“They said they knew for sure because all Protestant churches and Catholic churches are working with the American secret services, and all their pastors work for the US government, because the Protestant church is not a real church,” Bodyu, the founder of the evangelical Word of Life Church in Melitopol, told CNN.
Fifteen or so armed men, who said they were from the Russian police and FSB spy agency, stormed into Bodyu’s home early on March 19, 2022. They arrested him in front of his terrified wife and son and took him to a local police station where he said they shoved him into a small cell and threatened him with execution.
He was released eight days later, but the threats and harassment continued. Bodyu said he was given an ultimatum: to continue preaching, he’d have to cooperate. His sermons would be subject to censorship and observed by the authorities, and he would have to share personal and potentially compromising information about his parishioners with the Russians.
The pastor said that he refused and was eventually forced to leave the occupied southern Ukrainian city. His congregation was decimated and his church shut down as part of Russia’s brutal crackdown against Ukrainian religious groups that are not affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church, also known as the Moscow Patriarchate.
Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has jailed dozens of Ukrainian faith leaders in occupied areas, according to Ukrainian prosecutors. After threatening them with lengthy prison sentences, torture and even death, Russian and Russian-installed authorities have forced numerous other priests, pastors and imams into exile.
