Pro-Russian forces are closing down churches and arresting pastors in the occupied territories of the war-torn Ukraine, Christian Today is reporting.
The newspaper said at the last count, the three largest evangelical Protestant churches in Melitopol have been shut by the forces.
Melitopol Christian Church, Grace Baptist Church, and Kurchatov Church were shut at different times.
The about 1,000-seater Melitopol Christian Church was shut after which the building was turned into “cultural sports entertainment complex.”
On September 11, Grace Baptist Church was in the middle of worship when the Russian troops invaded the church and forced the worshippers to end their service.
Christian Today quoted Hyun Sook Foley of Release Partner Organisation Voice of Martyrs, as saying that the troops asked the pastor of the church to leave Melitopol.
She said, “They entered the sanctuary while the congregation was singing a hymn, halted the worship service, registered the names of all present and detained several ministers.”
On September 21, in a village called Chkalovo near Melitopol, the forces shut a church while service was in progress. One of the soldiers reportedly told the worshippers that “Your feet will not be here after referendum. We have only one faith.”
In the port city of Mariupol in the Donestsk region, which was annexed by Russia on October 5, some mask-wearing soldiers reportedly detained the pastor of Kurchatove Church, Lenoid Ponomaryov and his wife, Tatyana, raided their residence and sealed off the church.
According to the report, churches in the region were searched and shut while clerics and other religious leaders were asked to sever ties with Ukrainian religious bodies.
The Lysychansk Christian Church in the Lysychank region was also taken over by the Russian forces who threw the books from the library, including Bibles, into a neighbouring compound.
Paul Robinson, the Chief Executive Officer of Release International, says the troops’ action did not come to him as a surprise.
“They have been doing the same since they seized and illegally annexed Crimea in 2014. This has set the pattern for what has followed,” Robinson said.
According to him, the persecution of Ukrainian Christians in the affected regions is driving them underground.
“In Crimea and other occupied territories, they have raided places of worship, closed churches, banned missionary activity, fined people for leading worship meetings, seized religious literature and forced religious communities to re-register with the state, refusing re-registration to the vast majority,” Christian Today further quoted Robinson.
“And now we are seeing churches raided, sealed and shut down, and the disappearance and detention of pastors in the occupied areas.
“Ukrainian Christians have been here before. They are being driven back to the underground churches of the Soviet era. Yet the message of history should be clear to Russia: The Christian faith has survived 70 years of Soviet totalitarian rule, and it thrives today in China under similar conditions. Persecution can only strengthen the church.”