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The story is bigger than just one lone missionary. Baptist churches in Russia have faced wide persecution from the state and from the Russian Orthodox Church. "If he had brought contraband money here for the sake, let's say, of official religions, nobody would have said a word, but since this is for the sake of believers who have always been hounded and who do not yield before the authorities, then they do everything possible to get him out of the country and to seize the money for themselves," Okhotin's brother told Portal-credo.ru. To The Moscow Times, he was even more direct: "If he had carried drug money for the needs of the Orthodox Church, they wouldn't have said a word."

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August (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47