17:53, 27.06.2025

19 min.107Interview

Presbyter (priest of the Protestant Church) from Melitopol, Mykhailo Brytsyn, spoke in an interview with UNIAN about religious persecution in the territories occupied by Russia, deportation, and the importance of his current mission.

Pastor Mykhailo Brytsyn lived in Melitopol, Zaporizhia Oblast, before the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. He served as a presbyter of the Blagodat Evangelical Christian Church and was also the secretary of the Interdenominational Council of Christian Churches in the city. 

Despite the Russian occupation, the Evangelical Church in Melitopol continued its activities and helped local residents until one day armed men in balaclavas appeared in the church. They searched the pastor’s house and, threatening to kill him, gave his family two days to leave. Later, in the “Blagodat” church, having removed the cross from the building, the Russian occupiers placed the so-called Ministry of Culture of the Zaporizhzhia region.

Mykhailo Brytsyn left for the territory controlled by Ukraine. He is now the director of the religious freedom department of the Eurasia Mission, teaches theology at various Christian educational institutions, and conducts online services for community representatives who currently live in different countries of the world. But his most important work is collecting and analyzing information about crimes committed by Russians against religious communities in the occupied territories. He has already managed to prepare and publish several analytical reports.

Mr. Brytsyn told UNIAN about the crimes of the Russian occupiers against religious freedom in the territories they seized, how he records them, and why he does not believe in punishment in international courts.

Mr. Mykhailo, how did your religious community in Melitopol emerge and develop? What does this city mean to you?

I was born in Donetsk, but I have lived in Melitopol all my life. My spiritual formation and development are connected with this city.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, I was invited to study at the seminary. In 1992, I was ordained a presbyter at the Blagodat church in Melitopol.

In general, our church in this city has a long history. It was founded back in 1910, and within four years Melitopol Evangelical Christians built a church. But in 1936, during the Stalinist terror, the communists took this building from the church, and the ministers were shot. In 1944, the believers were given the foundation of another building. They rebuilt the church there, but in 1949 the building was taken away again. In 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the confiscated historical building was returned to the church, where we began our activities.

Before the Great War, our community had hundreds of parishioners. In addition to regular services, we also held children’s and women’s services, as well as special services for the blind and hearing-impaired. We organized various children’s and family events and holidays. The activities of our church were noticeable in the city.

When Russia annexed Crimea and began hostilities in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, there was already a feeling that this evil could spread. I understood more because my parents had lived under occupation for some time. There were no illusions about our northern neighbors.

How difficult and dangerous was the situation in occupied Melitopol , considering that it was occupied in the first days of the full-scale Russian invasion ?

Compared to Mariupol, there was less destruction. When Russian soldiers entered Melitopol, they called themselves “liberators.” But they “liberated” us from normal life. The city had no electricity, water, or communications. Shops were looted, pharmacies were closed, and banks were closed. Soldiers rode through the streets in armored vehicles and tanks. They were shooting somewhere, and explosions could be heard somewhere – it was a very strange “freedom.”

For a while, it seemed that the Russians didn’t know what to do, because no one greeted them with flowers, as they had expected. But if in the first days they told people “we’re here for a week or two,” later they started saying “we’re here forever.”

A difficult stage of life had begun for both the local residents and the churches. The new history of their ministry was not easy.

When war came to Melitopol, someone simply lived in the church. They baked bread there when the city’s bakeries were closed. They brought gasoline there, which they bought after standing in a long line. They shared the last medicines there, you could find out the news. Everyone was there.

Was it possible to leave the city?

Many people left because the Russians were looking for ATO participants, military personnel, officials, activists, journalists. There was no front line as such then, locals left along village roads, field trails. The troops maneuvered – the routes for leaving also changed, and they were passed on to each other as the “road of life”. In the spring of 2022, it was still possible to leave Kherson, Mariupol through Rozivka – to Zaporizhia.

