With the eyes of the world now fixed firmly on the new military offensive by Ukraine and the aftermath of the Kakhovka dam breach, Russia’s ongoing campaign to persecute and shut down non-Orthodox churches in the occupied regions shows no sign of stopping.
Respected US think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, has announced the following recent events: ‘Russian forces have shut down another Ukrainian evangelical Christian church in Mariupol, probably as part of a wider systematic religious persecution campaign in occupied Ukraine. Ukrainian Mariupol Mayoral Advisor, Petro Andryushchenko, reported that Russian forces seized the Ukrainian Christian Evangelical Church of the Holy Trinity in Mariupol and are using it to house 10 to 30 Russian servicemen.
Protestants suffer two-thirds of all of the reported religious repression events in occupied Mariupol. Russian occupation officials most commonly persecute members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Protestants, particularly evangelical Baptists. ‘Russian authorities are forcibly integrating Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) dioceses in occupied Zaporizhia Oblast as part of a wider religious persecution campaign in occupied Ukraine. Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill and the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) announced the adoption of the Berdyansk and Prymorsk UOC dioceses into the ROC in May. The ROC claimed that Berdyansk and Prymorsk dioceses, clergy, and parishioners voted to join the ROC after UOC leadership “abandoned” the dioceses.’
