Weekly Bulletin on the Persecution
of Christians Worldwide

11 August 2026

The Universal Christian Church of New Jerusalem publishes a weekly round-up featuring news items offering insight into the persecution of Christians and Christianity in various parts of the world.

Armenia

As reported in the previous bulletin, on Friday 7 August, the Armavir Regional Court of First Instance in Echmiadzin held a pre-trial hearing on  the criminal proceedings against Karekin II, Catholicos of All Armenians, and six bishops of the Supreme Spiritual Council of the Armenian Apostolic Church (Oriental Orthodox). The charges involve the alleged non-execution of a judicial order. The Orthodox prelates appeared in person, apart from Bishop Vahan Hovhannesyan, who was out of the country. Outside the courthouse, church supporters and opposition representatives gathered in solidarity. Presiding Judge Hakob Manukyan ordered that the trial should proceed behind closed doors.

China

On Wednesday, 5 August, the defence lawyers of the eight detained members of Beijing’s Zion Church, an unregistered Protestant house church, received notifications that the Yinhai District Court in Beihai, Guangxi, had admitted the case of fraud and illegal commercial activity for trial. The preliminary hearing was set for 10 August, with public hearings scheduled from 14 to 18 August. The case file comprises over three hundred volumes, which the defence lawyers have not had the opportunity to review within the prescribed timeframe.

On the same day, 5 August, Shanghai police detained Protestant pastor David Tang, founder of the Purpose Driven Church in Wenzhou (Zhejiang), in an interprovincial operation. The church was officially shut down for refusing to join the Three-Self Patriotic Movement. Tang was detained alongside a community financial administrator and five Protestant pastoral workers from Shanghai. The whereabouts of all seven individuals are unknown, and the authorities are refusing to disclose the reason for their detention.

India

Three incidents within a few days in the South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal suggest a coordinated campaign by militants with links to the Hindu nationalist organisation Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP). On Sunday afternoon, 26 July, a mob stormed a house in the village of Chararoypur Majer Para where a prayer meeting was taking place. The attackers destroyed Bibles and other religious items, assaulted Christian worshippers, and daubed saffron paint on the house. Saffron is a sacred colour in Hinduism, symbolising purification.

On Friday 31 July, the Protestant pastor of Grace Community Church in Sandeshkhali was confronted by a self-identified VHP leader who accused him of receiving foreign funding and ordered him to leave the region. The following day, Saturday 1 August, the same individual led a mob into the Catholic parish compound in Nazat village and gave the parish priest a seven-day ultimatum to vacate the premises. Catholic Bishop Shyamal Bose stated that the Christian community would not be intimidated.

Meanwhile, on Thursday 30 July, the Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Act 2026 was published in the Official Gazette following the approval of President Droupadi Murmu. This makes Maharashtra the thirteenth Indian state to adopt anti-conversion legislation. The law stipulates that anyone intending to convert must provide sixty days’ advance notice to the relevant district authorities and register their new faith within twenty-five days. Alleged offences are non-bailable and carry prison sentences of up to ten years for repeat offenders. The burden of proof is placed squarely on the accused. The legal definition of ‘inducement’ encompasses divine healing and portraying one’s faith as superior, while unlawful conversion includes ‘conditioning through education’.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Bombay has expressed “deep concern” over a law that could criminalise the Church’s day-to-day activities, according to the organisation. John Dayal, spokesperson for the All India Catholic Union, has noted that the law is structured in such a way as to make activities such as catechesis, charitable work and evangelism appear suspicious to law enforcement.

On the night of Friday 07 August, police arrived at the home of 75-year-old Christian leader Arun Pannalal, president of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum (an ecumenical body representing Christians in the state), and took him into custody as militants from the Hindu nationalist group Bajrang Dal gathered outside his residence in Raipur. The following day, a local court ordered that he be held in judicial custody for fourteen days on charges of committing deliberate acts intended to outrage religious feelings, breach of the peace, and inciting inter-communal enmity. His arrest came just days after the state’s new anti-conversion law came into effect. Catholic Bishop Paul Toppo of Raigarh denounced the arrest, warning that Christian leaders are increasingly becoming targets for anti-Christian groups.

Israel

In the early hours of Sunday 2 August, at around 1am, six Israeli Jews — five minors and one adult — repeatedly spat at the entrance to the Armenian Orthodox Monastery of St James in Jerusalem’s Old City. This is the seat of the Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate and the residence of its head. They also banged on the Church door and threw stones at the walls of the complex. Realising that an Armenian Christian woman was filming them from her home, they threw stones at her window and hurled insults at her. Israeli police detained all six individuals. Three of them were subsequently banned from entering the Old City for 15 days. The Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate filed a formal complaint, calling for such incidents to be recognised as hate crimes.

Nigeria

At around 7:00 PM on Monday 3 August, suspected Fulani militants attacked the village of Angbingbin in the Akun area of Nasarawa Eggon Local Government Area (LGA), Nasarawa State. The assailants broke into a house and abducted Mary John, a young Christian student at the Alushi School of Health Technology, which is affiliated with the Evangelical Reformed Church of Christ.