Later, one corridor from Melitopol was formed and remained – through Vasylivka to Zaporizhia. People were constantly leaving along it. At the end of the summer, many families left the occupation, who did not want to take their children to schools with the Russian curriculum. And on the way back, the cars that took people out brought in humanitarian aid ( UNIAN wrote about the difficulties of evacuation from the Ukrainian south in this material ). From the first days, many churches in Ukraine not only received displaced people, but also supplied those who remained in the occupied territories with everything they needed.

The churches of Zaporizhzhia became humanitarian hubs that received aid from different countries. Their service to the occupied territories is for me a clear example of unity. After all, some of those who were engaged in this work could legally go abroad. But they stayed in order to serve God and people. The war confirmed the folk wisdom: “When there is anxiety, then to God.” And also the truth that the city needs a church not only on holidays.

What was the attitude of the Russians towards the activities of the Protestant Church during the occupation?

The Church provided enormous humanitarian aid – various organizations, partners, and churches from the free territory provided food, medicine, and baby food. The Church countered the hypocritical concern of the occupiers and collaborators with its real support – tons of food, hygiene products, medicine, and other necessary items.

But already in May-June 2022, such humanitarian activities began to annoy the Russian military. At first, they simply stole humanitarian aid at checkpoints, or distributed it to people as if it were their own. And later they banned its arrival altogether. Drivers were arrested, vehicles were taken for their own needs.

Russian special services employees began to attend church services in various churches. The occupiers demanded from some of them a report on what events would be held during the week, who would be responsible there, and sermon summaries… The long “conversations”-interrogations were similar: “What kind of church are you? Who organized you? What is your structure? How many people are there? What are the people’s moods? How do they feel about the new government?”And a week later, other military men came and started asking the same questions.

It was actually easy to answer. During my 30 years of service, everyone in Melitopol already knew what kind of church we were and what we were doing. They were also particularly interested in the attitude of local residents towards the “new government”. There were threats and offers of cooperation. They wanted the churches to celebrate the “liberation”, to campaign for the “new government”, but we did not agree.

Since the beginning of the summer of 2022, the Russians began to seize church buildings and expel Christians. This concerned churches of all denominations: Orthodox OCU, Catholics, Protestants. And it happened in Melitopol, Berdyansk, Primorsk, Energodar, Tokmak, Molochansk and other occupied cities and villages. By the summer of 2023, all churches, except for the Orthodox of the Moscow Patriarchate, were closed.

Has your church building also been taken away and worship services banned ?

Unfortunately, yes. It happened on Sunday, September 11, just during the service. Armed soldiers in masks, helmets and with shields burst into the church. People were blocked and then taken in groups to the lobby, where fingerprints were taken, photographs and copies of documents were taken, addresses and telephone numbers were found out. The entire building was searched. The ministers were taken for questioning to the church office. I was taken to another room and interrogated first separately, then together with the others.

The soldiers arrested us and the church administrator and took us under escort to a bus. They also searched our home. They took away church documents, laptops, tablets, disks… They told us that we were “extremists,” that the church building was being taken away because we were an “extremist organization.” We were not allowed to hold services. We were also not allowed to take our equipment from the church. We were not allowed to stay in the city.

We were given two days to leave Melitopol. This was called a “soft deportation.” A “hard deportation” was when a person was arrested and taken to the last checkpoint without documents, belongings, money, or phones. Then they had to walk through the “gray zone” to the first Ukrainian checkpoint, without a route – through mined territory.

When our church was taken away, many people realized that there would be no life in the occupied territory. We are used to being called “cultists” or “the American church.” But when people with machine guns burst in and shout: “You are a cancerous tumor that we will remove” – ​​that is something else.  

After living under occupation, how would you characterize interfaith life in Ukraine? Before the war, did we really have the conditions for the development of different churches?

I believe that we had freedom of religion, and everyone felt quite free. Over the 30 years of independence, a democratic scheme was formed in Ukraine, a system of the state’s attitude towards churches and churches among themselves. If in the 90s the authorities were still flirting with the Orthodox – now with some, now with others, then in 2014 there was a definition of what the role of the church should be in a democratic state. Then the Moscow Patriarchate was put on equal terms with other churches.

