Another Church Building Seized By Armed Men In Eastern Ukraine

This is the Church in the city of Antratsit or more accurately I should say this was the Church in Antratsit! Yesterday armed men along with two Orthodox priests stormed through the doors of the church and demanded that everyone vacate the premises!

Photo: Sergey Moroz

Before I tell you what happened next, let me tell you about how God has used this church in recent months.

Last Friday I sat down with a friend of mine from this church in Antratsit in Lughansk region. He had just returned from visiting his hometown and what he told me was sobering!

Antratsit is a city of just over 100,000 people on the highway that links Lughansk and Donetsk with the Russian Federation. This means it is of special interest to the Russian backed separatist because of its strategic location!

The day before I talked with my friend he had returned from visiting Antratsit. Just to get to his hometown he had to pass through some 25 checkpoints between Kharkiv and Antratsit! Each checkpoint means giving out a little gift to the soldiers. Those little gifts add up and it makes for an expensive trip!

One of the first things my friend noticed when he came into town were five people handcuffed together around a large tree in the center of town. No, it wasn’t a Greenpeace protest! These poor souls were being publicly shamed and punished for some unknown crime! This is how the new self-appointed leaders of the city manage to stay in control!

The streets of Antratsit are eerily quiet. That’s because the Russian backed separatist who control the city banned cars from driving in the city. It’s only the separatist fighters who freely drive around in vehicles they have “procured” from some citizen who didn’t “need” them any longer! Even riding a bike around town can get you in big trouble! Those who have stolen authority in town keep their grip on it through a combination of deception, fear and hate!

Mobile phones don’t work and home phones only work with-in the city, making it completely isolated from the rest of society. The only TV channels shown are Russian TV and the only news on the radio is also Russian. These news outlets are constantly telling the citizens that the Nazi, Fascist Ukrainian Army is out to kill them and the Russian backed separatists are only there to protect them.

Despite the dangers and the difficulties there’s about 20 people out of 120 members in my friend’s church who decided not to flee the worn-torn city. Instead they have focused their attentions on serving the people of their city!

They started by turning their church basement into a bomb shelter where at night as many as 70 people would come seeking refuge. How appropriate for the Church of God to offer this type of protection!

The church also began to house and feed disabled people. These are individuals who can not quickly make it to bomb shelter when the shelling starts, thus it is important that they remain in the shelter as much as possible. The church is caring for about 20 disabled people.

The situation in the city is dire. Stores no longer have food on their shelves, pharmacies have been emptied of their medications, electricity is on only during specific hours of the day, no one is getting paid, no one is receiving their retirement!

The wealthy and the poor are in the same situation. They are both desperate for the basic necessities of life! From time to time the church has been able to bring in food from out of town. When they get a shipment, they do what they can to share with the rest of the city. It’s not uncommon for 700 people to line up outside the doors of the church just to get some bread and potatoes!

You would think that with all the church is doing for the people in the city that the self-appointed city officials would be grateful, unfortunately this is not the case! Yesterday when armed separatist entered the church building they gave them only 20 minutes, not even enough time to allow the people to gather all their things!

Not only did armed men demand that they vacate the premises but also that they hand over the ownership documents! When they asked why their church building was being confiscated, the separatists answered,

“Your denomination supported the war.” (meaning the Ukrainian army) So now the building is going to be an Orthodox Church or school, or something else.”

So what did the church do?

I talked to my friend today and this is what he told me:

“The church is not a building, the church is still in Antratsit and they have decided to continue to help the disabled. So what they did was they took those 20 disabled individuals whom the church had been taking care of and brought them into their own homes.”

Of course this is not nearly as good of a situation, since their homes do not offer the protection of a bomb shelter! However, the church has found a way to provide them with a place to sleep and to feed them, so praise God!

There’s still a great need to send food and other basic items into the war zone. If you would like to help the church in Antratsit and others affected by the war in Ukraine you can find information on giving here.

Question: How would you respond if armed men came through your church doors and told you they were confiscating your building?