Russian pastor sent to penal colony for ‘anti-war sermon’
Nikolay Romanyuk in the courtroom. Photo Facebook,
Eastern Europe
The Russian Pentecostal pastor Nikolay Romanyuk has been sent to a penal colony for four years for comparing the war to drunkenness.
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So reports Russian-language news platform Sota Vision.
The court in Balashikha (in the Moscow region) found 63-year-old pastor Nikolay Romanyuk guilty last week of calling for activities directed against state security via the internet, Sota Vision reported.
In addition to a four-year prison sentence in a Russian penal colony, he will be banned from running websites for three years. The prosecutor had demanded 4.5 years in prison.
In the “sermon” in question, published on his congregation’s channel in September 2022, Romanyuk compared participation in the war against Ukraine to alcohol consumption, among other things: “I would say this: when you are offered a dose, when you are offered a bottle of alcohol, or when you are offered a call to participate in the war, it is the same sin, the same drug and the same Satan. And a believer... Find for me in the Old Testament even the slightest hint that we might go along with that. And it doesn’t matter which tsar asks for it – the Ukrainian tsar, the American tsar, or our tsar.”
In this context, the Pentecostal pastor pointed out that his movement’s teachings include pacifism.
Nikolay Romanyuk is the head pastor of Holy Trinity Pentecostal Church in Balashikha and the father of nine children. Platform Sota Vision describes how authorities searched his home on 18 October 2024. “The pastor was cruelly detained, and his children had to keep their faces down in the garden for about 12 hours.”
On 20 October that year, Romanyuk was remanded in custody. Subsequently, the trial, initially scheduled for 16 December, was postponed several times, writes German Protestant news service Idea.
Idea, meanwhile, provides some more details on how things went during his arrest. The pastor reportedly had to lie face down on the ground for hours and was beaten again and again. At the same time, officers searched his home. When a son later visited him in the cell, he reportedly could not hear with one ear.
According to the Russian human rights organisation Memorial, he is in bad shape. Due to the beatings, he is also said to have lost part of his eyesight and may have suffered a minor stroke.
News service Idea has a letter the pastor wrote to his church members and friends. In it, he states that he does not regret what he said.
On a Telegram channel from around Romanyuk’s family, the judge’s sentence was characterised this way, Idea reported: “Four minutes of judgment – four years in prison.”
Romanyuk was convicted under Article 280.4 of the Russian Criminal Code (‘openly calling for carrying out activities directed against the security of the Russian Federation’). According to the Norwegian human rights organisation Forum 18, the pastor is the first person from a religious background to be charged under this law article. Forum 18 discusses the case in detail on its site.
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