That is, the authorities simply began to treat them equally, but for some reason, individual Orthodox clergymen began to say that someone was “oppressing” them there. In fact, everyone began to act as they were supposed to act – according to the same rules for everyone. Because when the deputies drank with the priests and decided everything in their favor – land plots, building permits, and then this “friendship” ended, then what “oppression” are we talking about? 

A new stage has begun in 2022, when we can see which churches and how much they help Ukrainians in humanitarian aspects.

What are you doing now? Are you continuing to serve as an elder?

I work at the Eurasia Mission, which I have known for a long time. It is an educational and charitable organization registered in the USA with non-profit status. It was founded in 1991 and currently works in 15 countries of the post-Soviet space.

This mission has a religious freedom department. I work there now. Thanks to the fact that I have many connections and contacts, we monitor what is happening in the occupied territories: who has been arrested, who is being pressured, what checks are being carried out, what restrictions are being introduced, etc.

I do not hold services in the traditional sense, since we do not have our own building. We organize online services, Bible studies, and training for parishioners who are now in different parts of the world. We also help members of our church who have joined local churches in Ukraine. That is, we continue to exist as a church, but an important part of my work now is precisely this monitoring and documentation of Russian crimes against religion in the occupied territory of Ukraine. My main focus is on collecting materials and informing. We have prepared several reports on the religious situation.

Are the reports you mentioned public?

Yes, they are published in Ukrainian and English. In particular, this is the report “Faith under Fire” (2023) and “Faith under Russian Terror” (2025). There was also the report “Faith in Handcuffs” – a comparison of the religious situation with religious freedom in Belarus and the occupied territories of Ukraine.

We publish information about the dead ministers, the captured and destroyed churches in Ukraine, the militarization of children, the so-called registration under Russian law. That is, we monitor all the trends that are happening and tell about it all over the world. This is part of my activity today – to give the world truthful information about what is happening in the occupied territories of Ukraine.

What is the situation there now ? Is it known what happened to your church building?

The building of our church is now used as a premises for the so-called Ministry of Culture of the Zaporizhia region, where they glorify Putin, award propagandists, give out some balalaikas, etc. The cross was cut down and a civil institution was “created”. This is everyday practice for the occupied part of the Zaporizhia region. This practice largely repeats the practice of Soviet times in relation to churches. It’s the same pattern, because they are afraid of churches that tell the truth.

By the summer of 2023, about 15 churches had been selected in occupied Melitopol alone. For example, police officers now live in one of them, the so-called Ministry of Youth and Sports has opened in another, and some other buildings are empty.

There was information about some occupied settlements, in particular Mariupol , that the ” new authorities ” were resettling Russians into the apartments that the Ukrainians had left. Is the same happening in Melitopol ?

This situation is everywhere. Families of Russian soldiers come to the occupied Ukrainian territories. Many local residents have left – housing remains. Some have the opportunity to be looked after, and some do not. I have information that in the center of Melitopol, Russians are checking apartments. And if they like something, they can move their own people in. Such stories are also present in the villages.

Repression is an everyday occurrence in the occupation. The Russians organized a major wave of struggle against dissidents, including church ministers, in 2022-2023 – they arrested, interrogated, tortured, and killed. Those ministers who were active were pressured to leave. Or they were deported, or even killed.

Based on these facts, can we speak of genocide against Ukrainians?

The legal subtleties of defining genocide should be discussed with human rights activists. But, in my opinion, what can be called religious genocide is taking place in the occupied territories. All churches are being destroyed there, except for those that become parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Of the hundreds of religious communities that existed before the full-scale invasion, only a few remain. Their leaders are under constant pressure. Checks of parishioners’ documents right during services in these churches have made them de facto filtering points, where they hunt down undesirables. The Russian media presents non-Orthodox churches as nothing more than sects.

