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The Balashikha City Court has sentenced 63-year-old Pentecostal church minister Nikolai Romanyuk to four years in a general-regime penal colony over an anti-war sermon, SOTAvision reports.
Judge Yevgeny Parshin has also banned him from administering websites for three years.
The pastor was found guilty under the article on calls for activity aimed against state security, committed using a position of authority and the internet (points “b” and “v” of part 2, Article 280.4 of the Criminal Code). The prosecution requested a sentence of four years and ten months in a penal colony for Romanyuk.
The case was opened over an anti-war sermon the priest gave on 25 September 2022. In it, he spoke about the unacceptability of Christians taking part in any war, including the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
“I would put it this way: when you are offered a fix, when you are offered a bottle of alcohol, or you are handed a draft notice to send you off to fight—it is the same sin, the same drug, the same Satan. And as a believer… Show me even a hint in the Old Testament that we could take part in this in any way. And it does not matter which king is calling for it—the Ukrainian king, the American king, or our king. …> Our doctrine states that we are pacifists and cannot participate in this …> We do not bless those who go there, those who are taken by force, we do not bless them but we pray that they are freed from there. There are various legal ways to do this,” Romanyuk said.
The security forces came to search Romanyuk’s home on 18 October 2024. As another pastor from the same church, Roman Zhukov, told Novaya Gazeta: “Nikolai Romanyuk’s children were taken outside, not allowed to get dressed, and made to lie on the ground. While the search went on (which lasted for about 12 hours), they lay face down on the earth under the aim of assault rifles, and the convoy, so as not to get bored, ran laser sights over their heads.” After the search, the priest was detained and sent to a pre-trial detention centre.
Romanyuk is 63 and is the senior pastor of the Evangelical Christian Church “Church of the Holy Trinity.” In June, his daughter wrote that he had “experienced something like a pre-stroke condition, or a minor stroke—we don’t know for sure” while in detention. During his arrest, the priest has lost about 40 kilograms, his eyesight is deteriorating, and his psoriasis and back pain have worsened.