A pastor in Russia could face six years in jail or a fine of 1 million rubles ($9,583USD) for preaching “on the basis of Holy Scripture” that the invasion of Ukraine was wrong and Christians should not fight in it, a religious rights outlet reported.
Authorities on Oct. 18 arrested the Rev. Nikolay Romanyuk, senior presbyter of Holy Trinity Church in the Moscow Region town of Balashikha, according to Forum 18. It was not clear which investigative agency was involved.
Romanyuk, a father of nine children, was accused of publicly calling for actions “against state security” during a sermon in September 2022. Russian authorities objected to him condemning the invasion of Ukraine from a religious perspective, Forum 18 reported.
Romanyuk’s sermon in 2022 had been livestreamed and uploaded to his church’s YouTube channel. YouTube footage headlined, “For this sermon they arrested a pastor,” records Romanyuk comparing being called to combat to drinking alcohol, according to Forum 18.
“When you are offered a hit, when you are offered a bottle of alcohol or you are given a summons to send you to combat – this is the same sin, and the same drug, and the same Satan,” Romanyuk said, translated from Russian. “Find me in the Old Testament even a hint that we could somehow participate. And it does not matter which tsar calls for this – [whether] the Ukrainian tsar, the American tsar, or our tsar calls for this. I would like this to be a vaccination, at least in some way. This is not our war.”
In the sermon, Romanyuk reminded listeners that Russian Federation doctrine notes that Russians are pacifists, “and cannot participate in this.”
“It is our right to profess this on the basis of Holy Scripture,” he added. “We do not bless those who go there [to war]. [Those] who are taken by force, we do not bless them, but we pray that they are rescued from there. There are different legal ways to do this.”
Romanyuk’s arrest happened as part of a series of early morning armed raids on the homes of church members the same day.
The Rev. Roman Zhukov, another pastor at Holy Trinity Church, described the early morning house raids on his Telegram channel on Oct. 24.
Special forces soldiers arrived at 6:20 a.m. on Oct. 18 in Romanyuks’ family home, and the home of another church family identified as the Repins. The church building was also searched, as was land in Volokolamsk District used for children’s camps, the rights group reported.
Armed men broke into the house of Romanyuk’s adult sons Sergey and Ilya, Forum 18 reported, noting, “[They] broke in and put the guys on the floor, where they lay for 12 hours, one-and-a-half of which they spent in light indoor clothes and barefoot on the ground outside. At gunpoint.”
The raiders used armored shields for the other raids, breaking door frames and forcing other men to lie on the floor with hands behind their heads, according to Forum 18. They seized digital devices and documents, including Maksim Repin’s bank cards, his mother’s pension card, and foreign travel passports.
Romanyuk refused to give a statement on camera. The raiders took him away for interrogation at 6 p.m.
“The entire family has gone through great psychological trauma today, but such searches and arrests in modern Russia are predictable and expected – to our great regret,” wrote a Ukrainian pastor, the Rev. Vladimir Franchuk, in a blog post on Oct. 20. “One of the main accusations against Pastor Nikolay Romanyuk is that he expressed his disagreement with the bandit-like and cruel war that the Russian Federation is waging on the territory of Ukraine. Honorable and just people in Russia (believers and non-believers) suffer – and will suffer! – for their position as an honest person, which is deeply and consistently based on biblical truth and the Christian worldview.”
On the same day as the blog post, just two days after the raid, a closed court ruled that Romanyuk be kept detained for two months. The unnamed judge at Balashikha City Court ordered custody until Dec. 16. Romanyuk tried to appeal on Nov. 12 but was unsuccessful.
Romanyuk is jailed in Investigation Prison No. 11 in Noginsk, 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of Moscow.
“It is unknown whether Romanyuk has yet been formally charged or when his case is likely to come to trial,” reported Forum 18.
Romanyuk remains under investigation under Criminal Code Article 280.4, Part 2, Paragraph V – “Public calls to implement activities directed against the security of the Russian Federation, or to obstruct the exercise by government bodies and their officials of their powers to ensure the security of the Russian Federation using mass media or electronic or information and telecommunications networks, including the Internet.”
He is the first religious figure to be charged under this criminal code, according to Forum 18.
The rights group pressed authorities to answer “in what way Romanyuk’s sermon threatened state security, why he had been placed in detention, whether any criminal or administrative cases had been opened against any other church members, and why it had been deemed necessary to carry out armed raids on their homes.”
No response was known at this writing.
A small number of other Russian Christians opposing the war for faith reasons were being prosecuted under Administrative Code Article 20.3.3, “Public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.”
They also face charges under Criminal Code Article 280.3, “Public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in order to protect the interests of the Russian Federation and its citizens, [and] maintain international peace and security,” and Criminal Code Article 207.3, dissemination of “false information” about the Armed Forces, according to Forum 18.
Romanyuk’s brother, Vasily Romanyuk, had been pastor of the Holy Trinity Pentecostal Church before his death in 2015. Moscow city authorities bulldozed the building in 2012, but the church built again on a new site in 2016.
