Source: www.forum18.org
Date: June 22, 2023
https://www.forum18.org/archiv
By Olga Glace, Forum 18
On 20 June, the regime brought in bulldozers to start the destruction of
New Life Pentecostal Church in the capital Minsk. By later in the day, much
of the building was reduced to rubble. The decision to bulldoze the
building – from which the Church was evicted in February 2021 - came from
Capital Construction Management Company, which is owned by Minsk City
Executive Committee.
In a 20 June video address outside the destroyed building, the Church's
Pastor Vyacheslav Goncharenko described the destruction as "flagrant
lawlessness". "God sees everything," he added, "and he sees today our
suffering, our grief, our pain. He sees likewise today the mockery of
wicked people. He sees their blasphemy" (see below).
The regime has since 2002 repeatedly denied New Life Church's requests for
permission to change the official designation of the former cowshed it
bought that year into a place of worship. This was in contrast to a disused
railway carriage 500 metres from New Life's building which was without
regime obstruction used from January 2001 by a community of the
regime-supporting Belarusian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). That
community has now built a church, also without any regime obstruction (see
below).
Forum 18 called the Head Office of Capital Construction Management Company
on 22 June to find out why they demolished the building. The secretary
answered nervously: "It's not a question to us, maybe it concerns the
[company's] district division." The Deputy Director of Frunze District
Capital Construction Management Company, Aleksandr Korzhanevsky, told Forum
18 that the New Life Church building is not a property they have
responsibility for (see below).
Andrei Aryayev, the Head of the Religious Department of the Office of the
Plenipotentiary for Religious and Ethnic Affairs, absolutely refused to
discuss the demolition of New Life Church. "I won't give any comments, ask
Minsk City Executive Committee," he told Forum 18 before putting the phone
down (see below).
The secretary of the Deputy Head of Minsk City Executive Committee Aryom
Tsuran refused to direct the call and recommended to call the press
service. Ilona Illarionova from the Press Service told Forum 18 that she
did not know about New Life Church and promised to collect information
later. Neither the Head of the Ideology Department of Minsk City Executive
Committee, Olga Chemodanova, nor the Ideology Coordination Section answered
their phones when Forum 18 called (see below).
New Life Church has long faced state pressure. In February 2021, police and
bailiffs forcibly expelled the community from its church. The Church thinks
this may be due to a video it posted online protesting against regime
election fraud and violence. In September 2022, officials banned the church
from meeting for worship in the car park and fined two pastors for leading
open-air worship meetings (see below).
Since being banned from meeting for worship in the grounds of its own
church, New Life Church has had to meet online and for in-person meetings
borrow the building of the Protestant God's Grace Church in Minsk (see
below).
New Life Church has been seeking a building to rent for worship meetings.
However, it has been denied permission to rent buildings - even by
organisations recommended to the Church by Minsk City Executive Committee
officials, Pastor Goncharenko told Forum 18. Officials advised the Church
to hold meetings in the cultural centre of Minsk Car Factory. "But they
told us that there was no possibility to host us and refused to give a
written denial." He noted that local authorities do not encourage
organisations to rent premises for religious meetings (see below).
Pastor Goncharenko thinks that buying a new building is not possible.
"No-one will sell us a religious building, and religious communities are
not allowed to have regular religious meetings in a non-religious
building," he commented bitterly (see below).
Rather than seeking meetings with officials, New Life Church is planning to
send an open letter to the government setting out the facts. "All our
meetings with officials ended up with them twisting whatever we said,"
Pastor Goncharenko told Forum 18. "They always try to find some trick even
in our humanitarian and social projects" (see below).
After the destruction of New Life Church, human rights defenders and others
drew parallels with another place of worship in the city that officials
have closed, the Catholic Church of Saints Simon and Helena (known locally
due to its brickwork as the Red Church). Officials closed the church for
worship or any other activity after a suspicious minor fire in September
2022 (see below).
"I hope that at least they will not think of demolishing the Red Church in
the same way," exiled Orthodox Christian and human rights defender Natallia
Vasilevich noted on Telegram on 21 June (see below).
On 2 June, a judge fined Vladimir Burshtyn – who is in his 70s – over a
month's average pension for an outdoor meeting in Drogichin with fellow
Baptists to share their faith. He has appealed against the fine, imposed in
a court hearing fellow-Baptists were denied access to
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
overnight before the hearing, and Head of the local Ideology Department
Svetlana Shchur insisted to Forum 18 that any event must have state
permission.
On 2 June, the regime made public the draft of the proposed new Religion
Law (https://www.forum18.org/archi
chief state religious affairs official, Plenipotentiary for Religious and
Ethnic Affairs Aleksandr Rumak. The proposed new Law harshens the
restrictive 2002 Religion Law
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
defenders at the time publicly condemned.
Officials gave only 10 days for comments, which Minsk's Lawtrend Centre for
Legal Transformation criticised given the "exceptional significance of the
draft Law for religious and social life". The proposed new Law is due to be
considered by the non-freely elected Parliament in September
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
New Life: Years of state pressure
The Minsk authorities have long exerted pressure on New Life Pentecostal
Church, which has been functioning since 1992. It bought its building - a
former cowshed in Frunze District on the western edge of Minsk – in 2002.
