Cranes
and bulldozers were brought in, together with a bus full of
people to conduct the demolition. “They destroyed
the church completely, completely,” Aleksandr Antonyuk,
secretary of the consistory of the Autocephalous Church and
legal adviser to parish priest Father Yan Spasyuk, told Keston
from the nearby town of Hrodna on 2 August. Antonyuk pledges
that the Church will try to challenge the destruction through
the courts. “I am not optimistic.”
The
demolition is the first case known to Keston in any of the
former Soviet republics outside Central Asia where a place
of worship has been deliberately destroyed to prevent religious
activity taking place. It has brought condemnation from the
local human rights community. “This shows the authorities’
complete lack of respect for religious rights – for people
who want to confess a faith as they choose,” Harri
Pahonyailo, deputy chair of the Belarusian Helsinki Committee,
told Keston from Minsk on 2 August.
The
Autocephalous Orthodox Church has repeatedly been denied registration
in Belarus, and various officials have described the Church
to Keston as a “non-existent religious group”, despite
the fact that it has some 70 parishes in the country. When
the newspaper Nasha Niva published information on 4
January about forthcoming Christmas services in the Holy Cross
autocephalous parish and Father Spasyuk’s Christmas greetings
on 11 January, the prosecutor general’s
office warned the paper that as the parish and the Church
are not registered, the newspaper violated Article 5 of the
Press Law, which states that the mass media are not allowed
to publish any information from unregistered public organisations,
and Article 32, which provides for the public’s right
to receive “truthful information” about the
activities of public organisations through the media.
Antonyuk
said he did not know whether the troops who surrounded the
village were from the army, the KGB, the Border Guards or
the Interior Ministry. He suspects the workers brought in
to destroy the church were new police recruits. Earlier attempts
to destroy the church had failed thanks to opposition from
parishioners and their supporters and, reportedly, the refusal
of workers to destroy a place of worship.
Pahonyailo
expressed concern about 60-year-old Helsinki Committee member
Valery Shchukin, sentenced on 28 July to 15 days’ imprisonment
under Article 166 of the administrative code after travelling
to Pahranichny from Minsk to write about the church destruction
for the paper Narodnaya Volya. The Belarusian PEN-Centre
also condemned Shchukin’s imprisonment. “His
only crime was in trying to report in the press the scandalous
attempt by the local authorities to destroy the building of
the Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. For this intention,
the journalist received 15 days of jail. Such actions by the
authorities contradict Belarusian and international legislation
and violate an individual’s right to carry out professional
duties. These actions do not correspond to the interests of
our state and discredit it in the eyes of the world community.”
Antonyuk
declined to tell Keston of Father Spasyuk’s current whereabouts
(Keston had been unable to reach him by telephone), but said
he had met him last night. Antonyuk had also spoken to local
people who had witnessed the destruction, though he could
not reach the demolished building because of the authorities’ cordon. They had also told him the two and a half metre high
crosses put up next to the church had been broken down.
The
consecration, which should have taken place today, was to
have been attended from the Ukrainian capital Kiev by Bishop
Serafim, a hierarch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Kiev
Patriarchate. “He had earlier been to Pahranichny
and conducted the liturgy there and is very well liked by
local people,” Antonyuk declared. “But we
had to tell him not to come as the consecration could not
go ahead now the church has been destroyed.”
The
destruction of Father Spasyuk’s church was ordered on
23 July by Vasili Grichenko, first deputy chairman of the
Berastavitsa executive committee. “Formally the reason
for the demolition is that the plans approved in 2000 did
not envisage a basement, which is where Father Yan built the
church,” Antonyuk told Keston. “If any ordinary
citizen had done this, no-one would have paid any attention.” He suspectedt he demolition had been instigated at the request
of the Belarusian Exarchate of the Moscow Patriarchate, the
largest religious denomination in Belarus which enjoys the
backing of the government.
“The
Autocephalous Orthodox Church is persecuted,” Pahonyailo
claimed, citing the fines and police harassment of their parishes. “Not one community has been registered since Belarus
gained independence. This is deliberate, as the authorities
do not want to offend the Russian Orthodox Church, which has
a position of
dominance.”
Felix
Corley
