Persecution grows in rebel-held regions of Ukraine

In parts of Ukraine taken over by separatist, pro-Russian rebels, persecution continues to escalate against anyone who does not belong to the Russian Orthodox Church.

Rebel soldiers in Donetsk have ransacked or taken over Jehovah’s Witness halls, Baptist churches, and Church of Christ buildings, according to Al Jazeera America. It’s all part of a conflict that has merged religious and national identities in the rebels’ bid to take over southeastern Ukraine. Rebels say the land is Russian Orthodox. One battalion of separatists even calls itself the Russian Orthodox Army. The result has been not only war, but persecution of Christians, Jews, Muslims, and other religious people.

Church of Christ elder Leonid Krezhanovsky told Al Jazeera the situation is reminiscent of life under the Soviet Union when religion was not allowed, only “communism and atheism.” He has urged remaining Christians to be cautious about speaking publicly about religion or politics.

Tens of thousands of refugees have fled from places like Donetsk, including half of Krezhanovsky’s congregation. The UN estimates more than 900,000 people have been displaced. Without use of his church, Krezhanovky holds multiple crowded Sunday services in the homes of congregation members, Al Jazeera reported.

ATOCrimea.org, a website supplying information about the war through a partnership between Ukraine’s National Information Agency and its National Security and Defense Council, compared the “orthodox extremism” to Rome’s persecution of early Christians. Priests in Ukraine have been forced to flee for their lives and 40 of Donetsk’s 58 religious communities have had to gather in homes or stop worshiping altogether.

Mykhailo Panochko, senior bishop of the Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith, told ATOCrimea that separatists were calling Protestants living in Donbas “agents of the U.S.A.” Late last year, rebels closed a Jewish synagogue and much of the Jewish community fled, Christian Today reported.

“Leaders of the separatist movement in Donbas … accept evangelical churches as those which are supposedly financed by the West for spying and closely cooperate with the U.S, and the EU,” Oleksandr Zaiets, head of Kiev’s Institute for Religious Freedom, told Christian Today.

Since the war began in April 2014, at least 5,600 people have been killed. France and Germany brokered a cease-fire deal signed Feb. 15, 2015, but it hasn’t stopped the fighting. Just days later, separatist rebels supported by Russia took control of Debaltseve, Ukraine. Russia denies sending weapons or support to fighters in Ukraine. Reuters reported last week that fighting, with gunfire from both sides, continued in the Spartak district of Donetsk, but the cease-fire was “broadly holding in the rest of the region.”

With fighting on hold, some fear the persecution will only intensify.

“We are unfavorable to the current rebel regime,” Krezhanovsky said. “It’s becoming worse, and I predict it will continue to get worse, because this war does not look like it will end soon.”