The Church converted the building into its place of worship, turning it
into a spacious, modern structure, but the authorities repeatedly denied
the Church's requests to change its legal designation as a cowshed.
This was in contrast to a disused railway carriage
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
Life's building which was without regime obstruction used from January 2001
by a community of the regime-supporting Belarusian Orthodox Church (Moscow
Patriarchate). That community has now built a church, also without any
regime obstruction.
The regime repeatedly tried to evict New Life Church from 2009 onwards, and
on 17 February 2021 30 police and court bailiffs forcibly evicted New Life
from its building, using an angle grinder to cut the door lock to gain
entry. The bailiff's enforcement order was signed by Aleksey Petrukovich,
and he refused to explain to Forum 18 why the eviction happened and why
force was used.
New Life's administrator Vitaly Antonchikov suspected that the reason for
the sudden eviction was that New Life recorded and on 21 November 2020
posted on its YouTube channel a video by church members protesting against
the regime's violence against protestors objecting to election fraud
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
"We had just one day to remove our property before the [February 2021]
eviction, and we were not allowed to take many things that belonged to the
church and could be used in another building," New Life's Pastor Vyacheslav
Goncharenko complained to Forum 18 on 21 June 2023. "These included
radiators, doors, and electrical equipment." The excuse Capital
Construction Management Company gave for this was that removing this church
equipment would make the building "non-functional".
After being expelled from its own place of worship, New Life Church held
its worship services in the car park outside each Sunday, whatever the
weather. Minsk City Executive Committee subsequently rejected all New Life
Church's attempts to seek permission to hold meetings either in the car
park, or to have their church building returned to them, and threatened to
liquidate the Church (https://www.forum18.org/archi
Pastor Goncharenko was detained and fined in September 2022
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
Code Article 24.23 ("Violation of the procedure for organising or
conducting a mass event or demonstration"). Pastor Antoni Bokun of Minsk's
John the Baptist Pentecostal Church, who regularly supported New Life
Church, was similarly detained and fined.
On 25 September 2022, police banned the Church's Sunday meeting for worship
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
car park, threatening to detain anyone who did not leave. This forced New
Life to halt the in-person worship meetings it had held in the church car
park every Sunday, whatever the weather, since the February 2021 forcible
eviction.
Since being banned from meeting for worship in the grounds of its own
church, New Life Church has had to meet online and for in-person meetings
borrow the building of the Protestant God's Grace Church in Minsk.
New Life: Destruction
Minsk City Executive Committee handed New Life's church building to Capital
Construction Management Company, which the Executive Committee owns, Pastor
Goncharenko told Forum 18 on 21 June 2023. Minsk City Executive Committee
claimed it planned to house some of its organisations there.
Initially the company posted guards to protect the building. However, the
guard post was later removed and the empty building suffered attacks from
people seeking valuables to steal, Pastor Goncharenko told Forum 18.
On 20 June 2023, without any public announcement, Capital Construction
Management Company sent bulldozers to destroy New Life's church building.
By later in the day, much of the building was reduced to rubble.
In a 20 June video address outside the destroyed building, posted on the
Church's Telegram channel, Pastor Goncharenko described the destruction as
"flagrant lawlessness". "God sees everything," he added, "and he sees today
our suffering, our grief, our pain. He sees likewise today the mockery of
wicked people. He sees their blasphemy." He warned that God would not leave
unpunished those who attack "what is sacred".
Forum 18 called the Head Office of Capital Construction Management Company
on 22 June to find out why the company allowed the building to deteriorate,
did not allow New Life Church to remove its property, and eventually
demolished the building. The secretary answered nervously: "It's not a
question to us, maybe it concerns the [company's] district division."
The Deputy Director of Frunze District Capital Construction Management
Company, Aleksandr Korzhanevsky, told Forum 18 on 22 June that the New Life
Church building is not a property they have responsibility for.
Andrei Aryayev, the Head of the Religious Department of the Office of the
Plenipotentiary for Religious and Ethnic Affairs
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
to discuss the demolition of New Life Church. "I won't give any comments,
ask Minsk City Executive Committee," he told Forum 18 on 21 June before
putting the phone down.
Forum 18 called the Head of the Ideology Department of Minsk City Executive
Committee, Olga Chemodanova, to find out why New Life Church was neither
given a new place for worship nor compensated for being forcibly evicted
from its own property. She did not answer her phone whenever Forum 18
called on 21 June. The Ideology Coordination Section also did not answer
their phones when Forum 18 called the same day.
The secretary of the Deputy Head of Minsk City Executive Committee Aryom
Tsuran refused to direct the call on 22 June and recommended to call the
press service. Ilona Illarionova from the Press Service told Forum 18 that
she did not know about New Life Church and promised to collect information
later. "I have no information about the situation. I will ask my colleagues
who is involved in this," she told Forum 18. She did not answer her phone
when Forum 18 called later in the day.
Forum 18 was unable to get comments from the Architecture Committee on the
reasons of demolishing the church building and any further plans, as the
secretary refused to direct the call her superiors. "We do not give
comments on the phone," she told Forum 18 on 22 June before putting the
phone down.
