FORUM 18 NEWS SERVICE, Oslo, Norway
The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one’s belief or religion
The right to join together and express one’s belief
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Monday 26 September 2005
RUSSIA: PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH TO BE CONFISCATED?
Its registration liquidated in 2003 for “administrative violations” and
with subsequent registration applications denied, the Emmanuel
Presbyterian Church in Mozdok in Russia’s North Caucasus now faces the
confiscation of its “beautiful Gothic-style” prayer house, church
administrator Olga Mazhurova told Forum 18 News Service. The local
administration told the congregation in early September that there is
enough evidence to file suit for its confiscation, though no date for a
court hearing has been set. The church admits it “made mistakes” over the
way the church was built without planning permission, but claims it has
been blocked from regularising its position due to local suspicion of its
foreign connections. Officials at Mozdok district prosecutor’s office have
refused to discuss with Forum 18 why they are seeking to confiscate the
church.
RUSSIA: PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH TO BE CONFISCATED?
By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service
A 600-strong Presbyterian church in the Northern Ossetian town of Mozdok
in Russia’s North Caucasus looks set to have its prayer house confiscated
by the local state authorities. Emmanuel Church’s administrator Olga
Mazhurova acknowledged to Forum 18 News Service on 20 September that her
community had “made mistakes” in the past over the way the church was
built, primarily due to a lack of legal expertise, but claims it has been
blocked from regularising its position due to local suspicion of its
foreign connections. Mozdok is close both to Beslan – where Emmanuel has
given material support to victims of the September 2004 school siege – and
to the conflict zone of Chechnya and Ingushetia. Officials at Mozdok
district public prosecutor’s office have refused to discuss with Forum 18
why they are seeking to confiscate the church.
The Mozdok Presbyterians – who are predominantly Russian, Ossetian and
Korean but also Armenian and Chechen – have been able to gather freely for
worship at their building since the church’s registration was liquidated in
2003, Mazhurova told Forum 18. At the beginning of September 2005, however,
they were informed by the local administration that there is now sufficient
evidence to file suit for the confiscation of their prayer house, she said,
although no date for a court hearing has yet been set.
Founded by South Korean missionaries, Emmanuel Church bought two adjacent
plots of land in Mozdok in approximately 1997, according to Mazhurova, and
then knocked down the two village houses located there. Repeatedly refused
planning permission – in her view due to its foreign connections – the
church nevertheless completed construction of its 1000-seater “beautiful
Gothic-style” prayer house at the site in approximately 2000, she said,
hoping to legalise it post factum. “We decided on that course of action
because we had no lawyer at the time.”
Instead, however, the local authorities began to take note of the church’s
administrative violations in an atmosphere increasingly hostile towards the
Presbyterians, Mazhurova continued. “We didn’t have much contact with the
local authorities, so they thought the church might be a cover for
espionage – there is an aerodrome near here – or conducting anti-Russian
activity. Local press articles began to maintain that we were turning
people into zombies, almost killing them.” When laws became more complex,
she added, what had seemed like minor technical violations “snowballed
against us”.
As well as pointing to the absence of planning permission, Mazhurova told
Forum 18 that local officials claimed Emmanuel’s English-language classes
and medical centre were not properly registered. Pavel Bak of the
Moscow-based Pentecostal union to which the church is affiliated told
Forum 18 on 20 September that a further violation was considered to have
taken place when South Korean and US missionaries working with the Mozdok
Presbyterians some years ago overstayed the validity period of their
Russian visas. As a result, according to Mazhurova, a local Mozdok court
liquidated Emmanuel Church in September 2003. For the next two years, she
added, the community tried to register anew without success.
Protestant communities in Russia are increasingly reporting bureaucratic
opposition to their church building projects (see F18News 24 August 2005
<;).
On 21 September, a secretary at Mozdok district public prosecutor’s office
who was clearly familiar with the situation asked Forum 18 to ring a
different number at the same office in several hours’ time. He declined to
name the official dealing with the Presbyterians’ case, but claimed that
anyone answering the given number would be able to respond to Forum 18’s
query, promising to warn staff so that they could seek out relevant
documentation in the mean time. Telephoning the number at the appointed
time, however, Forum 18 was told that the person dealing with the
Presbyterians’ case was on holiday. The person who answered claimed that
he did not know anything about the case and refused to discuss anything by
telephone.
To Forum 18’s knowledge, Emmanuel’s is the first case in which a religious
organisation has been liquidated for purely administrative violations since
– and contra to – a 7 February 2002 ruling by Russia’s Constitutional
Court. Concerning, but not limited to, the Moscow branch of the Salvation
Army, this stipulated that a religious organisation may be liquidated only
if found to be conducting anti-constitutional activity or “properly proven
to have ceased its activities”. In August 2002 an independent Baptist
community in the Pacific port of Vanino founded by US missionary Dan
Pollard avoided liquidation as a result of this ruling. Latterly, however,
a charismatic church in the Tuvan capital Kyzyl similarly escaped
liquidation for minor administrative violations only by voluntarily
disbanding (see F18News 18 July 2005
<;).
Forum 18 notes that last year’s liquidation of the Moscow organisation of
Jehovah’s Witnesses was ordered on the basis of alleged
anti-constitutional activity (see F18News 29 March 2004
<;).
For a personal commentary by an Old Believer about continuing denial of
equality to Russia’s religious minorities see F18News
<;
For more background see Forum 18’s Russia religious freedom survey at
<;
A printer-friendly map of Russia is available at
< s/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=russi >
(END)
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress