Sasha’s shoe repair shop has always sounded a bit like a percussion section.
But lately it’s had some deep, terrifying bass in the background.
Guns. Artillery. Bombs.
“Every day you can hear it,” Sasha said. His business sits in the middle of Donetsk, a city that along with a large section of eastern Ukraine voted to declare its independence this past May.
Since April, pro-Russian separatists have been fighting the Ukrainian army for control of the region. They’ve rallied in the streets. They’ve taken over government buildings. They took over the airport. They shot down a military helicopter.
It’s been a bloodbath. Hundreds have died in the region.
And evangelical believers have come under attack, specifically because of their faith.
Oleksii Melnychuk, president of Donetsk Christian University, said separatists recently seized several buildings on the school campus in order to house personnel and even hostages from other parts of the city.
While he doesn’t think this specific incident was an act of persecution, he says many pastors, churches and believers in eastern Ukraine have suffered just because they are believers.
It’s not been the easiest season for Christ-followers, said Tom Long, a Southern Baptist representative who has called Donetsk home for the past four years.
But it isn’t stopping believers from sharing their faith.
Still witnessing
One pastor in Donetsk, Sergey Kosyak, was beaten because he was connected with an evangelical prayer tent. Following his release, he returned to a building the separatists have occupied since April.
Long said, “He has gone there with a couple of his friends and witnessed to a couple of the guys standing guard around the building. He has found some of them to be willing at least to take the New Testament.”
In nearby Slovyansk the buried bodies of a deacon, a worship leader and two pastors’ sons were discovered in June when the Ukrainian army recaptured the city from separatists. According to eyewitnesses, a group of armed militants entered Holy Trinity Church during Sunday services and dragged the four men out. Evidence suggests they were tortured and killed just days after being abducted.
Melnychuk added that another church in Slovyansk was taken by separatists and used to house heavy arms — more than three trucks were needed to remove them once separatists were driven from the city.
Sasha said, “Because of where I’m located I can see much of what is taking place in the city [of Donetsk]. Our business of course has fallen because most people are afraid to be out on the street … there are many people who live in fear.”
For a while, Long had a bird’s-eye view of the unrest in Donetsk.
His apartment is dead center of the city. He’s watched families attempt to live normally, taking long walks in the park while separatists nearby carry Kalashnikov rifles.
“I’ve grown to love [Donetsk], a place that I call home and friends who have become like family to me,” Long said. “To see the fear that’s on their faces and in their hearts and on their mouths really hurts me.”
He gets teary when he talks about it.
“I have lived off and on in this country for the last 20 years,” Long said, “and to see what is taking place right now is very difficult, very difficult.”
But not as difficult as leaving.
When the fighting got intense, he was forced to pack his bags and move to the capital, Kiev. He left his family of friends — Sasha included — in the midst of the fray.
Long doesn’t know when he will get to go back.
‘Difficult to plan ahead’
Fear and uncertainty have loud voices in Donetsk right now.
“Most of my friends there are becoming more and more afraid of what’s happening and more fearful of what tomorrow holds,” Long said. “They feel like there is so much uncertainty that it’s difficult to plan ahead.”
Melnychuk tries to make sense of the turmoil in his country. He believes the so-called separatists are not actually separatists at all.
“They are people with the idea of restoring the Russian world,” he said. “They believe that those territories used to be the Russian Empire and they need to take it back to the Russian Empire.” He noted that the current prime minister of the newly formed People’s Republic of Donetsk is a Russian citizen.
The persecution taking place, Melnychuk surmises, comes from differences between Orthodox and evangelical believers.
“They have their religious view that the Orthodox church is supposed to be the core and the essence [of life],” he said. “They are not tolerant to any other religion.”
Many Orthodox believers consider evangelicals to be a sect, or cult, he said.
“In general, they relate us to the West because they believe all the sects came to life due to the influence from the West,” Melnychuk said, adding that historically the people in that part of the world are supposed to be Orthodox.
“They believe that the Protestants, [and] the sectarians are foreign to their worldview and their understanding of what the ‘New Russia’ — or their [independent] republic — is supposed to be.”
Melnychuk said he believes that when people do not hear God speaking, He chooses to attract people’s attention through things such as persecution of believers.
“He is trying to get their attention,” he said. “Sometimes people here need to leave their homes or their cars and run. It is quite a purifying experience.”
These days when Sasha gets the chance to preach at his local Baptist church, he tries to counter the chaos. He reminds his brothers and sisters of who they really are, where they really live.
“As believers, we do not have citizenship — we live without a citizenship on the earth,” he said. “I preach that God has already prepared a place for us and our heart needs to be there.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — Names have been changed for security reasons.
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