukrainian Institute for Religious Freedom reveals that numerous Ukrainian religious leaders, including priests and pastors, have been apprehended, unlawfully detained, subjected to torture, and expelled from the country. This targeting of Ukrainian Protestants, who represent just 4% of the population, is disproportionate and based on their religious beliefs.

According to the report, evangelical church believers in Ukraine (specifically Pentecostals, Baptists, Adventists, Charismatics, etc.) were disproportionately impacted by the Russian occupation. Russian soldiers frequently made threats of complete annihilation against these believers, labeling them as “American spies,” “sectarians,” and “enemies of the Russian Orthodox people.”

The struggle between two opposing beliefs: individual rights to practice religion freely and limitations imposed on those rights.

Some experts in western religion claim that Ukraine and Russia developed different perspectives on religious freedom after breaking away from the Soviet Union.

Catherine Wanner, a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania in the departments of history, anthropology, and religious studies, stated that Ukraine has adopted a highly permissive and diverse approach to religious freedom. In contrast, Russia has opted to limit and oversee religious practices, granting the Russian Orthodox Church preferential treatment.

According to the US Department of State 2022 Report on International Religious Freedom, since 2014 when Russia invaded Crimea and parts of Donbas, the country has implemented oppressive tactics in Ukraine’s diverse society. These practices include widespread bans in certain regions on minority religious groups, such as evangelical Christians, Roman Catholics, and Greek Catholics.

The other actions involved in these incidents were unlawful confinement, physical harm and missing religious leaders, as well as the intentional ruin or confiscation of religious structures.

Following the extensive invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s military intensified these actions and extended them to other regions under occupation. During a recent discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Borys Gudziak, metropolitan-archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, stated, “Within the occupied territory, there are currently no Catholic priests actively practicing in either the Greek or Latin rite.”

The speaker stated that any religious establishments that do not actively endorse the dominating government will face certain destruction.

Eastern and southern regions of Ukraine, according to Wanner, were known for having a significant Protestant influence. These areas, including Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, which are currently under Russian control, were home to thriving communities of Baptists and evangelical Christians. These communities were mainly established with the assistance of missionaries from the United States.

She mentioned institutions like the Christian university, seminaries, and publishing houses that cater not just to the Protestant communities in Ukraine, but also to those in the wider former Soviet Union.

Role of the Russian Orthodox Church

According to Wanner, the Russian Orthodox Church is not simply watching religious persecution in Ukraine, but is actively working with President Vladimir Putin.

She stated that we are witnessing the emergence of not only Christian nationalism, but also Orthodox nationalism and the Russian Orthodox Church as a vigorous advocate for this conflict.

According to Wanner, this supports the Russian government’s expansionist actions through an ideological perspective.

“According to Wanner, Putin and Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church both believe in the existence of a concept called the ‘Russian world,’ or Ruski Mir, which is based on a shared eastern religious tradition. This creates a historical and spiritual environment that is overseen by the Moscow Patriarchy in a religious aspect, and by the Kremlin in a political and geopolitical aspect.”

During a sermon in 2022, Patriarch Kirill reportedly told Russian soldiers, to whom he was giving a blessing, that dying in an act of aggression in war would absolve them of all their sins.

According to Gudziak, not one of the 300 Orthodox bishops had spoken against the war.

The Ukrainian government claims that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which used to be under the Moscow Patriarchate, is being used by Moscow to control Ukrainian priests and followers in opposition to the Ukrainian state.

According to the State Security Service of Ukraine, also known as the SBU, in late 2023, they filed a total of 68 criminal cases against members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) since the beginning of the war. These charges include treason, collaboration, aiding and abetting a hostile nation, and publicly promoting religious hatred.

Based on the SBU, nearly twenty members of the UOC who possessed Russian passports and promoted pro-Kremlin propaganda regarding the war had their Ukrainian citizenship rescinded.

Patriarch Kirill also alleged that Ukraine was conducting a targeted campaign against the church, including forcibly taking control of churches and using violent force against clergy and believers. He also mentioned falsified criminal charges and pressure from secret services on the hierarchy of the church.

This occurrence was provoked by the Ukrainian parliament’s intention to pass a law that mandates religious groups with connections to the aggressor nation to break those ties.

“We require assistance in order to achieve freedom once more.”

Ukraine’s religious leaders and experts believe that the only solution to restore religious freedom in the occupied territories is to retake control of them under Ukrainian authority.

Syniy stated, “We were able to practice our faith and pursue education without restrictions in Ukraine. Our efforts included training future pastors for the country, and we even had over 200 international students enrolled in our programs. However, our pastors are now facing persecution and imprisonment in the occupied territories. We long to regain our freedom.”

Syniy, whose institution was originally relocated to western Ukraine and is currently making plans to relocate to Kyiv, expressed that he has been hoping and praying for his students and staff to be able to return to Antonivka, rebuild their campus, and carry on their work there.

The speaker stated that they can only go back to their campus near Kherson once that land is freed and there is no longer a threat of Russian bombing. They are requesting assistance from their American counterparts in military, financial, and spiritual forms in order to achieve this goal.

Source: voanews.com