Russia’s government is systematically persecuting Christian and other faith communities in occupied regions of Ukraine, United States lawmakers have been told. Source: OSV News.
“My parents lived through the Soviet Union, and they say conditions today in Russian-occupied Ukraine are worse for believers than they were in Soviet times,” said Mark Sergeev, a Ukrainian military chaplain and worship leader who served as youth pastor of Melitopol Christian Church until that city’s seizure by Russian troops.
Mr Sergeev testified about his own experiences fleeing Russian persecution on July 24 before the US Helsinki Commission in Washington.
Also known as the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the independent federal commission was founded in 1976 to uphold the principles of the nonbinding 1975 Helsinki Accords, which sought to ease Cold War tensions through acceptance of the post-World War II order in Europe.
Mr Sergeev – whose great-grandfather was killed for his faith under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin – recounted to the commission how in March 2022 he was pulled from his house by Russian troops.
Sergeev said his father, the church’s senior pastor, was given 72 hours by the soldiers “to record a video in the front of the church building (saying) that this is already Russian territory, and Putin is our president.”
The soldiers threatened that for every day his father delayed in making the video, they would cut off one of his fingers.
Sergeev told the commission it was “God’s miracle that (the Russian soldiers) did not come back with their knives” — but the troops took over the church building, tearing down the 40-foot cross in front of it and installing a Russian flag.
Joining Mr Sergeev in testifying was Steven E Moore, founder of the Ukraine Freedom Project who launched the website RussiaTorturesChristians.org to highlight persecution of Christians in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.
Mr Moore told the commission that the Russian Orthodox Church “is not a church as we would think of one, but it’s a working arm of the Kremlin”.
Mr Moore recounted several cases of Ukrainian pastors being beaten and tortured by Russian agents and officials, stressing that “most Ukrainian Christians can’t speak out”, even when abroad, as their family members are threatened with violence by Russian officials.
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Russia’s government persecutes Christians in occupied Ukraine, experts testify to US lawmakers (By Gina Christian, OSV News)
