26.10.2006
BELARUS: BELIEVERS PRESSURED TO WITHDRAW REGISTRATION SIGNATURES


By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service

Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA) have
complained to Forum 18 News Service that Belarusian government officials -
in conjunction with local Moscow Patriarchate priests - are pressuring
their parishioners into withdrawing their signatures from registration
applications. Baptists and Pentecostals have told Forum 18 that their new
communities encounter similar pressure from state officials.

Under Belarus' restrictive 2002 Religion Law, which was strongly backed by
the Belarusian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), state registration is
compulsory for all religious communities, and unregistered religious
activity is illegal - against international human rights standards. Part
of the registration procedure is that a minimum of 20 Belarusian citizens
are required to form a religious organisation, who must submit their full
names, addresses, dates of birth and signatures.

Moscow Patriarchate priests and parishioners in the western Belarusian
city of Brest have recently been visiting the apartments of those who
submitted their names for ROCA parish registration "and encouraging them
to recant - very great pressure is put on them," Bishop Agafangel
(Pashkovsky) of Odessa and Tavriya told Forum 18 from the southern
Ukrainian city of Odessa on 17 October. The bishop assumed that the ROCA
parishioners' addresses had been passed to the priests from the state
organ responsible for registration, since the apartments visited "belong
to the very same names as on the application list." He pointed out that if
just one person rescinds his or her name, the application has to be made
"all over again".

The US-based Russian Orthodox Church Abroad severed ties with the Moscow
Patriarchate in 1927, after the latter declared its loyalty to the Soviet
Union. Since the collapse of communism there, the ROCA has established
approximately 150 parishes in Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus.
Following the controversial replacement of its leader, Metropolitan Vitali
(Ustinov), by Metropolitan Lavr (Shkurla) in 2001, the Church has been
engaged in rapprochement with the Moscow Patriarchate. This abrupt change
in policy has lead to a schism, which has seen some ROCA structures -
particularly in the former Soviet Union - insist upon their continued
loyalty to Metropolitan Vitali and his legacy of opposition to the Moscow
Patriarchate. Despite having reservations about the rapprochement process,
Bishop Agafangel and his diocese have remained under the jurisdiction of
Metropolitan Lavr, however.

Since August 2006, two Moscow Patriarchate priests - Fr Yevgeni Likhota
and Fr Ignati Lukovich - have been threatening local residents who
submitted their personal details as part of registration applications for
two ROCA parishes in the Vulka and Kovaleva suburbs of the city, local
ROCA priest Fr Ioann Grudnitsky stated to Forum 18 from Brest on 23
October. These priests and their supporters have told his parishioners
that the ROCA is "an illegal, uncanonical sect" and that if they continue
to associate with it they will not be allowed to attend or receive
sacraments from Moscow Patriarchate churches, Fr Ioann reported. As a
result, he said, some members of the ROCA parish of SS Antoni, Ioann and
Yevstafi, Martyrs of Vilna in Kovaleva have withdrawn their names from its
registration application.

Fr Ioann, like Bishop Agafangel, also maintained that the government organ
charged with registering religious organisations - the Department for
Religious Affairs -passed on the relevant information from the parishes'
registration applications to the local Moscow Patriarchate diocese.

Fr Yevgeni Likhota insisted to Forum 18 that he knew of no Orthodox in his
area other than his own Moscow Patriarchate community. Told of the claims
that he had worked with state officials to persuade people not to sign up
to another Orthodox jurisdiction, he stressed on 24 October that he was
subject to his bishop "and not to officials." After stating that he was
"not prepared to discuss such issues with you," Fr Yevgeni then urged
Forum 18 to address further questions to his diocese.

A secretary at the Moscow Patriarchate's Brest diocese told Forum 18 that
its priests could not possibly have met with ROCA parishioners as "there
are none - there are no registered ROCA parishes here." For further
details, she suggested that Forum 18 contact the Department for Religious
Affairs.

Answering the number she provided, Aleksandr Tsyrelchuk of Brest's
regional Department for Religious Affairs maintained that the ROCA
parishioners had withdrawn their signatures when they brought their
registration applications to his office. "We talked to them, explained
that it [the ROCA] was a different church, and they said they didn't want
to go to it." Tsyrelchuk then read to Forum 18 the text of a statement,
which he said had been signed by 13 of the 26 founding members of the ROCA
parish of SS Antoni, Ioann and Yevstafi, Martyrs of Vilna. In it, the
signatories request their signatures on the registration application to be
considered invalid, since they did not realise to what church the parish
belongs, "and we do not wish to sow ecclesiastical strife on the territory
of Brest region."

According to Tsyrelchuk, those behind the registration of the ROCA
parishes were practising deception, "and you can't build anything good on
deception, especially a church."

In 2005 Brest region's top religious affairs official, Vasili Marchenko,
wrote to the head of the ROCA parish council in the village of Ruzhany and
urged the community to attend the local Moscow Patriarchate parish, "where
normal conditions have been created for the performance of religious rites
by all who wish" (see F18News 9 November 2005
). In a leaked January
2005 report, the same official bemoans the fact that for two years, "state
representatives have found neither the time nor the opportunity to
influence these believers [the Ruzhany ROCA community] or to assist the
local priest in returning them to the fold of the [Moscow Patriarchate]
church" (see F18News 18 November 2005
).

Fr Ioann Grudnitsky also told Forum 18 that the registration application
for the ROCA parish of the Protection of the Holy Veil of the Mother of
God in Brest's Vulka suburb is currently undergoing expert analysis by the
State Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs in Minsk, "even though
they know who we are, of course - the ROCA and the Moscow Patriarchate are
part of the same Church, it's just that we don't accept ecumenism or
collaboration with the KGB secret police."

Under the 2002 Religion Law, registration applications from religious
communities "previously unknown" in Belarus are subject to scrutiny by
religious studies experts for up to six months.

Also known locally as the Russian True-Orthodox Church, the ROCA's three
parishes in Minsk and Minsk region were denied registration in late 2002
after just such an expert analysis. They have unsuccessfully tried to
challenge the state's action in the courts (see F18News 2 April 2003
and
, and 6 November 2003
). Their priest, Fr
Leonid Plyats, has been threatened with jail or a massive fine if he holds
services (see F18News 6 June 2005
).

Bishop Agafangel told Forum 18 that ROCA members in Belarus are reluctant
to take their case to an international court, as they fear "some kind of
repercussion." They are also unwilling to risk meeting for services, he
said, "just like in Soviet times." Both the bishop and Fr Ioann Grudnitsky
stressed that this was particularly the case since November 2005 amendments
to the Criminal Code made organisation or leadership of a religious
organisation found to "harm the rights, freedoms and legal interests of
citizens, or prevent their fulfilment of state, social or family duties"
punishable with imprisonment for up to three years.

Fr Ioann Grudnitsky has had two fines imposed on him totalling 4,080,000
Belarusian Roubles (12,106 Norwegian Kroner, 1,555 Euros or 1,825 US
dollars) for holding unregistered worship in Ruzhany village (see F18News
9 November 2005 ). He
told Forum 18 that he has not paid these, however, "as I consider them
illegal."

Fr Ioann was once a vocal supporter of the 2002 Religion Law, as a
prominent priest in the Moscow Patriarchate's Brest diocese before an
internal dispute led to his departure. In a September 2002 interview with
the diocesan newspaper "Spiritual Herald", for example, he urged the law's
adoption by parliamentary deputies, and suggested that the legal minimum
membership of a religious organisation should be raised from ten to 500.

In addition to opposing the re-establishment of the Russian Orthodox
Church Abroad, the state has also opposed attempts to re-establish other
Orthodox churches. The Belarusian Orthodox Autocephalous Church even
suffered the bulldozing of its church building in Pogranichny (Grodno
[Hrodna] region) in August 2002. The Moscow Patriarchate has also
registered "Belarusian Orthodox Church" as a brand name in order to
prevent alternative Orthodox jurisdictions from gaining official status
(see 6 November 2003 ).

Protestants have also recently told Forum 18 about state pressure on the
signatories of registration applications. The main Baptist Union's elder
for Minsk region described how local officials typically telephone all 20
names on the list of founding members of a new church and issue threats.
"In rural places people need something from them - wood, peat or a horse
for ploughing - they are afraid to lose this, so they withdraw their
names." Gennady Brutsky also related how, if one of the founders is a
teacher, officials call the school director, who informs the teacher that
his or her leisure activity is "incompatible" with working in a school.
"Exactly the same method was used in Soviet times."

Unprompted, a Minsk Pentecostal representative, who preferred to remain
unnamed, also told Forum 18 of new communities' difficulties in
registering. "If a grandmother repents, for instance, and signs a
registration application for a new church, the head of the village soviet
[council] will come and tell her she won't be given a tractor, wood for
her stove or a cow. So she then withdraws her name."

Religious communities continue to face state pressure for religious
activity without state permission, including Protestants (see eg. F18News
20 October and 28
September 2006 ) and
Catholics (see eg. F18News 3 October 2006
).

Amongst the forms of pressure - on communities as diverse as Protestants,
Catholics and Hare Krishna devotees - is that foreign religious workers
invited by local religious communities are increasingly being barred from
Belarus (see F18News 18 October 2006
). Independently-run
congregations, outside centralised religious bodies, face acute
restrictions (see F18News 12 May 2005
). (END)