Later that evening, at around 11 pm, armed Fulani militants arrived on approximately nine motorcycles and on foot to attack the Christian farming village of Abaushwa in the Nzorov district (Guma LGA, Benue State), around 50 kilometres northeast of Makurdi. The attackers opened fire, shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’, and attacked those attempting to flee with machetes. Four Christians from the same family were killed and at least twelve others were seriously injured and hospitalised at the Benue State University Teaching Hospital in Makurdi. Although nothing was looted from the village, the police attributed the raid to generic ‘armed bandits’. Three Christians were killed within a single week in the Barkin Ladi Local Government Area (LGA) of Plateau State. On Tuesday night, 4 August, in Kuk, in the Gashish district, three to five armed men, identified by local sources as Fulani militants, forced their way into the home of the lead pastor of the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN). They fired automatic weapons continuously for several minutes. The pastor’s son was fatally shot, but local vigilantes engaged the attackers and drove them off before the military arrived, saving the rest of the family. The following evening, on Wednesday 5 August at around 7 pm, Danladi, a Christian, was killed by Fulani terrorists in the Lukfai area while returning to his home village of Ganadaji. On Sunday 9 August, a Christian man carrying a Bible was shot and killed by suspected Fulani herdsmen while on his way to Sunday service in Fann. These incidents were confirmed by Rev. Ezekiel Dachomo, chairman of the COCIN Regional Church Council.

At dawn on Wednesday 5 August, an attack attributed by residents to Fulani militants struck the Berom Christian community of Tanjol in Riyom Local Government Area (LGA) of Plateau State, killing Victor Danjuma (38), Dachun Danjuma (50) and Nyam Danjuma (27). This raid followed an ambush the previous day of a joint security patrol along the Sabon Gida road near Ganawuri. On Thursday, 6 August 2026, gunmen attacked the village of Buyo in Bassa LGA — an area populated by Irigwe Christians and a frequent target of Fulani militia raids — killing one person and abducting four others. Military search operations are underway.

Palestine

In the days leading up to Monday 10 August, Jewish settlers attacked people and property in Taybeh, a town of approximately 1,500 inhabitants located 30 kilometres north of Jerusalem. Taybeh (West Bank) is the last entirely Christian Palestinian community in the West Bank. More than 600 of its residents are Latin Rite Catholics, while the remainder are Greek Orthodox and Melkite Greek Catholics, organised around three churches. On Monday, 10 August, the Israeli army surrounded the village and declared it a closed military zone, barring non-resident Israelis, citing “violent attacks by Israelis in the region”. Father Bashar Fawadleh, the Latin-rite Catholic parish priest, reports that the community has been subjected to incursions onto private and agricultural land, intimidation of families and workers, arson, settlers entering private property with their livestock, and attempts to establish a permanent presence around the village for months. These incidents have sown fear and threaten both the daily lives of the community and its future.

Russia

On Tuesday 28 July, the trial of Park Tae Yeon, a 70-year-old South Korean Protestant missionary from the Child Evangelism Fellowship Korea organisation who has been active in Russia since 1993, opened in Khabarovsk. She was arrested on 15 January 2026, just one week before she was due to retire and return home. She faces three charges relating to immigration regulations and could serve up to seventeen years in prison; hearings are scheduled until 10 August. She was also fined for overstaying her visa, despite the fact that her detention by Russian authorities was the direct cause of the overstay. On 6 July, the Prosecutor General’s Office declared the US-based Child Evangelism Fellowship an ‘undesirable organisation’ — a designation finalised by an order from the Ministry of Justice on 16 July without official justification.

United States

On Saturday night, 1 August, at around 01:42, a masked man scaled the fence of St. Rita’s Catholic Church courtyard in Long Island City, Queens, New York. He was captured on surveillance cameras pulling out a hammer, smashing the statue of the Virgin Mary and decapitating it before knocking it from its pedestal and fleeing. The New York Police Department’s Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident as a hate crime. As of 06/08, no arrests had been made. This is the fourth act of vandalism against the same Catholic parish since 2024. Previously, a stained-glass window was shattered and statues of St Francis of Assisi and St Jude were daubed with the word ‘pagan’.

Sudan

On Friday morning, 31 July, suspected SPLA-N militants kidnapped Zakaria Suliman Jana, a leader of the Sudanese Church of Christ in Heiban, Nuba Mountains, Southern Kordofan State. Jana belongs to the same Protestant congregation as Pastor Yaqob Ibrahim Tia, who was abducted in Heiban on 23 July.

In this season of the Assumption of Mary, the Church extends her solidarity in prayer to all Christians who are victims of persecution and entrusts their hearts to the Heart of the Universal Mother.

“If you are insulted for bearing Christ’s name,
blessed are you, for on you rests the Spirit of God, the Spirit of glory”
(1Pt 4:14)