Young People Play Key Role in Ministry to Former Soviet Union

Peter Deyneka Russian Ministries is on a mission to saturate the former Soviet Union with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and they are doing so through the creativity and passion of young Christians.

Sergey Rakhuba, president of Russian Ministries, was born and raised in the Ukraine when it was still part of the Soviet Union.
"In Soviet Union it used to be one big empire, with its own religion – which is called atheism ... All the ideology was built around that," he told The Christian Post on Tuesday.
After the Iron Curtain fell, suddenly the countries that had been a part of the union were left scrambling to find their own identities. As a result, Rakhuba says, each of these nations now has its own set of issues relating to religious freedom today.
While the Ukraine is somewhat easy to access for evangelicals, for example, the Russian Orthodox Church holds a "monopoly" in Russia, making it difficult for evangelicals to do ministry there. Missionaries flocked to Russia 20 years ago, Rakhuba says, but when Vladimir Putin came to power many of them weren't permitted to stay because he had given the Orthodox church a great deal of influence.
"Orthodox churches are given all the power. In politics, basically, they enjoy this comfortable relationship with the Kremlin, when evangelicals are very much in the background," said Rakhuba.

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