Source:         www.forum18.org

Date:            May 30, 2007

 
By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>
 
A Baptist congregation in Zelva (Grodno [Hrodna] Region), a town that was
in Poland between the First and Second World Wars, has been denied state
permission to reconstruct its 1920s wooden church building for over two
years, Forum 18 News Service has learnt. "We want to rebuild in brick, but
the authorities refuse, without giving a definite reason," a member of the
church remarked from Zelva on 22 May. All the local state architect will
approve is plastic panelling ['saiding'] to the façade, she added. Pastor
Viktor Sobchuk of the 50-strong congregation recently told the Evangelical
Belarus Information Centre that he believes the church's location close to
the main Minsk-Warsaw highway may be behind the refusal. "The authorities
are afraid that the appearance of newly renovated churches in such a
conspicuous place could attract people."
 
Grodno region's main religious affairs official told Forum 18 on 28 May
that he is familiar with the old prayer house in Zelva, but maintained that
its Baptist congregation did have official permission to reconstruct it:
"They are renovating it right now." Asked whether such permission included
to rebuild in brick or just to apply exterior panel decoration, Igor Popov
said he was unable to answer.
 
Yelena Kovsh, a vice-chairwoman of Zelva District Executive Committee [the
local council] who deals with religious affairs, maintained to Forum 18 on
24 May that she was unaware of the Baptists' situation: "I don't have any
information about it." She directed Forum 18 to her colleague, a
vice-chairman of Zelva District Executive Committee who deals with
construction issues. Viktor Yurkevich's telephone went unanswered on 24, 25
and 28 May, however.
 
According to the Zelva church member, obtaining state permission to build
or renovate prayer houses in the local area continues to be "very
difficult". A prominent example of this problem is the ongoing attempt by
the charismatic New Life Church to obtain state permission for the
reconstruction as a church of its disused barn in the capital, Minsk.
Following hearings at the Higher Economic Court on 19 and 22 March, Judge
Yekaterina Karatkevich adjourned the church's case indefinitely due to "the
need to send questions to competent organs in order to clarify their view
on the given situation," according to New Life's website.
 
Present at the 19 March hearing, religious freedom lawyer Dina Shavtsova
recently suggested to Forum 18 that "the absence of a legal basis to sort
it out sensibly" was contributing to the deadlock. The Minsk authorities
continue to insist to the Higher Economic Court that the disused barn
should be confiscated, because New Life has not been using the land on
which the barn is built for its offially designated use - even though
animal husbndry is illegal within Minsk (see F18News Service 22 September
2006 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=844>). Shavtsova
maintained to Forum 18, however, that this terminology is not clearly
defined by law. According to her interpretation, a change of land use
should involve substantial alteration to the land itself, for example road
construction or mining. She also pointed out that, elsewhere in Minsk, a
Soviet-era sports stadium hosts trading markets at weekends, "but nobody
claims this is a violation of its designation."
 
Four thick files of correspondence with municipal officials and 18 months
of court cases having failed to secure the right to use their own land and
building for worship, members and supporters of the Minsk-based charismatic
New Life Church began a hunger strike on 5 October 2006. Within just two
weeks the church's pastor, Vyacheslav Goncharenko, was invited to see a
top-ranking presidential administration official, who hinted that a legal
resolution was possible (see F18News 20 October 2006
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=858>). Since opening a
review of the case in late December 2006, however, the Higher Economic
Court has repeatedly postponed - and now adjourned - its verdict (see
F18News 12 March 2007 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=930>).
 
In Belarus, property problems mainly affect Protestant communities. Unlike
the other major confessions present in the country - Orthodox and Catholic
(non-Christians such as Jews and Hare Krishna devotees are present only in
small numbers) - they are much less likely to own historical worship
buildings, which are the main premises within which religious events do not
require state permission under the 2002 Religion Law. Where Protestant
communities do not have designated worship buildings, their congregations
are also more likely to be too large to meet discreetly in a private home.
 
A related difficulty to problems such as those faced by New Life is the
near impossibility of getting property fomally redesignated for
non-residential use. Pastor Aleksandr Knysh of Christmas Baptist Church in
the town of Ivatsevichi (Brest Region) told the Evangelical Belarus
Information Centre in late April that for several years the local
authorities have refused to allow the construction of a new church building
in place of his congregation's present one. This refusal is claimed by the
authorities to be because the site the church occupies is designated for
residential housing. Gennady Brutsky, the Baptist Union's elder for Minsk
Region, similarly told Forum 18 on 22 May that Ascension Church in
Dzerzhinsk is still unable to obtain compulsory state registration as its
prayer house is technically a residential building (see F18News 3 August
2006 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=822>).
 
The 1998 Civil Code and the 1999 Housing Code both prohibit an
organisation from being located at a residential address, unless it has
been redesignated as non-residential premises. While the restrictive 2002
Religion Law allows a religious organisation to meet at free-standing
residential premises with the approval of the local authorities, in
practice this is highly dependent upon the discretion of individual
officials (see F18News 7 October 2003
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=155>). The authorities have
consistently obstructed religious communities from meeting for worship in
residential buildings (see F18News 28 July 2005
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=619>). Restrictive
interpretation of the law may result in worshippers being fined (see most
recently F18News 28 May 2007
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=964>).
 
Gennady Brutsky of the Baptist Union told Forum 18 that Protestant leaders
have been trying to have this situation addressed for over four years. This
spring, for example, the leaders of the Adventist, Baptist and Pentecostal
leaders appealed to President Aleksandr Lukashenko. The Presidential
Administration's Department for Communication with Citizens responded by
confirming that religious organisations may legally meet in private homes,
with the agreement of the local state authorities. Brutsky also said that
he has heard state officials promise to take religious communities'
concerns into account during the current revision of the Housing Code, "but
as far as I understand, this will take a minimum of five years."
 
Protestant communities also have great difficulties in renting buildings
to meet for worship. A consistent pattern has emerged over a number of
years, in which those who control premises for rent regularly back out of
contracts with Protestants soon after the authorities are informed (see
F18News 29 May 2007 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=965>).
 
In the view of Pastor Aleksandr Knysh of Christmas Baptist Church,
however, the official status of his congregation's building is not the main
factor: "The situation will never be resolved as long as we are regarded as
sectarians." On 17 May the head of the Pentecostal Union, Sergei Khomich,
complained to the state television channel Lad about a 12 May programme
encouraging intolerance of religious minorities. After warning viewers
about the danger to Belarusian society posed by destructive cults and
faith-healers, the programme reportedly showed a clip of a service in his
own Grace Pentecostal Church, as well as its recent missionary conference,
with the commentary: "People with significant wealth often find themselves
the target of sects."
 
The Belarusian state tends to regard Protestant communities negatively,
because it sees them both as ideologically and spiritually threatening (see
8 August 2006 <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=824>) and as
the major source of religious-political dissent (see 29 November 2006
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=880>). Recently, Protestant
communities have been prominent in a nationwide campaign to petition to
change the Religion Law (see F18News 16 May 2007
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=957>). (END)
 
For more background information see Forum 18's Belarus religious freedom
survey at <http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=888>.
 
A survey of the religious freedom decline in the eastern part of the
Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) area is at
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=806>.
 
A printer-friendly map of Belarus is available at
<http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=belaru>