The statements of propagandists that “Ukraine is one big sect,” that it needs to be “sanitized” and “desectized,” could be attributed to the inadequacy of those who say such things. But when Russian Orthodox hierarchs call the war with Ukraine “holy” and promise “forgiveness of sins” for participating in hostilities, what are these if not signs of targeted religious genocide? Moreover, it seems that methods of cleaning up the religious landscape are being practiced in the occupied territories of Ukraine, which may spread to other territories of Russia.

What leads to this opinion?

During my interrogation, I asked the military man why they were persecuting us, because there were many Baptists in Russia. To which he replied that first they would “restore order” in Ukraine, and then they would return to Russia. He said that the other churches there existed temporarily and only one would remain – the Russian Orthodox Church.

Now I am also following the religious situation in Russia. In recent years, pressure on Protestants has increased significantly there. They are ridiculed in the Russian media, as if the media has become a weapon against religion. Even for a private conversation about your beliefs, you can be accused of “illegal missionary activity” or even “extremism.” There is real religious chauvinism in the information space. Priests who do not agree to “bend” to the ideology of the authorities are deprived of their rank, forced to emigrate…

There is no religious freedom in Russia. Because religious freedom is the ability to freely choose what to believe in, to practice this faith as your heart tells you, to pass it on to your children, and to tell others about it. 

Unfortunately, the Russian Church has had an influence on Ukraine for a long time . And although the Ukrainian Orthodox Church now denies ties with the Moscow Patriarchate, the facts prove otherwise. And especially in the occupied territories, right?

The influence of the Moscow Patriarchate on Ukraine could be the subject of a separate interview, but I know exactly who brought the “Russian world” to Melitopol. I know what role the churches of the Moscow Patriarchate played in this, and how their priests supported the Russian military, who captured the city, killed the townspeople, and “brought us freedom.”

I see what is happening there now. I understand that similar events once took place in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Why did other churches – Baptists, Lutherans, Greek Catholics – begin to interfere with the occupation authorities? Did they organize political parties? People don’t even go to vote there. Why did they begin to interfere? Because they are for the truth and for authenticity.

Do you believe in punishing those responsible for waging war against Ukraine and committing war crimes?

Do I believe in human courts? I don’t really believe. Ukrainian courts are a separate topic, but even hopes for international courts today are very dim. When was Milosevic (president of Yugoslavia, then Serbia, war criminal, – UNIAN) convicted for crimes in the Balkan countries? Ten years after they were committed, he was arrested, and six years later he died without ever hearing the verdict. This should not happen again with the crimes of the Russian military. Therefore, our task is to tell the international community: “People, be brave! It’s time to act!” Evil must be punished, because we will have precedents for other dictators. Evil is contagious – it must be overcome, otherwise it will spread further.   

And I believe in God’s judgment. This gives me hope. And it allows me, despite everything, not to become an executioner. I know that God is just, and he will punish. The evil that the Russians brought to Ukraine returns to themselves.

What do you see as the task of the church during the war?

The task of the church in Ukraine is to help people survive the war, to bring comfort, to tell about moral values. At least that when you fight with a dragon, do not turn into a dragon yourself. Shelling, losses, everything that we are experiencing now, someone’s unworthy actions – all this intensifies hatred. It can be directed at a neighbor or someone from the family, at people who are not involved in this. Remaining fair, moderate, doing good simply for Christ’s sake for the sake of those who, perhaps, will never thank you; not to be disappointed by someone’s unworthy actions, but to look for those with whom you can be together in good deeds – this is the task of the church.

What do you think can bring peace closer?

I do not believe that any weapon, even nuclear, can bring peace to Ukraine. Peace can come when the world community unites to condemn Russia as a violator of international borders, when real economic and diplomatic pressure begins on the aggressor. Yes, it is unprofitable and for those who impose such pressure, they also suffer. But this, in my opinion, is the best non-military method. It does not violate Christian principles. Because the New Testament says not to have anything to do with those who act idly. And this method is also proven effective, because it was it that at one time caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. Therefore, we rely on the fact that there will be brave people to do the right thing and help Ukraine.