On Saturday, in the night of November 24 in Pisky village of Donetsk region of Ukraine a fighter of Volunteer Battalion ‘Dnepr-1’ Serhiy Reut was killed, who was pastor of the Church ‘Living Word’ in Luhansk. This was posted by a pastor from Dnipropetrovsk Volodymyr Ivanov at his Facebook page, reports Christian portal invictory.com.
“He died while performing his duty as a result of a direct hit by a shell. He was called 'Padre’ by the fighters. And the explanation is simple: over the years Serhiy Reut served as pastor of the Church ‘Living Word’ in Luhansk. Shortly before the invasion of Russian fighters, this church just bought a long-awaited building to conduct their liturgies. However, when in April pro-Russian military aggression emerged in Donbas, pastor Reut and four other people from his church decided to go volunteer to protect the Ukrainian state, as well as for a purpose of spiritual guidance of the soldiers,” said Ivanov.
“Several times he came to my home, when he returned to their permanent base in Dnipropetrovsk,” says VolodymyrIvanov, pastor of the Church of the Good News. “He never asked anything, did not complain of anything. He was fond of Ukraine and always said, “Who if not us”.
Except his duty, Serhiy Reut was performing pastoral ministry. He preached about Christ gave out the Gospels, prayedwith people. And he explained his decision to his fellow brothers to enroll to military serviceby a revelation from above”.
“On Saturday evening he called and asked about something for the first time - to deliver kerosene stoves as the military servicemen felt cold. And on Sunday morning I got a call from his phone and learned about his death”, says Pastor Ivanov.
Pastor Serhiy Reut left a wife and three children who had to move to Kyiv after the occupation of Luhansk.