Anapa City Court on April 13 found the pastor of the religious group of Christians of Evangelical Faith “Christ the Savior”, 38-year-old Nikolai Bogoslovsky, guilty of cooperating with the undesirable organization “New Generation” and sentenced him to a year in a penal colony, according to the website of the Investigative Committee of the Investigative Committee for Krasnodar Territory.
The “New Generation” movement includes over 400 congregations in Western and Eastern Europe, as well as in the United States. The church website says that its purpose is “to affirm Christian values in society, freeing society from sinful lifestyles and addiction to alcohol and drugs”.
In Russia, the New Generation Centers operated under a common name – the Association of Non-Profit Organizations “Motherland Without Drugs”. The organization opened rehabilitation centers in a number of regions. In August 2021 the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office declared the “New Generation” movement “undesirable” in Russia, since, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office, its activities “threaten the foundations of the constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation”. The movement’s leadership moved to Latvia.
As noted by the Sova Center, Bogoslovski was previously fined 5,000 rubles under Article 20.33 of the Administrative Code (participation in activities of a foreign or international non-governmental organization with respect to which a decision was made to declare its activities undesirable on the territory of the Russian Federation) for participating in a pastoral conference in Ramenskoye in December 2021.
After that, according to the court, the pastor continued to distribute New Generation materials and used its symbols on social media, for which he received a prison sentence.
