Russia Escalates Religious Persecution, Targets Pastors And Churches
WASHINGTON — Russia continued to persecute pastors and shutter churches within its borders and in territories it occupies in Ukraine in 2025, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said in an updated report on Russia.
Russia imprisoned, tortured and levied monetary fines against many religious leaders, including Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox Church of Ukraine and others this year, USCIRF said in the update to its Russia Chapter of the 2025 Report on International Religious Freedom that adds violations from 2024 not listed in the original report.
“Russia continued to perpetrate particularly severe religious freedom violations against a wide range of religious groups in Russia and Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine as well as civil society activists and human rights defenders who work on freedom of religion or belief issues,” USCIRF said in its update, citing Russia’s “blatant violation of international law.”
USCIRF released the update amid stalled ceasefire talks in the war between Russia and Ukraine, reiterating recommendations to the U.S. government cited in the 2025 international report, including congressional advocacy for prisoners of conscience in Russia.
Russia and the U.S. blamed one another for stalled peace negotiations as recently as July 1 as fighting continued between Ukraine and Russia. Russia fired on Kyiv on June 28 what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as the biggest air attack to date of the three-year war, launching 500 aerial weapons overnight.
The updated report notes that Russian de facto authorities reportedly demolished the last remaining OCU church in Russian-occupied Crimea in July 2024, an incident not reported in USCIRF’s 2025 international report.
As recently as May in Russia, the Fourth Cassation Court of General Jurisdiction upheld a ban on the activities of a Baptist house of prayer in Kurganinsk, USCIRF said in its update. Russia accused the house of prayer of failing to properly register as a religious organization and thereby conducting “illegal missionary activities for its roughly 1,500 attendees.” Russia shuttered the church building, the latest reported among many.
In April, the Nevsky District Court in St. Petersburg fined Apostolic Orthodox Church Archbishop Grigory Mikhnov-Vaitenko 30,000 rubles ($369) for posting in March 2022 an anti-war video in which he discussed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine using a biblical story, USCIRF said.
In March and April, courts in the Republic of Bashkortostan sentenced an individual to 360 hours of community service and gave another a two-year suspended prison sentence for collecting donations for All-Ukrainian Spiritual Center Renaissance and its charitable arm, USCIRF reported. The two groups have been banned since 2022 when the government declared them “undesirable.”
In January, authorities detained Pastor Stanislav Moskvitin – previously imprisoned for religious activities – for allegedly showing videos of pastors from the banned Transformation Center Church International during a church meeting.
Among 2024 violations included in the update, law enforcement reportedly physically assaulted and arrested Pentecostal pastor Nikolay Romanyuk at his home in October 2024 because of a sermon he gave during Sunday worship in September 2022. Romanyuk had called on fellow Christians not to participate in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
In November 2024, the Berezovka District Court fined a Baptist Christian 60,000 rubles ($738) for refusing to engage in military service, USCIRF reported. Other conscientious objectors, including Protestant Christians Vyacheslav Reznichenko and Andrey Kapatsyna, remain in prison, the commission said.
Russian authorities tortured Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests Ivan Levitsky and Bohdan Geleta while detaining them from November 2022 to June 2024, USCIRF said, citing a December 2024 United Nations human rights report. One priest described regular beatings, prolonged stress positions and long-distance crawls on asphalt.
Throughout 2024, according to statistics published by the Russian Supreme Court, Russian courts considered 431 cases of religious law violations and issued fines totaling about $58,400.
Protestants comprise 1 percent or less of Russia’s population, USCIRF said, based on a 2023 poll from the independent Levada Center. Other minority religious groups of 1 percent or less include Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roman Catholics, Jews and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Russia’s population is mostly Orthodox Christian, with 72 percent aligning with the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (ROCMP). Muslims are 7 percent of the population, 5 percent are atheists, and 13 percent cite no religious affiliation.
The U.S. State Department included Russia as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) “for engaging in systemic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom” under the International Religious Freedom Act in its last round of designations in 2023. No designations have been issued since then, as the Biden administration did not issue a list in its last year in office, and the Trump administration has yet to issue designations.
USCIRF continues to recommend Russia for the CPC designation, together with targeted sanctions on Russian government agencies including the Federal Security Services and against individuals responsible for such violations.
The updated report on Russia is available here.
This article has been republished courtesy of Baptist Press.
Diana Chandler is Baptist Press’ senior writer.