Protestants
There are Evangelical Christians - Baptists (most numerous), Lutherans, Pentecostals, Adventists, Methodists, Quakers and nearly all other known Protestant denominations presented in the country.
By the opinion of Keston Institute, Protestants are widely present and may well outnumber the Orthodox in some places of Siberia. There are very few "nominal" believers among them: everywhere they preach, pray and often struggle against local bureaucracy to acquire their rights. Anyway, they are also regarded as respectable, hard-working citizens.
Some Protestants (especially at provincial level) report encountering local authorities obstruction of their activities and government restrictions. In April 2007, the European Court of Human Rights obliged Russian state to pay EUR 10,000 (ten thousand euros) as a non-pecuniary damage for the refusal in registration of the Moscow branch of Salvation Army.
Conducted in July - August, 2007, bicycle missionary expedition of Evangelical Christians Baptists faced, by their report, serious obstacles and suspicious attitude from local authorities in several regions of Russia. The evangelization meetings several times were banned in public parks. The initial goal of the above mentioned tour was to share the Gospel with people in towns and villages throughout the country and, by words of UECB President Yuri Sipko, to "fight their way through on foot or on bicycles to reach even the most remote village and the most despairing person in order to bring them the message of God’s kingdom."
Read more about this topic: Christianity In Russia
Famous quotes containing the word protestants:
“Catholics think of grace as a supernatural power which God dispenses, primarily through the Church and its sacraments, to purify the souls of naturally sinful human beings, and render them capable of holiness.... Protestants think of grace as an attribute of God rather than a gift from God. It is a shorthand term signifying God’s determination to love, forgive, and save His human children, however little they deserve it.”
—Louis Cassels, U.S. religious columnist. “The Catholic-Protestant Differences,” What’s the Difference?, Doubleday (1965)
“America is a hurricane, and the only people who do not hear the sound are those fortunate if incredibly stupid and smug White Protestants who live in the center, in the serene eye of the big wind.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)