A Russian court on Wednesday sentenced a Danish man to six years behind bars for practicing as a Jehovah’s Witness — a first-of-its-kind case since the Motherland outlawed the religious organization.

Dennis Christensen, a 46-year-old Danish citizen living in Russia, was detained at a prayer meeting in the southern Russian city of Oryol in May 2017 not long after Russia’s Supreme Court declared the Jehovah’s Witnesses, an upstate New York-headquartered Christian denomination, an “extremist” group.

Christensen was Russia’s first extremism-related arrest of a Jehovah’s Witness.

Now, nearly 100 members of the group face charges in Russia and more than 20 of them are in jail awaiting trial, according to the AFP.

Christensen had pleaded not guilty in the case, but the court found him guilty.

Prosecutors argued that he was actively involved as an organizer of religious activity for the outlawed group, the BBC reported.

“We deeply regret the conviction of Dennis Christensen — an innocent man who did not commit any real crime,” said Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a spokesman for the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia who was in court.

“It is sad that reading the Bible, preaching, and living a moral way of life is again a criminal offense in Russia,” Sivulskiy said.

During his closing remarks in court last week, Christensen, who is married to a Russian woman, insisted that he “never committed any criminal acts.”

“I hope that today is the day that Russia defends freedom of religion,” he told reporters before entering the packed courtroom Wednesday.

The Jehovah’s Witnesses plan on appealing the verdict within 10 days, according to a statement from the organization’s head office.

Human rights groups such as Amnesty International have condemned the case, calling the trial “emblematic of the grave human rights violations” taking place in Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there had been reasons for Christensen’s arrest, but that he was unaware of the details of the case.

With Post wires