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” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Locked Faith • October 9, 2022
Masked soldiers seize Mariupol pastor and wife | Locked Faith
Church members and relatives have been unable to find out who is holding Council of Churches Baptist Pastor Leonid Ponomaryov and his wife Tatyana, where and why. Armed and masked men in military uniform seized them on 21 September from their home in Russian-occupied Mariupol. Neighbours “distinctly heard groans and cries” as the masked men took them away “in an unknown direction”, local Baptists said. Military personnel searched and sealed Ponomaryov’s Baptist Church. Russian officials had initially claimed the couple had been involved in “extremist activity”.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Locked Faith • October 7, 2022
Russia sentences three Ukrainian Jehovah’s Witnesses to six years for ‘threatening state security’ by discussing the Bible | Locked Faith
A Russian occupation ‘court’ in Sevastopol has sentenced three Jehovah’s Witnesses to six years’ imprisonment purely for practising their faith. Volodymr Maladyka, Volodymyr Sakada and Yevhen Zhukov were clearly not expecting justice from the ‘court’, and, according to human rights defender and Graty correspondent, Lutfiye Zudiyeva, each had arrived with a packed bag in anticipation of arrest. The sentences can, and will, be appealed, but thus far almost all sentences against believers in occupied Crimea have involved long prison sentences, with all left unchanged at appeal.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Locked Faith • December 9, 2021
“Russian House” was opened in a captured Mormon meeting house in the occupied Donetsk | Locked Faith
Russian-backed military formations have opened the “Russian House” Center for Russian Culture in Donetsk with the participation of Russian Parliament deputy Viktor Vodolatskyi. The institution was placed in a building that, before the beginning of the Russian aggression, was the meeting house of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons).
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Locked Faith • October 25, 2021
Six-year sentence for reading the Bible in Russian-occupied Crimea | Locked Faith
A Russian-controlled ‘court’ in occupied Crimea has sentenced 49-year-old Igor Schmidt to six years’ imprisonment for practising his faith as a Jehovah’s Witness. This was labelled ‘organizing the activities of an extremist organization’ under Article 282.2 § 1 of Russia’s criminal code. The verdict on 22 October is the fourth such ‘conviction’ for reading the Bible and worshipping together in occupied Crimea, with all of them having resulted in 6 or 6.5-year real prison terms. This is a level of repression far worse than in Russia, where convictions are predetermined, but suspended sentences common. It is especially disturbing since there are currently twelve other believers facing virtually identical charges, and this figure is increasing all the time.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Locked Faith • August 25, 2021
Russia moves to prohibit Orthodox Church of Ukraine services in occupied Crimea | Locked Faith
A Russian-controlled ‘court’ in occupied Crimea has fined the Head of the St. Demetrius of Thessaloniki Men’s Monastery for holding a church service on the private land on which the monastery stands. Russia, which is internationally condemned for its illegal occupation of Ukrainian Crimea, claimed that such worship constituted ‘unlawful missionary activities’.
” alt=”” class=”has-border-color has-palette-color-5-border-color wp-image-479″ style=”border-width:1px” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px” />Christianity Today • May 7, 2019
Russian Evangelicals Penalized Most Under Anti-Evangelism Law
So far this year, Russian authorities interrupted a Baptist worship service in April and charged its 71-year-old pastor with illegal missionary activity. In January, two Baptists were punished for discussing their faith at a bus stop.
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