Family and congregants are still searching for answers after a Ukrainian pastor and his wife were allegedly kidnapped by Russian forces after they refused to cooperate with the occupying military.

Armed and masked men in military uniform seized Baptist pastor Leonid Ponomaryov and his wife Tatyana on September 21 from their home in Russian-occupied Mariupol, reports Forum 18, a research organization specializing in religious freedom and based in Oslo, Norway.

As of October 6, relatives, church members and other leaders of the Baptist Council of Churches still did not know where the couple was and why they were abducted. A delegation of pastors travelled to several cities to speak to authorities but did not receive useful information.

According to Forum 18, neighbours said they “distinctly heard groans and cries” when masked and unidentified military personnel took the Ponomaryovs from their homes. Reports say they were first brought to a police station and promised to be freed after the referendum on the annexation of Donetsk’s People’s Republic (an unrecognized pro-Russian region in Eastern Ukraine) to Russia. However, this did not happen.

Earlier in September, military personnel had visited Pastor Ponomaryov’s church, which meets on private property and has not sought official recognition from the authorities. According to Voice of The Martyrs South Korea, which has contact with the church, the soldiers asked the church to open their premises for the annexation referendum, but church members refused. The Russian-backed authorities responded by sealing the building.

The following Sunday, the church gathered again. Military personnel arrived during the worship service, searched the building for “extremist” material and detained the pastor. He was later released.

Finally, on the evening of September 21, Leonyd and Tayana were abducted.

According to Forum 18, on October 1, the Ponomaryovs’ children issued a statement thanking church members for prayers for their parents. “For 10 days already we know nothing about them,” they wrote. “A group of church members from Mariupol and Rostov [in Russia] went round all the agencies and institutions, not only in Mariupol but in the regional centre [Donetsk], and were told nothing about our parents anywhere.”

Two days later, the International Council of Churches asked in a statement to its members and congregations internationally, that appeals for the Ponomaryovs to be sent “ONLY from churches of the Russian Federation.”

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This story originally appeared at Evangelical Focus and is republished here with permission.