Religious Communities Under Pressure
Since 2022, more than 120 believers have been silenced, defrocked, or imprisoned for refusing to bless Russia's war. This is their record — written from inside the Church that helped persecute them.
Since February 2022, Orthodox priests and deacons have been defrocked for praying for peace. A non-denominational preacher who walked out holding a sign that read "No to War" was later found dead in a penal colony. Across Russia, believers who refused to bless the war have been silenced, stripped of their orders, and imprisoned — not only by the state, but by their own Church.
Religious Communities Under Pressure brings that record to English for the first time. It documents more than 120 believers — Orthodox, Protestant, Jewish, and Buddhist — and traces the machinery behind their persecution: a system more intricate, and in some ways more insidious, than anything the Soviet state devised. The great majority are Orthodox Christians, the only ones pressed from two directions at once — by the state, and by a Church that has surrendered its freedom to it.
Chapnin writes from within that Church. For fifteen years he shaped the media policy of the Moscow Patriarchate. In December 2015 he warned publicly that Russia was remaking Orthodoxy into a state ideology, and that a future war against Ukraine would be given a religious justification. Within weeks, Patriarch Kirill dismissed him. Seven years later, the warning proved exact.
Updated figures, as of October 2026: Religious persecution in Russia — key figures →
German original
„Chapnin präsentiert Informationen, […] die allen, die sich für die religiöse Dimension des russischen Angriffskriegs auf die Ukraine interessieren, in Form dieses Nachschlagewerks dienen werden. Der nützliche Anhang enthält Namen, Repressionsformen und Informationsquellen.“
Journalists and policy analysts covering Russia, religious freedom, or the war against Ukraine. The draw is the analysis itself — a thorough reading of how the persecution works, and why, built on an unusually rich body of documented cases and primary sources.
Christians beyond the Orthodox alone. The book records believers of other confessions silenced for the same refusal, and sets the Orthodox cases among them. Its question is not abstract: the persecuted are waiting for support, and the churches still free to give it have to decide what that will be.
Scholars of religion, human rights, and post-Soviet politics. The first English-language study to map ecclesiastical, state, and cross-religious repression as a single system.
Government and NGO practitioners working on Countries of Particular Concern designations, sanctions, or refugee support. The book offers targeted recommendations for U.S., EU, and ecumenical bodies.
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Write a review on AmazonBook talk moderated by Dr. Peter Rollberg, Professor of Slavic Languages, Film Studies, and International Affairs.
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Nine chapters and eight appendices of primary-source lists — foreign agents, banned organizations, imprisoned believers.
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Where to buy
Available to bookstores and libraries worldwide through standard wholesale channels. ISBN 979-8-9501690-3-8
The documentation behind this book continues as independent, volunteer work. Support the work →
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