Crimea: Church leader and 2 ministers fined for private worship service

Posted on October 4, 2022 by Pastor Foley

On August 16, a judge in the city of Saky in Crimea fined a unregistered Baptist church leader and two ministers for illegal missionary activity related to worship activities held in a private residence. According to Voice of the Martyrs Korea Representative Dr Hyun Sook Foley, the ruling raises questions about government-imposed definitions of “religious group” and “missionary activity” and how those definitions may be used to prosecute Christians in other areas under Russian Federation control.

According to Representative Foley, Mr. Gerasimenko and two ministers, Shokhu P.L. and Shokhu L.P., were each fined 5,000 rubles (approx. 115,000 KRW) for implementation of missionary activities in alleged violation of Article 5.26 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. On July 27, Mr. Gerasimenko had also been fined 300 rubles (approx. 7,000 KRW) for failing to submit a written notice of the beginning of the activities of a religious group, in alleged violation of Article 19.7 of the same code.

All three have appealed the judgments against them.

“The case is concerning for several reasons,” says Representative Foley. “First, the church has been in operation for 65 years. Second, authorities used a definition of ‘religious group’ which violates the Christian beliefs of the defendants. And third, authorities claimed that a private religious gathering service held in a private residence constitutes missionary activity. It’s a situation where authorities imposed their own anti-Christian definitions onto Christian activities and then found the defendants guilty of activities which violate the defendants’ own long-time, dearly held beliefs.”

According to Representative Foley, Voice of the Martyrs Korea received reports that on Sunday morning June 5, 2022, representatives of the prosecutor’s office, the police, and the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) came to the house of prayer of an unregistered Baptist in Saky where believers were worshiping. “Eyewitnesses say the authorities took pictures of those who preached and those who were present,” says Representative Foley. “At the end of the service, the authorities questioned some of the brothers. Several times they asked, ‘Where is Gerasimenko Sergey Fedorovich?’”

The Church in Saky.

On June 15, the prosecutor’s office initiate two cases against Mr. Gerasimenko, one for failure to register a religious group and one for illegal missionary activities. Then on June 20, two ministers were also charged with illegal missionary activities in connection with Mr. Gerasimenko.

On July 27, 2022, Mr. Gerasimenko was found guilty and fined for failing to register a religious group. In a copy of his complaint received by Voice of the Martyrs Korea, Mr. Gerasimenko objected to the charge. His complaint says, “My fellow believers never made any oral or written decisions to create a religious group and give it any name. The indicated persons also did not authorize me orally or in writing to notify the Office of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation about the beginning of the activities of a religious group, as this contradicts their and my beliefs as a Christian. My fellow believers also did not provide me with written consent to the processing and provision of their personal data like their full names, place of residence and their religious beliefs.”

On August 16, 2022, the three defendants were found guilty and fined for illegal missionary activity. “They said that sermons are for the edification of believers, not the conversion of unbelievers,” says Representative Foley. “It is a position that is rooted in the earliest Protestant tradition: sermons are not missionary activity.” She says the defendants are basing their appeal on Article 7 (part 1) of Federal Law 125 of September 26, 1997, “On Freedom of Conscience and on Religious Associations”, which allows worship to be legally held in premises that can be provided for these needs by the members of a religious group. “They are also noting that legally, worship does not automatically qualify as missionary activity.”

The Church in Saky has been in operation for 65 years.

Representative Foley says that Voice of the Martyrs Korea is monitoring the appeal closely. “Requiring unregistered groups to register is a major theological issue for them, not just an administrative matter,” says Representative Foley. “And all churches become vulnerable to prosecution if regular worship services are legally regarded as missionary activities.”

Voice of the Martyrs Korea operates “Голос Мучеников – Корея”, a Russian language edition of its popular Facebook page on Christian persecution.

Representative Foley says that Voice of the Martyrs Korea is calling on all Christians to pray for the Lord to cause the judgments against the three defendants to be annulled and the cases against them to be dismissed.

Representative Foley says that Voice of the Martyrs Korea is providing emergency assistance to local church congregations and individual Christians who are continuing to engage in faithful witness during the present Russia/Ukraine conflict. Donations can be made to the organization’s Ukraine Emergency Fund at www.vomkorea.com/en/donation.

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Mayflower Church departs Jeju for Thailand after final persecution training

Posted on September 20, 2022 by Pastor Foley

The members of Shenzen Holy Reformed Church assembled one final time for training on Christian persecution from Voice of the Martyrs Korea at a secret location on Jeju Island on August 28. Unlike the previous trainings, however, this time only a handful of congregation members were present in person. The majority of the 61 members joined via videoconference.

Voice of the Martyrs Canada CEO Floyd Brobbel shares a meal with Pastor Pan Yongguang.

“They had left Jeju for Thailand earlier that week,” says Voice of the Martyrs Korea Representative Dr Hyun Sook Foley. The remainder, she says, departed in the days following her organization’s visit. Now the church members have filed applications for refugee status at the United Nations refugee office in Bangkok and are living quietly in separate hotels while they await the agency’s determination.

