“It is always important to stay on the side of light. For me personally, it was easy not to confuse where exactly the light was shining, as I grew up listening to anti-Soviet radio programs and reading books. I clearly understood what the KGB agent Putin was doing by suppressing freedom in his country,” says the pastor.

Gennadiy Mokhnenko describes himself as an old anti-Soviet person and a “social orphan”. His parents suffered from alcoholism, so the boy had to raise him. At the age of 13, he read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, which radically changed his life.

“I came to despise the terrifying Soviet system. Now, Putin is doing everything in his power to drag us back into the past. I will resist this as long as I have strength. For me, freedom is the highest value. Unfortunately, there aren’t many people in the world who hold freedom in high regard,” says Gennadiy Mokhnenko.

He has dedicated 32 years of his ministry to cultivating a desire for freedom in people.

Gennadiy Mokhnenko turned to faith in 1991 after military service and a sports career. He attended a Bible school in Vilnius, and upon returning to Mariupol in 1992, he founded the Church of Good Changes. His church has helped many preserve themselves for life. The rehabilitation center “Pilgrim Republic,” which Mokhnenko opened in Mariupol, became the largest rehabilitation center in the former Soviet Union or children who were orphans with living parents and suffered from alcoholism and drug addiction. He was personally taking these children from basements , bringing them to the center and helping them to overcome their addictions.

“Today, Russians label these children and me as terrorists. Just think about it! A few years ago, they celebrated me and the children as heroes, writing articles and filming documentaries. And now, I have suddenly become a terrorist in their eyes, and ‘Pilgrim Republic’ is considered a terrorist organization…”

He also recalled his global cycling tour in 2003 , which he he organized with his adopted children. The purpose of the tour was to draw attention to the issue of orphanhood and encourage adoption. They rode bicycles all the way to Vladivostok, where Russians welcomed them as true heroes. But now, Russia’s UN representative Nebenzya makes absurd statements, turning children into criminals.

“Honestly, after 2014, such behavior from Russians no longer surprises me. For the past ten years, I have been convincing my congregation that Putin would not stop, that he would go further. As both a historian and a theologian, I know for certain that evil never stops by itself; it must be stopped by another force. That’s why I urged my congregation to prepare for a new attack by evil. And we prepared.

I think we were much better prepared than other Mariupol residents. In the church, which was located in the former cinema ‘Komsomolets,’ we turned the basement into a fully functional bomb shelter. It was deep and secure, and we stocked it with mattresses, water, and food in advance.

However, things didn’t unfold as we expected.”

Pilgrim Republic

The first convoy of the Church of Good Changes left Mariupol on the morning of February 24. Women with children and elderly people who feared staying in the city were able to leave in an organized manner. Everyone else, including teenagers from Pilgrim Republic, planned to stay and resist the enemy. But late in the evening, intelligence representatives contacted the pastor and urgently ordered the evacuation of the children. They warned that a large column of Russian troops was advancing from Crimea and that there was a risk of encirclement.

Within 40 minutes, all the rehabilitation center’s residents were in cars heading west toward Ukraine and eventually to Germany.

“We were driving in a convoy, and soldiers kept calling me, saying, ‘Pastor, step on the gas, they are heading your way.’ So, we raced forward, saving the children,” recalls the pastor.

Gennadiy was never able to returned to blockaded Mariupol. He recounts how he tried twice with friends, barely escaping death, but could not break through the blockade. He had to help the city from the other side of the front line.

Pilgrim Republic remained in Germany for two years but returned to Ukraine last spring. Friends of the church managed to raise funds to purchase a house in Yaremche, a safe area in the Carpathians. It is there that the rehabilitation center has resumed its work.