emerged that Baptist and Pentecostal churches elsewhere in the ex-Soviet Union, including Belarus and Turkmenistan, were raided and fined by police.
An official of the evangelical organization Russian Ministries, Surgey Rakhuba, told Christian broadcaster Mission Network News (MNN) that the election victory of President Vladimir Putin’s allies could also mean the end of foreign missionary work in Russia.
Analysts point out that Putin is trying to protect what he sees as Russia’s Orthodox identity and that Protestant missionary organizations, including the Salvation Army, have in the past experienced persecution by local authorities.
"He controls the Parliament at the same time he has an unlimited executive power in Russia today. It gives him a chance to change (the) constitution and take further action," against voices of democracy, said Rakhuba.
The developments in Russia, seen as a leading political and security force in the region, are closely followed in other republics such as Turkmenistan and Belarus, where police are cracking down on several Baptist and Pentecostal churches, BosNewLife monitored Friday, December 12.
CHURCH RAID
Forum 18 News (F18News), which investigates religious persecution, said police raided a Baptist Sunday service last month in one of the first known attacks against believers under Turkmenistan’s recently introduced harsh new religious law.
Everyone, including children, were said to have been detained during the police raid on the church in Balkanabad, in the west of the country, which was apparently ordered by the town’s mayor. They were "accused of breaking the new religion law by worshipping without state registration and warned they would be fined 10 times the minimum wage for the first two such cases in a year, and then face criminal charges," said F18News.
One women was reportedly threatened that her children would be taken from her and then put in a children’s home, resembling the Communist era. Turkmenistan only allows Sunni Muslim and Russian Orthodox communities to have state registration amid reported fears of authorities to lose control over society.
AMONG TOUGHEST COUNTRIES
Turkmenistan, with just over 4 million people, is among the world’s toughest countries for Christians, according Open Doors, an international ministry supporting the suffering church world-wide, with North Korea topping the list.
"The government has incorporated some aspects of the majority religion, the Islamic tradition, into its effort to redefine a national identity. The Turkmen society is characterized by the personality cult around President Saparmurat Niyazov," said Open Doors recently.
Having re-named himself ‘The Father of all Turkmen’, the country’s president is seen as running an oppressive regime, and those who refuse to bow down to his portrait are reportedly often harshly punished.
SIMILAR OPPRESSION
In Belarus, which human rights workers say is experiencing similar religious oppression, a pastor of the Pentecostal Church in Kobrin near Brest was fined Thursday Dec. 11, for organizing an unregistered church service, F18News reported.
Despite the pressures Pastor Nikolai Rodkovich told F18News his congregation, in south western Belarus, will continue to operate. "We have no intention of halting our services. We’re ready for anything," he was quoted as saying.
American Evangelists David Wilkerson and his son Gary have recently encouraged evangelical church leaders in Belarus to continue their struggle for Christ.
PROPHETIC WORD
"In Minsk…there was a prophetic word from my father that there was a statue of (former Soviet Union leader) Lenin on what was known as Independence Square," Gary Wilkerson told BosNewsLife after his Minsk trip in Budapest earlier this year.
"The president of that nation (Alexander Lukashenko) changed it back to Lenin Square. My father got up said: "this is a word from the Lord that in the near future a crane will come and take that statue out. The regime will fall down, and there will be complete freedom for Belarus, hundreds of churches will be starting (revival) and there will be a great move of God."
Gary Wilkerson recalled how "up to that moment it was very quiet in the building, because they are kind of reserved people. But after (my father) said that, people shouted and thanked the Lord. It was like a breakthrough and a powerful moment."