The Shenzen congregation, dubbed the “Mayflower Church” by global religious freedom advocates, fled China in 2019 for Jeju Island, where they had been supporting themselves by doing menial labor while applying for asylum in Korea. After having their application denied at multiple levels of the Korean court system, the group decided to take flight again.

“They were concerned about what they saw as growing harassment by Chinese authorities of family members who had remained in China,” says Representative Foley. She says the church members also suspected that Chinese authorities might soon try to kidnap or blackmail church members in Jeju, since they had been unable to secure legal protections of asylum in Korea. “The church’s goal is to obtain official refugee status, which they believe in the short term will prevent China from forcibly repatriating them, and in the long term could lead to permanent resettlement in a country like the United States.”

Representative Foley says that her organization first learned about the church when the pastor, Pan Yongguang, called through an interpreter to request a private meeting at the airport. “He and his church members had traveled as tourists and arrived on Jeju Island with almost nothing,” says Representative Foley. “In order to avoid being detained during their departure, they had not communicated their plan to anyone in advance, including us.”

Dr. Foley teaches the Mayflower church about ways they can Biblically handle the trauma they received as a result of persecution.

Representative Foley says Pastor Pan explained how he had founded the Shenzen Holy Reformed Church in 2012 under the oversight of Philadelphia Bible Reformed Church in the United States. “Pastor Pan shared with us that because of his connection to a foreign religious group, he began to be interrogated by authorities at least twice a week beginning in 2014,” says Representative Foley. “When he refused to affiliate the church with the Chinese Communist Party-approved Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TPSM), authorities pressured the landlord of the building where the church-run elementary school was located to evict them. Church members didn’t want to send their children to state-run schools to be indoctrinated into atheism and communism, so they voted to flee China as a whole church in 2019.”

The church started a Christian school in China and continued their Bible-based education program for the children while in JeJu.

Representative Foley says her organization explained to Pastor Pan that Voice of the Martyrs Korea does not help Christians to escape persecution but instead equips Christians to make a faithful witness in the midst of persecution. She says that Pastor Pan expressed understanding of the organization’s policy, as well as interest in having the organization provide comprehensive persecution-related training to his whole church, adults as well as children.

“Fortunately, Pastor Pan and the Mayflower Church were able to receive a lot of help from Korean churches and refugee ministries while they lived in Jeju, awaiting the determination on their application for asylum in Korea,” says Representative Foley. She says Christian attorneys worked with the group to file a number of applications and appeals as they faced denial of their request at each level of the Korean court system.

Representative Foley says that during the church’s three years on Jeju Island, Voice of the Martyrs Korea visited them several times a year to provide multiple-day training sessions on what the Bible teaches about persecution in the life of the Christian.

She says that it was only in preparing to visit the church again last month that her organization learned that church members were already in the process of departing Jeju for Thailand in small groups, just as they had arrived three years earlier.

“When we called to let Pastor Pan know we’d be coming down to provide the training, he told us that he wasn’t sure how many church members would still be there, but he wanted us to come and encourage them one final time before their departure,” says Representative Foley. “It wasn’t until our team arrived that Pastor Pan was able to share fully with us about the church’s departure.”

Representative Foley says they brought Voice of the Martyrs Canada CEO Floyd Brobbel with them to address the church. “Mr. Brobbel reminded the Mayflower congregation from 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 that God’s strength is perfected in weakness, and that in Christ we are never exiled spiritually even when we are exiled from our own country. It was a poignant time, with the congregation listening from two different countries, neither one of which was their permanent home.”

Representative Foley says her organization is honored to have been the first organization to greet the church on its arrival to Korea and the last one to say goodbye to the church in its departure. “God doesn’t seem to have sent the church here to Korea for permanent asylum,” she says. “God seems to have sent the church here so that we at Voice of the Martyrs Korea could study together with them what the Bible teaches about persecution and faithful witness. So many Korean churches and ministries and attorneys helped them out while they were here. Voice of the Martyrs Korea’s part in the process was to prepare them for whatever comes next.”

One family from the church when they first arrived at the JeJu airport almost three years ago. Pastor Pan Yongguang is pictured on the far right.

Representative Foley says that she expects her organization to remain in contact with Pastor Pan and the Mayflower Church members. “Other groups are continuing to care for their resettlement costs and legal needs,” says Representative Foley. “But God seems to give us at Voice of the Marytrs Korea the role of reminding them what the Bible teaches about persecution in the life of the believer. We pray that wherever God sends them, they will be his faithful witnesses.”

Individuals interested in learning more about Voice of the Martyrs Korea’s work in partnership with underground Chinese Christians wherever they are found can visit www.vomkorea.com/en/china.

