We know of at least 494 churches, religious buildings, and religious education institutions that have been destroyed, damaged, or looted in the war since last February.
The Institute for Religious Freedom (IRF for short) presented its latest report on the church attacks in Ukraine at last week's religious freedom conference in Washington. IRF's research showed that most incidents affected the religious buildings of evangelical churches: 75 Pentecostal, 49 Baptist, 24 Seventh-day Adventist, and 22 buildings of other evangelical denominations. This rate is considered disproportionately high because the followers of the evangelical churches make up only 5 percent of the Ukrainian population.
Most people in the country (80 percent) are Orthodox Christians. 143 buildings of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and 34 buildings of the independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church were damaged.
According to IRF data, 94 Jehovah's Witnesses, 29 Catholic, 12 Jewish, 8 Muslim and 4 Mormon religious buildings were damaged. Based on the institute's surveys, more and more similar attacks can be expected in the future in the eastern and southern parts of the country due to the ongoing conflict.
The report describes targeted bombings, rocket attacks, vandalism, looting of religious buildings, and the torture and killing of religious leaders and believers. In many cases, the community of the destroyed churches saw Russian soldiers burning scriptures, books and other documents in the Ukrainian language.
Source: Vasárnap.hu
Photo: MTI/EPA/Roman Pilipej
