Church Without Walls: Post-Soviet Baptists after the Ukrainian Revolution, 2013-14, Joshua T. Searle, 2016

t Home”, in New Eastern Europe 5 (September/October 2015), 66-7. " For a summary of the Human Rights abuses in the Russian-occupied areas of Eastern Ukraine, see the UN “Report on the human rights situation in Ukraine”, commissioned by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (November, 2014). Available online: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/UA/OHCHR_seventh_reportUkraine20.11.14.pdf. '5 In June 2014 two deacons and two sons of the pastor of the Transfiguration Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostal) in the Russian-occupied town of Slovyansk were murdered by pro-Russian separatists. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/world/europe/evidence-grows-of-russian-orthodox- clergys-aiding-ukraine-rebels.html. neighbouring Luhansk region the numbers are 24 churches and 50 churches respectively.“ Congregations in these regions have either fled or gone underground, as their church buildings have been confiscated by armed Russian and pro-Russian separatists. People in the West have not adequately grasped that in post-Soviet Russia a new ideology has emerged, which constitutes the greatest threat to global peace and religious freedom in the world today. The name of this ideology is the “Russian World” (or russkiy mir). We in the West need to realise in particular how the notion of the so-called Russian World has started to dominate the discourse not only of the Kremlin but also of the Russian Orthodox Church. According to the Russian World ideology, so-called “Holy Russia” is said to be different from Western civilisation, and also superior to it.'° This ideology posits an irreconcilable state of enmity between the Atlanticist world, led by the United States and Britain, and the countries of post-Soviet Eurasia, led by Russia.’® This ideology regards Baptist and other non-Russian Orthodox Christians not as partners, but as enemy agents and dangerous dissenters. The Russian World, with its triad of Orthodoxy—Autocracy—Nationalism, has filled the ideological void left by the Soviet Union. Under the dark and skilful manipulation of the mass media, the authorities in Russia have succeeded in mobilising most of Russia’s 143 million people into a formidable army of adherents who regard the West and its traditions of democracy, liberty and pluralism as its implacable enemy.'’ In its more radical expressions, the Russian World ideology claims that “Holy Russia” has been specially appointed by God to save the world from the “evils” of democracy, liberalism and such “vices” as homosexuality.' Under the influence of the Russian World ideology, nationalistic hatred is disguised as holiness and religious zeal. In today’s Russia, where “nothing is true and 4 Banyypa, “B yKpaincpKux Ta pocilicbkux OallTHcTIB €1MHe BIPOBYeHHA, alle pi3He CTaBIeHHA JO CBOOOgN i riguocti”. Online: http://risu.org.ua/ua/index/expert_thought/interview/60247. 'S Thomas Bremer, “Die Russische O