{"id":5059,"date":"2024-08-01T07:07:05","date_gmt":"2024-08-01T07:07:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/government-closes-church-fines-pastor\/"},"modified":"2024-08-01T07:07:05","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T07:07:05","slug":"government-closes-church-fines-pastor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/government-closes-church-fines-pastor\/","title":{"rendered":"Government Closes Church, Fines Pastor"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pastor Zanzhar has led a Kazakh church for more than 20 years, but the government &ldquo;de-registered&rsquo; it nine years ago. When a church is de-registered, front-line workers report that it is impossible for that church to re-register, which forces congregations to either disband or operate in secret. Pastor Zanzhar&rsquo;s church kept meeting even after being de-registered, but police raided one of their services last year and fined him. He appealed but lost the appeal and had to pay a large fee. &ldquo;What has happened will not prevent me from continuing my ministry as a pastor,&rdquo; he said. While he remains bold in faith, he is concerned that government pressure might impact his adult children.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/globalprayerguide\/kazakhstan\/\">Click here<\/a> to find out about Christian persecution in Kazakhstan and learn how to pray.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.icommittopray.com\/request\/2701\/pastor-zanzhar\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Post a prayer for Pastor Zanzhar on iCommitToPray.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pastor Zanzhar has led a Kazakh church for more than 20 years, but the government &#8220;de-registered&#8217; it nine years ago. When a church is de-registered, front-line workers report that it is impossible for that church to re-register, which forces congregations to either disband or operate in secret. Pastor Zanzhar&#8217;s church kept meeting even after being de-registered, but police raided one of their services last year and fined him. He appealed but lost the appeal and had to pay a large fee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[29],"class_list":["post-5059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-i-commit-to-pray","tag-kazakhstan","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Government Closes Church, Fines Pastor - Stories<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.persecution.com\/stories\/government-closes-church-fines-pastor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Government Closes Church, Fines Pastor - Stories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Pastor Zanzhar has led a Kazakh church for more than 20 years, but the government &quot;de-registered&#039; it nine years ago. When a church is de-registered, front-line workers report that it is impossible for that church to re-register, which forces congregations to either disband or operate in secret. Pastor Zanzhar&#039;s church kept meeting even after being de-registered, but police raided one of their services last year and fined him. 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