New Life: What now for Church?
Since September 2022 (when the Church was banned from meeting in its own
church grounds), New Life Church has been seeking a building to rent for
worship meetings. However, it has been denied permission to rent buildings
- even by organisations recommended to the Church by Minsk City Executive
Committee officials, Pastor Goncharenko told Forum 18.
For example, officials advised the Church to hold meetings in the cultural
centre of Minsk Car Factory (MAZ). "Though it is too far from our
convenient location, we went there," Goncharenko told Forum 18. "But they
told us that there was no possibility to host us and refused to give a
written denial." He noted that local authorities do not encourage
organisations to rent premises for religious meetings.
Pastor Goncharenko thinks that buying a new building is not possible.
"No-one will sell us a religious building, and religious communities are
not allowed to have regular religious meetings in a non-religious
building," he commented bitterly.
Pastor Goncharenko pointed out that, in any of the Church's activities,
including over social projects, state institutions unrelated to ideology
are normally cooperative, but when it comes to gaining approval from state
bodies that control religious activity, "all we get is restrictions and
denials".
If the draft new Religion Law
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
current form, the Church is likely to face complications with the
re-registration process which will be imposed on all registered religious
communities, Pastor Goncharenko added. "The current law makes our life
hard, and the new version will make it even more complicated, not only in
terms of re-registration," he complained to Forum 18.
Rather than seeking meetings with officials, New Life Church is planning to
send an open letter to the government setting out the facts. "All our
meetings with officials ended up with them twisting whatever we said,"
Pastor Goncharenko told Forum 18. "They always try to find some trick even
in our humanitarian and social projects."
"I hope that at least they will not think of demolishing the Red Church in
the same way"
After the destruction of Minsk's New Life Church, human rights defenders
and others drew parallels with another place of worship in Minsk that
regime officials have closed, the Catholic Church of Saints Simon and
Helena (known locally due to its brickwork as the Red Church).
"I hope that at least they will not think of demolishing the Red Church in
the same way," exiled Orthodox Christian and human rights defender Natallia
Vasilevich noted on Telegram on 21 June.
The Red Church – like other Catholic communities whose church building is
still owned by the regime – remain vulnerable to regime pressure,
initially through repeated refusals to return it to the community
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
payment of a massive "rental" charge
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
large charge for building work the parish never agreed to.
Other Catholic churches have also faced regime pressure to pay "rent" for
their own churches (https://www.forum18.org/archi
after the regime stopped rent-free agreements with the parishes.
Regime pressure on the Red Church parish has increased following the
regime's September 2022 forcible expulsion of the parish from its own
church (https://www.forum18.org/archi
suspicious minor fire, blocking Catholic parishioners who want to pray, and
attend Mass and other religious services.
In April 2023 officials denied the Red Church parish permission to hold an
April 2023 Easter Mass
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
diocesan Corpus Christi procession around Minsk churches on 11 June did not
stop at the Red Church
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
since 1990.
When Forum 18 asked Andrei Aryayev, the Head of the Religious Department of
the Office of the Plenipotentiary for Religious and Ethnic Affairs
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
had ordered the Catholic leadership to change the Corpus Christi procession
route to avoid the Red Church, he claimed
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
information." He then put the phone down.
"To our great regret, the believers of our parish this year were deprived
of the opportunity to welcome Jesus Christ at our church," the parish noted
on its website on 13 June. "All the parishioners experienced pain and
sadness."
Parish priest Fr Vladislav Zavalnyuk decided to process round the church
with the sacrament "in order to intercede with our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who has been humiliated and expelled from his home for almost 9 months",
with the prayer "that the stony hearts that keep the temple of God closed
will be shaken as soon as possible".
Two parishioners who were returning from the Corpus Christi procession
happened to see Fr Zavalnyuk as he knelt in prayer outside the doors of the
church. "We understood that this man wanted to bring a part of the holiday
here, to the closed doors of his sanctuary," they wrote in a message quoted
on the parish website. "The holiday that the church was deprived of today."
Years of state pressure, expulsions from church buildings
Many communities without formal places of worship find it impossible to get
property redesignated so that it can legally be used for worship. Without a
designated place of worship, the legal exercise of freedom of religion and
belief requires advance state permission
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
refuse this permission.
Communities like New Life Church and the Red Church parish in Minsk - which
officials have expelled from the their places of worship – can only meet
for worship or exercise freedom of religion or belief in other ways in
borrowed premises of other registered religious communities.
Protestant communities – such as Minsk's New Life Church - have generally
found it impossible to get property redesignated so that it can be used for
worship in line with the law. Orthodox and Catholic communities are less
affected, partly because they are more likely to occupy designated
historically preserved places of worship. In the 1990s, many such places of
worship confiscated in the Soviet era were returned to their original
community owners – if the communities were registered - at the request of
communities. (END)
Full reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Belarus
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
For more background, see Forum 18's Belarus religious freedom survey
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
Forum 18's compilation of Organisation for Security and Co-operation in
Europe (OSCE) freedom of religion or belief commitments
(https://www.forum18.org/archi
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