26.01.2009
BELARUS: CHARISMATIC CHURCH'S FIGHT PUSHED BACK TO SQUARE ONE


fter more than two years of foot-dragging, the Higher Economic Court on
13 January threw out an appeal by the Minsk-based New Life Church against
state moves to seize its building. "The authorities have deceived us yet
again," church lawyer and member Sergei Lukanin commented to Forum 18 News
Service on 22 January. A senior presidential administration official had
suggested the church go to court in the first place. The Presidential
Administration has no response to the decision, Lyudmila Vorovka, an
official dealing with religious affairs there, told Forum 18 on 22 January.
A spokesperson for the Higher Economic Court refused to comment to Forum 18
the same day, even to confirm the decision.

The latest ruling takes New Life's position back to October 2006, when the
Minsk authorities dispatched a bulldozer with the apparent intention of
razing the charismatic congregation's building, and the church embarked on
a high-profile hunger strike in its defence (see F18News 20 October 2006
).

The verdict also suggests that the government's underlying policy of
containment towards religious communities has not changed, even while it
has made fewer moves to restrict religious activity during recent efforts
to forge ties with the European Union.

As the Higher Economic Court's decision comes into force immediately, the
Minsk authorities have the right to demand the building "at any moment",
Lukanin pointed out to Forum 18. But if they do, he said, church members
have decided they will refuse to give it up: "We won't submit." No move has
been made against the church since the verdict.

On 22 January New Life returned to the state the money it received for its
building in its forced sale (see F18News 6 October 2006
).

The appeal to which the 13 January verdict relates was originally lodged
in December 2006, and challenged Minsk City Executive Committee's 17 August
2005 instruction curtailing New Life's land rights and ordering the sale of
its building (see F18News 1 September 2005
). The instruction was
based upon the church's alleged violation of the Land Code, which states
that rights to land may be curtailed if it is not used according to its
designation (Article 49, Part 4).

Purchased in 2002, New Life's building - a spacious, modern barn-like
structure on the edge of Minsk - is legally still a cowshed. The state
authorities refuse to allow the church to legalise its position by changing
the building's designation to a house of worship, or to use it for services
(see F18News 21 February 2005
). The congregation's
defiant worship at the building has resulted in multiple large fines in
addition to its formal confiscation (see most recently F18News 17 August
2006 ).

The congregation has nowhere else to meet, having been barred from public
facilities by district administrations throughout Minsk (see F18News 16
December 2004 ). It
toyed with the idea of keeping several cows at the church, but animal
husbandry is now banned in Minsk (see 28 July 2005
).

By the time of the October 2006 hunger strike, New Life had already
exhausted the appeals procedure. But after letters of support from all over
the world began pouring in to President Aleksandr Lukashenko, the church's
pastor, Vyacheslav Goncharenko, was invited to see a top-ranking
presidential administration official, Oleg Proleskovsky, who hinted that a
legal resolution was possible (see F18News 20 October 2006
).

This was the reason the church returned to the courts in December 2006,
Lukanin, the lawyer, explained to Forum 18. "It wasn't our initiative, it
was due to [Proleskovsky's] advice to resolve our problem that way - we
assumed positively." New Life now intends to take its appeal higher, he
added. "Although we know that the decision wasn't taken in the courtroom,
or even the courthouse. It was a political decision taken in the
presidential administration, and until the position there changes, nothing
will happen in the courts."

Proleskovsky's telephone went unanswered on 22 January. His assistant had
previously referred Forum 18 to Lyudmila Vorovka, whose brief at the
presidential administration includes religious affairs.

Vorovka refused to comment on the court decision on 22 January, even after
Forum 18 explained that it was only due to her colleague Proleskovsky's
advice that New Life had lodged the appeal at all. "The court decides this
[issue], not us," she replied when Forum 18 asked whether the presidential
administration would take measures to resolve the church's problems. "We
can't interfere with the decision of the court."

Minsk's senior religious affairs official has staunchly defended the
city's actions against New Life to Forum 18 (see 21 February 2005
).

Meanwhile, the state authorities continue to target the activity of the
Council of Churches Baptists, who refuse compulsory state registration on
theological grounds. On 11 January, two of its members operating a
Christian street library in Osipovichi [Asipovichy] (Mogilev [Mahilyow]
Region) were approached by Anna Zemlyanukhina, who heads the local district
Ideology Department. Arguing that the church is unregistered and does not
have state permission to run such a library, Zemlyanukhina ordered the
literature's removal, according to a 24 January Council of Churches
statement. When the Baptists refused to comply, she called the police, who
detained the pair and confiscated their literature and a "Christian
Library" sign.

Also in Mogilev Region, a court in Bobruisk fined Aleksandr Yermalitsky
175,000 Belarusian Roubles (445 Norwegian Kroner, 50 Euros or 65 US
Dollars) on 8 January after he hosted "a religious event at which the Bible
was read" at his home on 5 December, the Council of Churches reported. The
5 December home worship service was visited by three officials of the local
district Ideology Department, a police officer and KGB officer, who asked
why the Baptists were meeting without state registration and why there were
children present without their parents.

On 20 December 15 Baptists running a street library in Kobrin (Brest
Region) were detained by police and referred to Kobrin District Court for
"singing songs of a Christian nature without permission from Kobrin
District Executive Committee," the Council of Churches reported on 2
January. The group was issued an official warning - but not fined - by the
court on 6 January, a Baptist representative in Kobrin told Forum 18 on 21
January.

Police in Kobrin earlier detained the Baptists, confiscated their
literature and told them "to clear off" (see F18News 23 December 2008
).

On 14 January the European Parliament passed a resolution calling upon
Belarus "to respect freedom of religion." The state authorities are
"denying a growing number of Protestant and Catholic priests and nuns the
right to practice a preaching and teaching ministry," it noted.

Fr Zbigniew Grygorcewicz, until the end of December 2008 a Catholic parish
priest in Borisov [Barysaw] (Minsk Region), told Forum 18 from Poland on 23
January that the presidential administration still has until 10 February to
respond to a letter from parishioners asking why he is not allowed to work
in Belarus: "So we are waiting."

Fr Grygorcewicz was one of four Polish Catholic priests as well as three
nuns who had their permission to continue religious work in Minsk-Mohilov
Archdiocese and Grodno [Hrodna] Diocese revoked at the end of December. The
bans brought to 29 the number of foreign religious workers - including
Protestants and Jews as well as Catholics - banned from working with local
religious communities since 2004 (see F18News 7 January 2009
). For Catholics in
Borisov, it is the second time in recent years that their parish priest has
been ousted (see F18News 13 January 2006
).

Fr Yan Kuchynski, the dean of Grodno's Catholic cathedral, told Forum 18
on 23 January that he had no news concerning his Church's attempts to
return to Belarus the three priests from that Diocese barred at the end of
2008. Likewise the chancellor of the Minsk-Mohilov Archdiocese, Fr Yuri
Kasabutsky, told Forum 18 from Minsk on 26 January that he was unaware of
any progress in seeking the return of the three Polish nuns and one priest
to the Archdiocese.

www.forum18.org