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All across Russian-occupied Ukraine, soldiers are shutting down places of worship that don't fit the world Vladimir Putin wants to build.
After they beat Azat Azatyan so bad blood came out of his ears; after they sent electric shocks up his genitals; after they wacked him with pipes and truncheons, the Russians began to interrogate him about his faith. “When did you become a Baptist? When did you become an American spy?” Azat tried to explain that in Ukraine there was freedom of religion, you could just choose your faith. But his torturers saw the world the same way as their predecessors at the KGB did: an American church is just a front for the American state.
Russian soldiers and occupation officials have committed at least 76 acts of religious persecution in Ukraine since the invasion of February 2022 as part of an attempt to destroy national identity, official and church sources said at the International Religious Freedom Summit.
Since the invasion, Evangelical Christians, including Baptists, Pentecostals and Seventh-day Adventists, have suffered greatly, Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights in Ukraine Dmytro Lubinets told participants at the summit, taking place in Washington, D.C., Tuesday and Wednesday.
“The Russian military has repeatedly threatened the total physical elimination of all Evangelical believers, calling them American spies, sectarians and enemies of the Russian Orthodox people,” Lubinets said at a panel discussion on Tuesday. “To kill a person, to demolish a church, the Russians do everything to destroy us as a nation.”
"Many priests, various priests were captured. Or were killed. By the way, they (the Russians) killed 50. And they killed them in different ways. There is all the evidence of how they tortured them," Zelenskyy said.
According to the President, the occupiers tortured priests simply because they were supposed to serve Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church. These priests refused to serve the ROC. For this, the occupiers shot them, Zelenskyy noted.
In addition, Russia destroyed about 700 churches. "They attacked with bombs, attacked with missiles. And where they entered the territory of our state, they simply destroyed. They set these churches on fire," he concluded.
They said we were American spies. Priests describe Russias crackdown on Evangelicals in occupied Ukraine
The Russian military has disproportionately attacked evangelical Christians and “destroyed, damaged, or looted” at least 494 religious buildings, theological institutions, and sacred sites in Ukraine since invading the neighboring nation almost a year ago, according to the Kyiv-based Institute for Religious Freedom (IRF).
Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 — declared a genocide in two major human rights reports by the New Lines Institute and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights — Russia has destroyed at least 660 religious sites representing several faith confessions. Clergy and faithful of various denominations have been expelled, detained, tortured and, in some cases, killed.
originally posted by: xuenchen
What Religion is Zelenskyy and the top government officials? Might be interesting to find out. 😎
originally posted by: berbofthegreen
a reply to: FlyersFan
Sorry, anyone that thinks any "journalist" that is employed by PBS gives a sh_t about Christians is just really a very silly person.
originally posted by: Freeborn
The Russian Orthodox Church is incredibly nationalistic and has long supported extremist Russian nationalists, militia's and their operations.