SW News: David Curry, a well-known international supporter of religious freedom, has said that Russia is engaging in a campaign of religious persecution in occupied Ukraine that has resulted in attacks on hundreds of churches.

Since the beginning of the Russian invasion in February 2022, Curry, the head of the nonprofit watchdog organization Global Christian Relief and a commissioner on the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, has highlighted numerous incidents of religious persecution in the eastern European nation.

These include assaults on places of worship and targeting worship leaders.
The Ukrainian Christian Evangelical Church of the Holy Trinity in Mariupol was taken over by the Russian military in May. Global Christian Relief claimed in a report from last month that 30 military personnel stayed at the structure after the clergy were expelled, taking advantage of its proximity to occupied residential structures.

The Ukrainian Institute for Religious Freedom suggested that nearly 500 religious buildings, theological institutions and sacred places were destroyed, damaged or looted by the Russian military since the invasion began. The Global Christian Relief CEO said the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarch Kirill supported the war in several sermons calling for Russians to back the authorities. Russian clergy who spoke out against the war faced fines or imprisonment. Several churches left the Russian Orthodox Church and joined the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which is independent of the Moscow patriarch.

Curry said that his group has also urged the international court system to consider these crimes of religious persecution. The United States considers Russia as a country of particular concern (CPC) for its violations of religious freedom, imposing economic sanctions and tariffs.

Meanwhile, members of the parish of the Peter and Paul Church, belonging to the Moscow-affiliated Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Khoriv in the Rivne region, met in a tent for the Sunday Divine Liturgy. They were forced to do so as they were refused access to their church because it was taken from them by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine.