An American street preacher was arrested and detained after preaching from the Book of Romans during Pride events in Canterbury.
Ryan Schiavo says he was unaware that Pride events were taking place in the city when he went there to preach on the streets earlier this month.
He told The Christian Post that five officers arrived on the scene after he started preaching from Romans 1:18-32.
In this passage, the Apostle Paul discusses sinful men and women who have exchanged "natural sexual relations for unnatural ones".
Schiavo said he was arrested for breaching a "hate-related public order" and detained overnight. Officers also confiscated his Bible, microphone, speaker and Gospel tracts.
Despite confiscating his personal Bible, he says officers gave him a Bible to read while in the police cell.
"I actually sat in my cell and I read the exact same passages in my cell that I just preached from in the street an hour earlier, which got me arrested," he said.
Schiavo was later released on condition that he refrain from returning to the city of Canterbury for 90 days or attending Pride events for the rest of June.
The police have since informed Schiavo that no further action will be taken. He is awaiting the return of his confiscated Bible and other personal items.
Schiavo, who spends around half of each year in the UK street preaching and evangelising, told The Christian Post that he believes the country is becoming more hostile towards orthodox Christians.
He says that in the last four years he has been stopped by police around 25 times while street preaching in the UK.
"Without question, it's worse [than before]," he said.
"When the police bring politics into their work and they bring Cultural Marxism and far-left agendas into their work, they are incapable of being unbiased anymore, and that's what's happening here."
