APOSTATES IN RUSSIA - Jehovah's Witnesses arrive at a service on Friday night in Vorokhobino, Moscow.

[Queen Esther]

APOSTATES IN RUSSIA
Jehovah's Witnesses arrive at a service on Friday night in Vorokhobino, Moscow.

Vasily Kalin, Russia's president of Jehovah's Witnesses, recalled that her entire family had been deported to Siberia as a child. "It's sad and reprehensible that my children and grandchildren should have a similar fate," he said. "I never expected that we would have to be again facing the threat of religious persecution in modern Russia."
Artyom Grigoryan, a former Jehovah's Witness who worked at the Russian headquarters of the group but who now follows the Orthodox Church, said there were "many positive elements" in the organization, such as banning excessive alcohol, smoking and other Unhealthy habits.
Anyway, she said she deserved to be treated with suspicion. "We look from the point of view of the state," he said. "Here is an organization that runs from America, which receives funding from outside, and whose members do not serve in the military and do not vote."
Separated from his parents, who are still members and seeing his departure as sinful, he said Jehovah's Witnesses separated families and "in the logic of the state, they pose a threat."
He added: "I'm not saying this is true or not, but it has to be reviewed by objective experts."