The Hidden War: How Russia is Targeting Ukraine’s Christians
This is an excerpt from an op-ed I co-authored with Colby Barrett, producer of A Faith Under Siege, that appeared in Real Clear Religion and The Christian Post. Please go to one of those publications for the full story.
The Hidden War: How Russia is Targeting Ukraine’s Christians
With Russian forces grinding away on their eastern border, Iranian drones targeting apartment buildings and hospitals in Ukrainian cities and North Korea sending more and more troops to fight alongside Russia, why did Ukrainian evangelical Christians come en masse to Washington, DC for the International Religious Freedom Summit?
Because as much as Ukraine is suffering, believers in occupied Ukraine are suffering more. Ukrainian Christians who lived through both the Soviet Union and the current Russian occupation of Ukraine say that the Soviets were easier on Christians.
One of the most searing memories of my Christian upbringing was of missionaries coming to our church, telling harrowing tales of smuggling Bibles into the Soviet Union and believers being taken to Gulags for their faith. My childhood imagination could almost smell the evil stench of the KGB from the fourth row pew.
In my mind, nothing could be worse for Christians than the Soviet Union. Inspired by the courage of the missionaries from my youth, I went to Ukraine last fall with a documentary film team to tell the stories of Ukrainian Christians who suffer so greatly to worship God the same way I do.
Russian forces have killed 49 faith leaders in occupied Ukraine, while dozens more are being starved and beaten in Russian prison camps. More than 630 places of worship lie in ruins in Ukraine — shelled, looted, or destroyed. The Russian security services have shut down every church in occupied Ukraine they do not control and are imprisoning believers simply for holding Bible studies in their homes.
Why don’t most Americans know this?
To answer this question, please go to The Christian Post or Real Clear Religion.
Ukrainian Catholics have their problems too. The Russian Orthodox Church doesn't want competition. When a fellow Catholic told me that Ukraine wasn't worth supporting due to its corruption, I reminded him of how John Paul II tried for years to open a seminary in Moscow, but was blocked by the Russian Orthodox Church - working hand-in-glove with the Russian government. I also reminded him of how Ukrainian Catholics are free to practice their faith in Ukraine, at least for now. Lastly, we have the example of Walter Ciszek, a Jesuit priest and American citizen from eastern Pennsylvania. He managed to get into Russia during WWII, but was picked up by the Soviet military police and imprisoned for 23 years, including a 15 year stretch in the Gulag at hard labor. But he never stopped ministering to his fellow inmates. He returned to the USA in 1963 and died in 1984.