{"id":12450,"date":"2019-05-28T11:38:50","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T02:38:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/?p=12450"},"modified":"2019-06-19T15:51:23","modified_gmt":"2019-06-19T06:51:23","slug":"vomk-report-58","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/2019\/05\/28\/vomk-report-58\/","title":{"rendered":"159 KNOWN \u201cANTI-MISSIONARY\u201d PROSECUTIONS IN RUSSIA IN 2018, INCLUDING 1 KOREAN"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”On April 2019, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) added Russia to its list of \u201cCountries of Particular Concern\u201d (CPC), a list of countries \u201cwhose government engages in or tolerates particularly severe religious freedom violations.\u201d ” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:1.2em|text_align:left” google_fonts=”font_family:Noto%20Sans%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:700%20bold%20regular%3A700%3Anormal” el_class=”headline”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”12464″ img_size=”full”][vc_custom_heading text=”2019 U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Annual Report” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:11px|text_align:center|color:%23000000|line_height:1.6em” google_fonts=”font_family:Noto%20Sans%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text]Representative Foley Hyun Sook of Voice of the Martyrs Korea, a ministry that partners with persecuted Christians all over the world, explains that the rise in Christian persecution is tied to Russia instituting the Yarovaya Law in 2016.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Yarovaya Law outlawed house churches, forced missionaries to have proper permits, and forbid Christians from evangelizing outside of church,\u201d Foley explains.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Forum18, a news service that reports on Religious Freedom all over the world, there were 159 anti-missionary prosecutions in 2018 alone.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]\u201cIn one of these cases, a Baptist Christian named Eldar Akhundov was fined simply because a stranger asked for spiritual help and Akhundov invited him to worship together,\u201d Foley says. \u201cAnother Christian was arrested because he supplied a stranger with a religious booklet after the man asked him for one. The issue needs to be brought to the attention of Korean Christians, for both prayer and mission reasons,\u201d Foley adds, \u201cbut our research reveals less than 5 news reports in Korean Christian media on the subject of Russian anti-missionary prosecutions. Furthermore, the most recent of these articles was in 2017.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of the 159 prosecutions, only one involved a Korean: a Korean woman who was a member of the World Mission Society Church of God. Though this group is considered a cult, Foley says the charges brought against her should concern all Korean Missionaries travelling to Russia.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row overlay_dotted=””][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”12455″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_custom_heading text=”Russia Moscow” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:11px|text_align:center|color:%23000000|line_height:1.6em” google_fonts=”font_family:Noto%20Sans%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

\u201cThis missionary wasn\u2019t charged with being a member of a cult,\u201d Foley explains.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cShe was arrested for \u2018the dissemination of information about her beliefs among people who are not members of this religious association, with the aim of involving them in the association.\u2019 That\u2019s exactly what Christian missionaries do too. As a result, we must make sure Korean churches and missionaries are prayerful and prepared.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Voice of the Martyrs Korea is joining USCIRF in labeling Russia a \u201ccountry of particular concern\u201d and noting an urgent need to prepare Russian Christians for persecution. According to Foley, Voice of the Martyrs the global founders of Voice of the Martyrs, Pastor Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand, began ministering to the Russians in the 1940s.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_single_image image=”12460″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][vc_custom_heading text=”Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, the founder of Voice of the Martyrs” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:10px|text_align:center|color:%23000000|line_height:1.6em” google_fonts=”font_family:Noto%20Sans%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal” link=”url:https%3A%2F%2Fvomkorea.com%2Fen%2Frichard-wurmbrand%2F||target:%20_blank|”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Wurmbrands were Romanian Christians who risked their lives to smuggle Bibles and financial aid to Russian Christians who were persecuted by Communists,\u201d Foley explains. \u201cWhen the Communists took over Romania, the Wurmbrands, themselves, experienced persecution. Pastor Wurmbrand was imprisoned for 14 years and his wife spent three years in slave labour camps and prisons. Instead of cursing the Communists, however, Pastor Wurmbrand wrote, \u2018I hated communism, but I loved the Russians.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

\u201cIn light of Voice of the Martyrs longstanding commitment to partnering with Russia\u2019s persecuted Christians and missionaries, we are urging Korean media, mission agencies, and churches to join us in monitoring the situation in Russia closely. We invite Koreans interested in Russian mission to join us in planning our persecution preparedness outreach to Russian Pastors.\u201d Foley says. \u201cUnfortunately a lot of the Glasnost-era interaction between Russian (and Russian speaking) Christians and those in the US, South Korea, and Europe prepared Russian Christians for prosperity, not persecution.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”3349″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” link=”https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/product\/prepare-underground\/”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”3\/4″][vc_column_text]VOMK is currently translating its book \u201cPreparing for the Underground Church\u201d<\/a> (available in Korean at www.vomkorea.com\/shop)<\/a> into Russian and mobilizing a team to prepare for the persecution training of Russian pastors and missionaries.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=”On April 2019, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) added Russia to its list of \u201cCountries of Particular Concern\u201d (CPC), a list of countries \u201cwhose government engages …","protected":false},"author":903,"featured_media":12481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vomk-report"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["ko","en","zh","ru"],"languages":{"ko":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"zh":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"ru":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}