A recently published site report, “Damage and Cross Removal at Christian Churches in Melitopol, Ukraine,” documents the persecution of Evangelical Protestant communities in the temporarily occupied city, located in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region. The researchers found that Russian forces had removed large exterior crosses from three local churches.
The Cultural Heritage Monitoring Lab at the Virginia Museum of Natural History prepared the report in collaboration with the Museum Conservation Institute—Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative, the Center for International Development and Conflict Management at the University of Maryland, the Penn Cultural Heritage Center at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, and the Ukrainian Heritage Monitoring Lab (HeMo).
The study’s authors include Anastasiia Oleksii, Executive Director of the Raphael Lemkin Society, and Society board members Mariia Zadorozhna and Vasyl Rozhko.
Using satellite imagery, photographs, and open-source reports, the researchers confirmed the removal of large exterior crosses from three Evangelical Protestant churches in Melitopol:
- Melitopol Christian Church — as of 29 August 2022;
- Word of Life Church — as of 2 May 2023;
- Grace Baptist Church — as of 2 May 2023.
Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term “genocide,” regarded attacks on religion, including the destruction of sacred sites, religious monuments, and objects of worship, as one of the four dimensions of cultural genocide.
The removal of crosses in Melitopol demonstrates a deliberate effort to erase the visible presence, memory, and identity of Ukrainian religious communities.
Melitopol Christian Church
According to the site report, Russian forces broke into the church on 9 March 2022 and interrogated members of the congregation. A satellite image dated 2 July 2022 still shows a 12-metre cross in front of the church, but the cross is absent from an image taken on 29 August. As of April 2024, it had not been restored.
Word of Life Church
By August 2022, Russian forces were reportedly using the church as a military base. The cross in front of the building remained in place in February 2023, but by 2 May it had been removed along with part of its plinth. The occupation authorities later installed a Soviet-era Zaporozhets car where the cross had stood.
Grace Baptist Church
In early September 2022, Russian forces entered the church during a worship service and arrested two pastors. The seizure became one of the first instances of the so-called “nationalisation” of Ukrainian churches in Melitopol.
During the occupation, Russian forces removed the cross from the roof, repainted the façade, and used the building to display Russian propaganda. Satellite imagery and photographs taken before and during the occupation document these changes.