A pacificist evangelical pastor has fled the far east of Russia after being told he would face years in jail if he refused to fight – despite what he says is ‘a constitutional right not to take up arms’.
The church minister, speaking anonymously via a well-placed source, said: ‘Mobilisation of men into the army is taking place and they are being sent to Ukraine. Previously [only] men who had served in the army before and had experience took part in combat action.
‘But the announcement by President Putin on 25 September was a call to everyone, even those who are over age for the army – 45 years or older, also sick people.
‘Many men began to flee the country. On the 24 February [when the conflict began], people felt that the war would never touch them. This new development has shocked Russian people.
‘Many men and families do not agree with the war. This is very difficult for believers.
‘On 25 September I decided to make a decision. I listened with my wife as Putin announced his critical actions for those who refuse to take part in combat actions.
‘We had hoped that even if we joined the army, we could use our constitutional right not to take arms in our hands – not to shoot people, because we have a pacifist approach. But on 25 September the President’s tone changed right away, by saying that if you refuse to take part in combat actions you will get five to ten years in jail. So, there were only two options – go to the regular army and they force me into combat action to kill or put me in jail. The third action was to leave the country. So I have left my wife and family in Far East Russia.’
Slavic Gospel Association
Meanwhile, disturbing reports are also coming through from the Slavic Gospel Association’s (SGA) sponsored missionaries, that many men in the churches have been recruited for this military mobilisation and that missionary pastors are under obligation to join.
One SGA missionary writes: ‘We pray and ask God to strengthen us in this troublesome time. I do not want to go anywhere, as I feel that my calling is to stay among my people and my church. Please, pray for us and for our family.’
There are other reports that some church leaders have fled the country.
Pray for churches and believers who have been affected already by this development, and that God will overrule and protect His servants and His people.
And in Ukraine, an SGA source says: ‘Now our churches have evacuated their people by 70% from four regions of Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya. Throughout the occupation by Russia, the believers who decided to stay will face aggression from the military …
‘As the experience of the occupation of Lugansk and Donetsk shows, as well as during the temporary occupation of the Kharkiv region, the Russian authorities made it clear that our churches will not be supported here. In the Donetsk region, churches gathered only in their buildings. Others will not be provided to them.
‘I think that the Bibles will not be banned and are now not prohibited in the occupied territories, but most likely it will be forbidden to teach the Bible and lead our groups to study in our churches.
‘Only after the liberation of the occupied territories and the return of the Ukrainian authorities to these regions will any missionary activity of the churches of the Baptist Union be organised. In the LPR of the Lugansk occupied republic, the Union of Baptists of Ukraine is considered an extremist organisation and is banned on their territory. Believers gather illegally and secretly. Registration and official ministry of our churches is impossible there.
‘In Donetsk region since 2018, most evangelical churches re-registered. In Luhansk, none of the evangelical churches have received registration and exist illegally. Time will tell how it will be in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. But it is already known today that in some cities of the Zaporizhzhia region, the occupiers have already closed prayer houses and declared that there will be nothing but Orthodoxy there. Because everything else is sects.
‘There are known cases in the Luhansk region when the Gospel of John was recognised as extremist literature because it was published in the West.’
