05/15/2023 Washington D.C. (International Christian Concern) – Europe’s top human rights body, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), has found that Russia violated the right to religious freedom against a Christian pastor. In 2016, Donald Ossewaarde was an evangelical pastor who was arrested and fined, “after he invited locals to his house for worship, singing, and Bible study,” according to ADF International.

Pastor Ossewaarde moved his family from their home state of Michigan to Russia in 2005 to be missionaries. He was conducting a standard Sunday service in his home when Russian police officers questioned and later arrested him for illegal “missionary activity” in 2016. Russia has been increasing pressure on foreign missionaries since a new law was passed in 2016.

In its condemnation against Russia, the ECHR said, “freedom to manifest one’s religion includes… the right to express one’s religious views” and that missionary work and evangelism is a protected right under European law “along with other acts of worship.”

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