The Mayflower congregation members gather for a group photo in JeJu earlier this year.
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Vietnam: Authorities using registered churches to suppress unregistered ones

Posted on September 6, 2022 by Pastor Foley

Local authorities harassing members of unregistered churches is nothing new in Vietnam. But what is new is authorities using registered churches to do the harassing.

“Churches in Vietnam have always hesitated to register with the government because it’s difficult to register, and then after they register, it’s difficult to comply with all the ongoing government restrictions,” says Voice of the Martyrs Korea Representative Dr. Hyun Sook Foley. “Now in addition to complying with government requirements, registered churches are more and more being expected to assist the government in cracking down on unregistered Christians in their area or denomination.”

Dak Lak Province in Vietnam’s Central Highlands

According to Representative Foley, this can create mistrust and conflict between registered and unregistered Christians, especially in regions like Dak Lak Province in Vietnam’s Central Highlands where registered and unregistered churches often exist side by side.

“The registered churches say, ‘According to Romans 13:1, we must be subject to the governing authorities’, and the unregistered churches say, ‘But according to Acts 5:29, we must obey God rather than human beings’,” says Representative Foley. “In practical terms, that means that the registered churches have to report a lot of information about their congregations to the government, and they have to apply for permission from the government whenever they want to do any special events. They also are limited to doing ministry in the specific geographical area for which they have received permission to operate. Meanwhile, the unregistered churches carry out their ministry freely, despite the danger. They go where the Spirit leads them and do what the Spirit guides them to do. And even when they are persecuted or imprisoned, they give thanks to the Lord. It’s not difficult to see how the issue can create division between Vietnamese churches.”

According to Representative Foley, government officials are quick to exploit that division.

“There is a pastor from an unregistered church background in the Central Highlands * who loves the Lord with all of his heart and who goes to the remote and inaccessible areas to preach the Gospel to the unreached people,” says Representative Foley. “The local authorities were not happy with him and were trying everything they could to stop him, including allegedly jamming a wooden stick into one of his motorbike wheels when he and his wife and son were riding.” (*name and location withheld for security reasons)

She says that even though the pastor and his family members were injured, they are continuing their ministry work.

“Since the authorities couldn’t stop the pastor directly, they reportedly went to a registered church leader who had been appointed as the delegate of the region by the Evangelical Church of Vietnam (ECVN). The authorities told this leader that he had to stop the unregistered pastor.”

Representative Foley says that the ECVN is the oldest and largest Protestant church in Vietnam, established by Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) missionaries from North America in 1911.

“The delegate from the registered church called the unregistered pastor and rebuked him, exhorting him to evangelize only within the local area,” says Representative Foley. “But the unregistered church pastor says that he obeys God rather than human beings, and that he will continue the ministry the Lord has entrusted to him, no matter what the cost. So the government and its registration process has come between these two brothers and created division in the body of Christ in Vietnam.”

The United States Department of State designates Vietnam as one of ten “Countries of Particular Concern” under the terms of the International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA) of 1998 due to what it regards as “severe violations of religious freedom”. The other countries on the State Department’s list are Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

The Executive Summary of the State Department’s 2021 Report on International Religious Freedom in Vietnam notes, “Religious activists blamed authorities for ‘manipulating’ recognized religious groups and accused their agents or proxies of causing conflicts in order to suppress the activities of unregistered groups.”

“It’s a ‘divide-and-conquer’ strategy, and it certainly wasn’t invented by the Vietnamese government,” says Representative Foley. “Christians have been getting caught in this trap going all the way back to the New Testament. Paul’s letters all deal with outside forces seeking to divide the early Christians. No matter what the source of division was—whether circumcision or food laws or following certain leaders—Paul’s advice was always the same: Trust Christ alone for salvation, don’t force anyone to violate their conscience, and love one another. Even in the letter to the Hebrews, the situation described there is that some Christians have returned to Judaism, likely in order to avoid persecution from Roman authorities because Judaism was a ‘protected’ religion, but Christianity was not.”  

Unregistered churches in Vietnam continue to grow despite facing pressure from both the government and now, registered churches.

Representative Foley says that Voice of the Martyrs Korea primarily partners with Christians in unregistered church settings and has published a series of books entitled “Preparing for the Underground Church” on how churches in any country can transition from registered to unregistered status.

Still, she says her organization makes every effort to help Christians in both registered and unregistered churches avoid conflict between each other. “Nothing makes governments happier than when Christians fight other Christians,” says Representative Foley. “With registered churches we try to help them understand that Romans 13 doesn’t teach us to render unto Caesar whatever Caesar demands–only God deserves our unconditional obedience. With unregistered churches we try to help them understand that while Acts 5 does teach us that only God should receive our unconditional obedience, it also teaches us that we must willingly and joyfully accept the punishments governments lay upon us for obeying God, even when those punishments are unjust.”

More information on Christian persecution in Vietnam is available at https://vomkorea.com/en/country-profile/VIETNAM/. The “Preparing for the Underground Church” series is available at https://vomkorea.com/en/store/.

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