A measure of how much more difficult it is to plant and maintain a church in Russia, as opposed to Ukraine can be seen in what happened to existing evangelical churches in Crimea after Russia seized that area from Ukraine in 2014. Pentecostal, Baptist, and other Protestant churches that had not previously been subjected to persecution from the state suddenly found themselves the targets of government raids, fines, and intimidation. Conditions in the Donbas pro-Russian separatist region which is under defacto Russian control were even worse.

Recently I shared a request from ARP NEWS for prayer and donations to help the refugees who are fleeing the war in Ukraine. Earlier I had shared a prayer request asking for prayer for the people of Ukraine and had added my own request for people to please also pray for the Evangelical Reformed Seminary of Ukraine and their teachers, families, and students.
Apparently, these two requests were too much for one of my Reformed Christian Facebook friends who sent me a message demanding to know why the ARP and I were praying for and supporting the Ukrainians who are, according to him, abortion loving, “Globohomos” instead of the Russians whom he characterized as a Christian nation under a Christian leader who had outlawed abortion and homosexuality.
I wrote the following answer to him but was unable to send it as he blocked me soon after sending his message. Since I’m finding that there are many other Reformed Christians on Facebook who have similar views, I’ve decided to publish my reply publicly.
“Thank you for writing to me, I have tried to answer the concerns about Russia and Ukraine that you raised in your message, I have also tried to include links backing up everything I’ve stated here.
To call Russia “a Christian nation” is extremely problematic, to say the least. It is true that the Putin regime has extremely close ties with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and it would not be an exaggeration to say that the Russian Orthodox Church is almost the established church of Russia but like many established churches, the ROC uses its strong ties to the state to try to eliminate other religious groups within their country.
In recent years the Russian government has imposed laws that make it illegal to evangelize outside of an officially recognized church and attempts to get outsiders to join your church is considered illegal missionary activity. As a result, attempting to plant a new Reformed church in Russia is very difficult as the process of persuading non-members to join it is technically illegal.
The Russian laws restricting non-ROC religious activity got much worse in 2021 when Putin signed an amendment to Russia’s religion law aimed at “protecting the spiritual sovereignty of Russia.” The law requires that if a missionary or pastor received their religious training outside of Russia, say at a Reformed seminary in America or Europe, they have to go through a process of mandatory state re-education, and then be certified by local authorities.
Other laws make it illegal for religious organizations to use their own religious identifiers in their names unless they are permitted to do so by the government. Churches and church members frequently find themselves under surveillance by the state and Protestant churches and seminaries have been closed by the government and their congregations banned from using them. Because of the increasingly hostile attitude of the Russian government to any non-ROC religious activity in Russia, it was added to the Open Doors World Watch list of the top 50 countries where it is most dangerous to be a Christian in 2019 and the US Commission on International Religious Freedom’s tier 1 list of religious freedom violators in 2017 (please note this was when USCIRF was still working under the Trump administration).
True Freedom of Religion exists in a country when:
1) The government does not give preference to any one religion or anti-religious group above the others.
2)  Clergy may perform all of their religious duties without violence or danger.
3) The laws of that country do not interfere with or hinder the free exercise of the religion of ordinary people and all citizens are free to conduct their lives according to their own profession of faith.
4) The civil magistrate takes care to actively protect the free exercise of religion and as a result, religious assemblies may occur without molestation, violence, or disturbance.
All four of the principles above are actively violated in Russia, and therefore we can safely say that Freedom of Religion does not exist in Russia.
It is also important to note that the Russian Orthodox Church, which is virtually the Russian State church, formally denies all of the Solas of the Reformation including Justification by Faith Alone, and just about every tenet of the Reformed faith including all five points of Calvinism. The Russian Orthodox Church also has seven sacraments, not the two given by Christ in the Bible. As Reformed Christians, we can therefore affirm that the Russian Orthodox church does not have the marks of a true church and that we do not believe that people can be saved by believing what they teach.
By contrast, there is far greater religious freedom in Ukraine and setting up churches and seminaries and evangelizing is much, much easier than it is in Russia. And while the Ukrainian Orthodox church is also not happy about new non-Orthodox churches being planted they do not have the same hand-in-glove relationship with the Ukrainian state that the ROC has with the Russian state. For this reason, many Reformed organizations have established their church plants and seminaries in Ukraine where it was also possible to train Russian pastors even though they would be subjected to restrictions when they returned to Russia. Many other North American Presbyterian and Reformed Churches (NAPARC) have strong ties to Ukraine and were a vital part of helping to establish the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ukraine in 2008.
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One of the reasons we often wither in the faith, become susceptible to temptation, or simply “get into a rut” is a lack of regular fellowship with Christians outside of our own family. Make it your habit to meet with Christians, of the same sex, for regular fellowship and seek out Christians who are further along in their walk to be your mentors. Often in scriptures like Titus 2 we see it taken for granted that older Christian women will mentor younger Christian women, and that older Christian men will mentor younger Christian men. These brothers and sisters will pray for you, exhort you, teach you, and stir you up to love and good works. They will also keep you accountable in ways the world NEVER will.

