{"id":46881,"date":"2023-05-23T14:00:14","date_gmt":"2023-05-23T05:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/?p=46881"},"modified":"2023-05-23T15:54:42","modified_gmt":"2023-05-23T06:54:42","slug":"vomk-report-256","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/2023\/05\/23\/vomk-report-256\/","title":{"rendered":"RUSSIAN PASTOR DETAINED WHILE DELIVERING HUMANITARIAN AID TO LUHANSK NOW RELEASED"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”46878″ img_size=”full”][vc_custom_heading text=”A Baptist pastor from Moscow who was carrying humanitarian aid to help brothers and sisters in the Luhansk region of Ukraine was arrested at a checkpoint and detained since April 21 but has now been released. According to persecution ministry Voice of the Martyrs Korea, authorities may have been intending to make an example out of him in order to try to discourage evangelical Christians from doing ministry in Luhansk.” 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_text]Pastor <\/span>Andrey Shirokov and a group of Moscow pastors were carrying humanitarian aid<\/span> intended for <\/span>fellow believers in <\/span>the <\/span>Luhansk<\/span> region when Pastor Shirokov was detained o<\/span>n April 21 at the Dovzhanka checkpoint<\/span> southeast of the city of Luhansk<\/span>. <\/span>He pled not guilty to the charge of petty hooliganism but was <\/span>sentenced to 12 days <\/span>of detention <\/span>by the<\/span> court in <\/span>Novoshakhtinsk<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who know Pastor Shirokov <\/span><\/span>kn<\/span>e<\/span>w<\/span> the charge <\/span>was<\/span><\/span> completely false,\u201d says Voice of the Martyrs Korea representative Dr<\/span>.<\/span> Hyun Sook Foley. \u201c<\/span>Pastor Shirokov <\/span>began his ministry as a <\/span>youth leader <\/span>and now <\/span>leads a whole church<\/span>. He has a wife and three children and is known as <\/span>a faithful minister of the Church of Christ<\/span>. He was <\/span>simply carrying out <\/span>the biblical <\/span>command<\/span>s<\/span> to <\/span>care for brothers and sisters in need<\/span>.<\/span>\u201d<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”46874″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Pastor Shirokov was due to be released o<\/span>n May 3<\/span>, but<\/span> according to Representative Foley, <\/span>his <\/span>detention was <\/span>extended <\/span><\/span>until <\/span>late last week<\/span><\/span> in the city of Shakhty, Rostov Region<\/span>.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Representative <\/span>Foley<\/span> says <\/span>the pastor\u2019s detention <\/span><\/span>may <\/span>have <\/span>be<\/span>en<\/span><\/span> an effort by authorities to <\/span>try to <\/span>d<\/span>iscourage evangelical <\/span>churches from conducting ministry activities in the Luhansk region. \u201cThe Luhansk region has <\/span>had <\/span>some of the severest <\/span>crackdowns <\/span>on <\/span>evangelical <\/span>Christian activity since <\/span>the beginning of the so-called Luhansk People\u2019s Republic in <\/span>2014<\/span>,\u201d says Representative Foley. \u201cChurch buildings have been seized for use by the military. The private property of Christians has been confiscated. Pastors have been detained. So in a way, the detention of <\/span><\/span>pastors like<\/span><\/span> Pastor Shirokov is not new. But what is also not new is <\/span>how the church becomes stronger in the face of opposition. That has been true since the days of the Book of Acts, and it will prove to be true in the Luhansk region in the coming days.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”46872″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center”][vc_custom_heading text=”Pastor Andrey Shirokov with his wife following his release (photo from Telegram channel Mirt)” font_container=”tag:p|font_size:13px|text_align:center|color:%230f0f0f|line_height:1.45em” google_fonts=”font_family:Noto%20Sans%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Representative Foley says that Voice of the Martyrs Korea is calling for Christians around the world to <\/span>pray for the safety of pastors traveling throughout war regions in order to bring aid to <\/span>suffering <\/span>believers<\/span>.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Individuals interested in learning more about <\/span>V<\/span>oice of the Martyrs Korea<\/span>\u2019s work with <\/span>persecuted <\/span>evangelical <\/span>Christians in Russia and across the former Soviet Union <\/span>can visit <\/span><\/span>https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/<\/span>en\/<\/span>project\/russia-ministry\/<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”46878″ img_size=”full”][vc_custom_heading text=”A Baptist pastor from Moscow who was carrying humanitarian aid to help brothers and sisters in the Luhansk region of Ukraine was arrested at a checkpoint and …","protected":false},"author":659,"featured_media":46882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[857,235,869,140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-46881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-russian-special","category-special-column","category-china-special","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":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"ru":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46881","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\/659"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46881"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46892,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46881\/revisions\/46892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vomkorea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}