In Moscow they demanded the arrest in absentia of the founder of the Ukrainian Revival Church, recognized as “undesirable”

The Chertanovsky District Court of Moscow received a petition for the absentee arrest of the founder of the Revival Church, Vladimir Muntyan, in the case of an “undesirable organization,” Mediazona noted .

The hearing, according to the court schedule, was scheduled for this morning. Moreover, information about it appeared retroactively - after the meeting itself. Probably, the application has already been considered, but the result has not yet been written on the card.

54-year-old Muntyan is accused in absentia of organizing the work of the Ukrainian Revival Pentecostal Church after its ban and collecting money for an “undesirable organization” (parts 2, 3 of Article 284.1 of the Criminal Code).

The Russian Prosecutor General's Office recognized the Ukrainian Revival Pentecostal Church as “undesirable” in November 2022. A year later, in October 2023, her followers in Moscow were raided in connection with the case of an “undesirable organization.” At the end of 2024, three people were sentenced to real terms - from 3 to 4 years in prison. Another woman was sent for compulsory treatment.

Muntean himself was not detained then.

Vladimir Muntyan, a native of Dnepropetrovsk, founded it in the 1990s in the Russian city of Kirov, according to a description in the Revival Church group on VKontakte. He organized "holiday services" at large concert venues in Kiev, such as the Sports Palace , and other Ukrainian cities. They were also accompanied by sermons, “ prayer against cancer” and exorcism rituals. Muntean, among other things, condemned the war and regularly held “prayer for peace in Ukraine.”

In recent years, Muntean, who calls himself an apostle, has stopped holding large events in Ukraine and instead releases sermons on YouTube and Instagramvideos from abroad together with his wife Victoria (for example, last week he posted several videos from the beach in Indonesia). He also sells training at his “spiritual academy” via Zoom.

The Russian Union of Pentecostals accused Muntyan of “using technologies close to the occult.” The Ukrainian channel TSN claimed that before the creation of the church, Muntyan “served three years in a special colony in Krivoy Rog <…> for fraud.” In the report, journalists, using the words of former comrades, accused him of regular drug use, beatings and rape.