Persecuted church agency Release International has announced that the bodies of Ukrainian Evangelical church leader Anatoliy Prokopchuk (52) and his 19-year-old son Oleksandr have been discovered in a forest.
They had been tortured and killed, four days after being abducted by Russian soldiers. According to the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group and the Global Investigative Journalism Network, father and son were taken whilst they were working in their garage, close to Kherson. The reasons for their abduction are not known.
Anatoliy was a deacon and preacher at a Pentecostal church in Nova Kakhova, close to Kherson. According to Release International’s Ukraine partner ‘Pavel’, when the Russian troops arrested them, the soldiers claimed: ‘Your church has no right to exist, as it has connections with America and other Western countries.’
After they were found, the men’s bodies bore signs of prolonged and excruciating torture. They were so mutilated that it was difficult to identify them. Prokopchuk was described as having ‘helped many people in practical ways, enthusiastically and sacrificially, regardless of whether they were members of his church. As the Bible says, “As we have opportunity, let us do good to all people” ’.
For Pavel, the accusation that the Pentecostal church had no right to exist and was acting as an agent of the West, has an all-too familiar ring from the days of the Soviet Union. He said: ‘For this “crime” many thousands of evangelical Christians were put into prisons and concentration camps for many years. Many were tortured and killed.’ Pavel himself was jailed in the Soviet era because of his faith.
Prokopchuk leaves a widow, Irena, and five other children, four sons and a daughter.
Paul Robinson, CEO of Release International, said ‘Ukrainian Christians have been here before. What is happening today in occupied areas is reminiscent of the persecution of Christians in the Soviet era. Yet the message of history is clear: the Christian faith has survived 70 years of Soviet totalitarian rule, and it thrives today in China under similar conditions. Persecution and oppression sharpen resolve. They deepen the faith.’
