Pastor Johannis ‘John’ Hus Lumenta, the restless, dedicated secretary-general of Indonesia’s main Pentecostal denomination Gereja Pantekosta di Indonesia’ (GPdI), has died, Christians confirmed to Worthy News early Sunday.

One year after the devastating Islamic riot against Christians in Jaranwala, Pakistan in August last year, just 12 of the more than 300 people arrested are facing trials, Morning Star News (MSN) reports. Islamic-majority Pakistan ranks 7 on the Open Doors World Watch List 2024 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.

Prominent Yemeni Christian activist Abdulbaqi Saeed Abdo has started a hunger strike from prison in Egypt in protest at how the Egyptian government has treated him, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports. 

A judge in Punjab Province, Pakistan has allowed three young Christian sisters to return to their parents after their employers held them captive and tried to forcibly convert them to Islam, Morning Star News reports.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia turned hundreds of churches and other religious sites into rubble since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

The fate of a Protestant pastor and his 13-year-old daughter who were abducted in Gusau, northwestern Nigeria last month is not known, despite a ransom having been paid for their release, Christian Daily International (CDI) reports.

In a move seen as punishment for not aligning with Nicaragua’s authoritarian communist regime, Nicaraguan authorities have revoked the legal status of hundreds of evangelical NGOs and transferred their assets to the state, CBN News reports. 

In the last four years, authorities in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state arrested 1,682, people under an extreme anti-conversion law designed to suppress non-Hindu religious freedom, the International Christian Concern (ICC) advocacy organization reports.

Pressure is mounting on Rahymjan Borjakov, a 44-year-old pastor who faces imminent arrest for leading an unregistered church in Turkmenistan, Christians tell Worthy News.

Nicaragua’s communist dictatorship imprisoned six Christian women on account of their faith in the last year, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports. Ruled by President Daniel Ortega, who has intensified the persecution of believers, Nicaragua ranks 30 on the Open Doors World Watch List 2024 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.

Christians in Pakistan’s Punjab province remained concerned Sunday after a Muslim mob reportedly tried to kill a Christian mother of two accused of blasphemy while also targeting her sister.

The Islamic extremist Taliban have been in power in Afghanistan for three years (since the US withdrawal in August 2021), and the Afghan church is in a “precarious” position, International Christian Concern (ICC) reports.

A young woman who has been jailed in Iran after abandoning Islam and turning to faith in Christ has been denied requested psychological care despite suffering mental difficulties linked to her treatment in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, Christians say.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) states in its 2024 Annual Report that the government of Nigeria continues to tolerate terror attacks by nonstate Islamic extremists who want to impose their form of Sharia law upon Nigerians, especially Christians, Morning Star News reports.

US Christian ministry leaders believe a revival is taking place in the Islamic Middle East, with more than one million leaving Islam for Christianity in Iran alone, CBN News reports.

A prominent church leader in military-ruled Burma, also known as Myanmar, has been released by local authorities while serving a lengthy prison sentence for allegedly violating the Asian nation’s controversial anti-terrorism legislation, Worthy News established Wednesday.

There was fresh concern Wednesday about a Ukrainian Orthodox priest sentenced to 14 years in a Russian labor camp after Kyiv effectively banned the branch of the Orthodox church with links to Moscow.

Amid intensifying persecution against Christians in Nicaragua by the ruling post-communist dictatorial regime, seven Nicaraguan Catholic priests were arrested and sent to Rome, Italy in exile earlier this month, CBN News reports.

Churches across the western United States are facing soaring insurance premiums, and even potential closure, as high building costs and extreme weather, including hurricanes, wildfires, severe thunderstorms, and flooding buffet their regions, Religion News Service (RSN) reports.

The governor of Nigeria’s north-central Niger state has asked residents to remain calm and cautioned against reprisal attacks after arsonists destroyed a major evangelical church building over the weekend.