In an era where right-wing marchers say “Russia is our friend” and 40% of Republicans consider Russia an ally it is occasionally helpful to see how religious life is going on in Russia. And it turns out that if you’re a non-Orthodox Christian, life is not all that great. This month saw another case in point.
Matthew Luxmoore reports in RFE/RL that on Sunday, April 7, Russian law enforcement raided a small Baptist church in Verkhnebakansky, a Krasnodar town inland from the port of Novorossiysk on Russia’s Black Sea coast. The Russian agents interrupted a church service with about 50 congregants, cutting off the choir while it was singing “Jesus is My Lighthouse”. Russian authorities later charged 71-year-old pastor Yury Korniyenko with engaging in illegal missionary work, even though Baptists have been in Krasnodar for over a century, and it’s unlikely that Korniyenko was preaching to a group of recent converts — not that it should matter if he was. In effect, Korniyenko was criminally charged for preaching without government permission.
This raid comes from a 2016 change to Russian law. It is now illegal in Russia to do “missionary work” outside officially designated places of worship. Roman Lunkin, a Russia Academy of Sciences expert on religion, said that Krasnodar’s Baptists are falling victim to the “logical continuation” of the Russian government’s campaign against minority religions, which the Russian state says is needed to fight against “extremism”. For example, Russian authorities recently demolished a Pentecostal church in Novorossiysk on the grounds that it was not an official place of worship. Since 2016 Russia has criminally charged hundreds of religious activists; it has even banned Jehovah’s Witnesses, allegedly torturing adherents with beatings, suffocation and electric shock.
The next time a conservative acquaintance says “Russia is our friend” you might mention that this friendship doesn’t extend to Baptists, or indeed to any non-Orthodox form of Christianity. Russian authorities are torturing some Christians for their beliefs, are tearing down their churches, and are raiding church services where the choir is singing “Jesus is My Lighthouse”.