Russia's attacks on Ukraine's churches
A pastor in Russian-occupied Ukraine, abducted along with his wife by armed and masked soldiers in the Donetsk region, remain missing, their church forcibly closed in one of four regions illegally annexed by Russian President Vladimir Putin this week.
Gunmen in military uniforms seized Council of Churches Baptist Pastor Leonid Ponomaryov and his wife Tatyana from their home in Mariupol on Sept. 21. They took them to a local police station and told them they would be held until the Russian referendum on control of Donetsk was complete, accusing the couple of “extremist activity.” But the couple was never released, and police and local authorities have refused to answer questions about their whereabouts.
Welcome to this October 7 edition of Globe Trot. After exaltation we may be brought down with a sudden rush into things as they are, said Oswald Chambers, “where it is neither beautiful nor poetic nor thrilling. The height of the mountain top is measured by the drab drudgery of the valley; but it is in the valley that we have to live for the glory of God. We see His glory on the mount, but we never live for His glory there.”
Ukraine: Civilian detentions and massacres made Mariupol the defining atrocity of the war in Ukraine, and appear to be ongoing despite Moscow’s claim of control. Putin moved ahead to annex Donetsk—along with adjoining oblasts of Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson—after claiming that 99.23% of voters chose reunification with Russia.
The wider war also has obscured Moscow-led attacks on Protestant churches. Russian soldiers in occupied Donetsk have conducted searches and sealed places of worship (including the church led by Ponomaryov), confiscated equipment, demanded documents, and in at least one case forcibly expelled church members from their building. They have also pressured religious leaders to cut ties with Ukrainian religious bodies and link with those in Russia, reports Forum 18 News Service.
Ukraine warned about the threat of Iranian drones used against civilian infrastructure by Russian forces, but Russia’s use of the drones is not generating progress the way the Ukrainian use of U.S.-provided HIMARS systems is. Ukrainian forces continue to make advances in the south and on Kherson, a city captured by Russia in the early days of the war.
Relief organization Samaritan’s Purse deployed an emergency field hospital this week to serve recently liberated areas of Ukraine; and already are treating patients and performing surgeries. The group opened a similar facility in Lviv at the start of the war that was closed with Ukrainian resurgence.
The Nobel Peace Prize awarded jointly today to human rights groups in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia is getting praise and scorn for not focusing singly on Ukrainian actors or President Volodymyr Zelensky. This post from Ukrainian recipient Olexandra Matviychuk is worth your time. She praised her fellow recipients in countries aligned with Putin but said:
Russia should be excluded from the UN Security Council for systematic violations of the UN charter … The UN and participant states should address the "accountability gap" and ensure a chance to justice for hundreds of thousands of war crimes victims. Sustainable peace in our region is impossible without this. We need to create an international tribunal and bring Putin, Lukashenko and other war criminals to justice.
Armenia: The United States has stepped up support for Armenia against attacks from Azerbaijan, a surprising development not unrelated to Russian influence in the Caucasus in the midst of war in Ukraine.
Iran: Tehran fountains have been turned into pools of blood as protests against the Islamic regime continue.
Despite ongoing internet and telecommunication restrictions by the government, university students are calling for new demonstrations tomorrow. School girls in particular remain defiant following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.
Belgium: The European Court of Human Rights ruled in favor of Tom Mortier, the son of Godelieva de Troyer, who died by lethal injection in 2012 at aged 64. The case, years in the making (good backgrounder here), highlights the abuses behind Belgium’s euthanasia law and the state’s prerogative to overrule family opposition. The Court found that Belgium violated the European Convention on Human Rights when it failed to properly examine the alarming circumstances leading to Mortier’s mother’s death.
…the law specifies that the attending physician must “be certain of the patient’s constant physical or mental suffering and of the durable nature of his/her request. To this end, the physician has several conversations with the patient spread out over a reasonable period of time”. In this case, the interval between the request and the death was only 58 days – far too little for a woman suffering from complex and long-standing depression. The only treatment that Distelmans gave her was the lethal injection.
“This ruling serves as stark reminder. It is clear that the so-called ‘safeguards’ failed because intentional killing can never be safe,” said Mortier attorney Robert Clarke with ADF International.
Lebanon: One of the deadliest boat disasters in the Eastern Mediterranean this year, where more than 100 migrants drowned, highlights the increasing desperation of Lebanese to escape their country and its capital Beirut, once dubbed the “Paris of the Middle East.” Now the lack of legal pathways for people to emigrate, and the mortal dangers facing those who try, compete with daily impoverishment—underscored by a rash of residents holding up banks to extract their own savings.
Thailand: Grief-stricken parents and family members sobbed and clutched toys at a children's daycare center today, a day after a former policeman killed 34 people, 23 of them young children, in a knife and gun rampage that has horrified the largely Buddhist country. Government buildings flew flags at half mast to mourn the victims of the carnage in Uthai Sawan, a town 300 miles northeast of Bangkok.
Burkina Faso: Urgent prayers are needed following a Sept. 30 coup, the second this year, closing borders and again instating a curfew. History suggests the new power struggle may only help Russian influence in West Africa and Sahel jihadists.
Canada: O Canada, it’s fall.
I’m reading… Mission Affirmed: Recovering the Missionary Motivation of Paul by Elliot Clark.
Thanks for the roundup. Always well written.