US Pastor in Ukraine on Russia’s threats, pressure against Christians in occupied territories

Dmytro Bodyu, a U.S. citizen and the pastor of the "Word of Life" Pentecostal Church in Russian-occupied Melitopol, was detained by Russians in March 2022. During his detention, he was accused of working for the CIA and received death threats from the Russian military.

Only an intervention by the U.S. State Department saved him.

"On the morning of March 19, several military vehicles and a couple of civilian cars stopped outside our home. Around 15 Russian soldiers were in full gear, wearing balaclavas and carrying shields... They treated me like a Mexican drug lord. They jumped over the fence, went through neighboring yards, and entered from all sides at once," Bodyu recalls in an in-depth interview for the Kyiv Independent's new investigative documentary "No God But Theirs."

The pastor and his family were warned by the U.S. Embassy and given advice to leave Melitopol one month before the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine started. But Bodyu decided he could not abandon his Church.

During his detention, Russian special services repeatedly accused him of working for the CIA and demanded that he disclose his call sign and his "handler from Langley," he says.

"It felt like being in a psychiatric ward — you're an absolutely normal, healthy person, but they try to convince you that you're a schizophrenic, you just don't know it, and that soon you'll realize you're exactly where you should be," Bodyu recalls.

Meanwhile, Russian soldiers threatened to kill him.

"The soldiers said: 'We have orders to shoot you. Now, we will question you. We know who you are, what you are. You're a CIA employee, a spy. You gave away our positions, our people died because of you. You led protests in the city, you're giving money to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, you lead the partisans here' — things like that," the pastor says.

After eight days, his time in detention was cut short.

Russia’s persecution of Ukrainian clergy is part of an organized genocidal campaign

In 1953, Polish-American lawyer Raphael Lemkin, the man who coined the term “genocide,” wrote a text titled Soviet Genocide in Ukraine. In it, Lemkin spoke not only about the Holodomor — the man-made famine organized in Ukraine by Stalin in 1932–1933 that claimed the lives of around 4 million people

The Kyiv IndependentDanylo Mokryk

"We had an interrogation (with an FSB operative) during the day, and in the evening, he comes in and says, 'Well, that's it, you're going home.' And I'm like, 'What do you mean? That's unexpected.' He says, 'It was unexpected for us too, believe me.' I ask, 'So who decided I should go home?' He says, 'They decided up top.' I say, 'What do you mean? God decided?' He says, 'No, Moscow decided to release you.'"

After his release, Bodyu and his family left Melitopol.

They are now living near Kyiv. In Melitopol, his Pentecostal Church "Word of Life" was officially banned by the Russian occupation authorities a day after Christmas — on Dec. 26, 2022. The Church's building is now occupied by a department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. Russian authorities also confiscated all of Bodyu's businesses (he owned seven cafes and restaurants in Melitopol).

"I call them pirates. That's what they are — pirates. They took whatever they wanted. There are no laws; nothing functions in the occupied territories." Bodyu says.

In the investigative documentary "No God But Theirs," the Kyiv Independent's journalists also identified several officials implicated in the persecution of Ukrainian Christians in Melitopol.

Besides Dmytro Bodyu's Church, the Russian-occupation authorities also banned several other Churches — Melitopol's largest Protestant Church "New Generation," the Baptist Church "Grace" and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church subordinated to the Vatican.

They were stripped of all property, and their buildings now housed different Russian institutions.