Support the Work
Documenting religious persecution in Russia
Since April 2025 I have kept a record of what happens to believers in Russia who refuse to bless the war. Priests are banned from serving or stripped of their orders for praying for peace instead of victory. Laypeople are fined or prosecuted for a sermon, a post, a single-word sign. The database now holds 120 documented cases, and every month adds more.
I do this on my own time, as a volunteer, without a grant or institutional funding. Your support is what keeps the record going.
This is a personal fundraiser, not a registered charity. Gifts are not tax-deductible.
Two seminary graduates, a fabricated terror case
On January 13, 2025, Denis Popovich, a young seminary graduate who had once served as secretary and treasurer to Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov), was detained on his way to Sretensky Monastery in Moscow. The charge was petty hooliganism. Within weeks it had become a terrorism case: the FSB accused him and his friend Nikita Ivankovich of plotting to assassinate the very hierarch Popovich had served. In court, Popovich testified that he had been tortured with electricity and threatened with sexual violence until he confessed.
Both men have Ukrainian roots and had privately opposed the war. They are still held in Moscow's Lefortovo pre-trial detention center, and the charges against them now carry a possible life sentence.
What your gift does
Puts a copy of the book in the hands of an immigration attorney, a court, or a human rights organization.
Pays for professional translation of new case materials and for their secure storage.
Helps cover travel to present the findings to policymakers and church leaders.
Who does this work
I am a journalist and religious scholar who spent fifteen years inside the Moscow Patriarchate, and I now document its collaboration with state power and the persecution of believers in Russia. I write as a member of the Orthodox Church, not as an outside critic. More about me →
The book has a foreword by Rowan Williams and was cited by George Weigel in The Wall Street Journal.
How the work is done
Every case is checked against independent sources before it enters the database. I stay in secure contact with many of the victims who are still in Russia, and I leave out anything that could put them at further risk.
Where it goes
- A book, Religious Communities Under Pressure: Documenting Religious Persecution in Russia 2022–2026 (June 2026), with a foreword by Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury.
- Case materials, translated and sent to the UN, USCIRF, religious organizations, and human rights groups.
- Printed copies for church hierarchs and for U.S. immigration courts, where they support the asylum cases of people who fled Russia because of their faith.
- Presentations at the European Academy of Religion in Rome, at George Washington University, and at the Breaking the Chains conference of the Anglican Persecuted Church Network (New Wineskins Missions Network). See all talks →
Help without giving money
- Buy the book and, if it was useful to you, leave a review on Amazon. Reviews help more than you might think: they shape how often Amazon shows the book to readers who have never heard of it.
- Ask your public or university library to order it. Librarians take reader requests seriously, and every library copy reaches readers I could never reach on my own.
- Share this page with one person who should know what is happening to believers in Russia.
Other ways to give
Give monthly
A paid subscription to my Substack, Sobornost, is the simplest way to support the work every month, and it brings you the essays and case updates as they appear.
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