1) Read Your Bible Before you read your email, log in to Face Book, turn on the radio, etc.
Far too many of us spend time in the world, before we spend time in the Word and as a result we begin the day with the wrong frame of mind and perspective, and not having “broken our fast” by partaking of the bread of heaven. For many people, this means that they begin the day having partaken of things that cause them to be irritable, anxious, or distracted, rather than filled with the things that promote peace, contentment, and knowledge. If we wonder why we are weak in the faith, it might just be because our primary diet consists of things that are not spiritual food. Let your first meal in the morning be the milk and meat of the Word of God!
“Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. You, through Your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies; For they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation.” (Psalm 119:97-99)
2) Start attending the church events you normally miss
If there is one thing we learn from the Apostolic church, it is that they never missed an opportunity to worship together. “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” (Acts 2:42) This should still be the fondest desire of every Christian’s heart. “I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go into the house of the LORD.” (Psalm 122:1) But it is also something that we desperately need for our growth. Indeed, the Christians who are growing the most in the faith are almost invariably the ones who spend the most time in worship and study. Sometimes people really are providentially hindered from attending the services of the church, but more often than not we have simply made a decision not to go. There are many excuses we can generate for not coming to both worship services on Sunday or the Bible Study or the Prayer Meeting, but how often can we honestly say, “Lord, the thing that I am doing instead of going to church is more important than worshipping you with the saints and is better for my spiritual growth?” Do we really think that the eternal blessings that we gain from attending on the means of grace will not outweigh the temporary hassles of traveling to church? Do we expect that in heaven we will say, “I’m glad I didn’t go to church more often?” or that if we did attend all the church services we could that we will regret doing so?
Finally, before you protest that you would be physically exhausted if you attended more of the services of the church, make sure that there aren’t other activities you could cut out that would enable you to get more rest. Often church is the first thing we remove from our schedule rather than the last. Christians are by definition people who hope to spend eternity in the corporate worship of the Lord, and we need to begin living now as we mean to continue forever afterwards. Remember, we can suffer from a lack of grace, but it is impossible to suffer from having gotten too much of it!
“not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Heb. 10:25)
3) Begin and Stick to a Pattern of Daily Family Worship
Properly understood there are three different spheres in which worship should take place; privately, as we do our personal devotions, corporately, as we assemble for worship with the other saints on the Lord’s Day, and household, as families assemble to worship together on a daily basis.
While all the different spheres of worship have declined in modern times, perhaps none has suffered quite so much as family worship, and I believe that the results of this decline can be seen in the exodus of covenant children from the church. Simply put, an hour of corporate worship or even an hour of corporate worship and a youth program like AWANA cannot ever replace daily household worship and instruction. Fathers, you and not your pastor, youth pastor, or Sunday school worker have been charged with bringing up your children in the training and admonition of the Lord (Eph. 6:4). You simply cannot do this without following that daily pattern of instruction and worship set out in Deuteronomy 6. Additionally, Family Worship is a bulwark of any marriage, and you will find that although it is a cliche, there is a LOT of truth to the saying “The Family that Prays Together, Stays Together.” Indeed, it isn’t surprising to see that as family worship has declined, divorce rates have increased. In 10 years of pastoring, I have yet to encounter a family that kept a regular pattern of daily family worship that was on the verge of divorce.
Many families are intimidated by the thought of starting a pattern of family worship because they were not brought up doing it themselves, and were thus never taught how to worship at home. The keys to starting off a successful program of family worship are simplicity and consistency. If you have never done it before, I would recommend you start this way.
First, pick an event that the entire family already does together, such as eating a meal like then covenant that as soon as you have finished your meal you will assemble together for family worship. Keep your family worship simple and brief, and make your family wish there were more of it rather than wish that it would finally end. A sample pattern for worship might include:

Father or Mother Prays
Father reads a short selection from the Bible (no more than a chapter!) that he is familiar with and can explain, or from a good family devotional like the ones written by Jim Cromarty.
Father explains the text and asks the children some questions about the text designed to stimulate thought and conversation
The family closes by praying together and offering up their individual praises and requests to God

Later, after your worship has grown consistent, you can begin gradually adding in other items like singing and reciting the Shorter Catechism, Lord’s Prayer, Ten Commandments, etc.
“We will not hide them from their children, Telling to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, And His strength and His wonderful works that He has done. For He established a testimony in Jacob, And appointed a law in Israel, Which He commanded our fathers, That they should make them known to their children; That the generation to come might know them, The children who would be born, That they may arise and declare them to their children, That they may set their hope in God, And not forget the works of God, But keep His commandments” (Psalm 78:4-7)
4) Start Reading Systematically Through the Bible
One of the trends that has emerged over the years is that while Christians read email, text messages, magazines, novels, and Facebook, they rarely read the bible. The bible reading that does go on is either needs based (I have to read this for a bible study) or random. The result of this is that bible knowledge amongst Christians is declining at a precipitous rate. As an example of that, one seminary president pointed out that while it used to be the case that only 1/3 of the incoming class failed the English bible exam, now only 1/3 of the incoming class pass the English bible exam.
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