RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS
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Russian president
receives patriarch in Kremlin
PUTIN ACKNOWLEDGES STATE INDEBTED TO CHURCH
Assures Patriarch Alexis II of intention to support religious organizations
Portal-credo.ru, 10 June 2005
The state is indebted to religion and intends to support religious organizations in their ministry to people, Vladimir Putin declared. "The state is also indebted to religious organizations, associations, and churches and I want to declare that we will act even further in the same direction, helping and supporting our religious organizations in their ministry to people," the Russian president said when he congratulated Patriarch of Moscow and all-Rus Alexis II in the Kremlin on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of his enthronement.
Putin thanked Alexis II for his activity in Russia and in the international arena. "I want to thank you for what you have done both within the country and in the international arena, which is also important for us inasmuch as this strengthens and makes more effective the efforts of our country in the international arena by elevating the international authority of Russia," the president of Russia said.
"Permit me to congratulate you heartily and to state my most sincere respect and thanks for all that you and the Russian Orthodox church have done for interconfessional harmony and the spiritual rebirth of our country," the president said, addressing the patriarch.
"I know how difficult it has been for the church; it was especially difficult in the first years of the rebirth, when it came out of the ruins and how difficult it was for people who were Orthodox believers," Putin noted.
Addressing the primate of RPTsMP, the head of state said: "I shall never forget, Your Holiness, our conversations about this, when you frequently returned to the conditions of ordinary citizens of our country who were parishioners of RPTs and other believers. The church, as no other organization, feels this since it is closest of all to the people. It works with people and it gives hope to people and this attention to the moral support of citizens of Russia is very important for us," Vladimir Putin stressed.
The president wished the patriarch great prosperity, good humor, and success. The head of state presented the primate of RPTsMP a copy of Velazquez' picture "Christ in the home of Martha and Mary," which was made by the famous Russian artist Semiradsky at the beginning of the twentieth century. In addition the head of state presented Alexis II a bouquet of white roses and chrysanthemums.
The meeting between Vladimir Putin and Alexis II took place in the working office of the head of state in the Kremlin.
Alexis II thanked the president for his warm words which were addressed to RPTsMP. "Actually, the fifteen years that have passed were not easy because it is not easy to restore what has been destroyed," the patriarch said. "But we found those common tasks that we have with the state and society. You said quite rightly that the church is separate from the state, but not from the people," Patriarch Alexis II noted, addressing Vladimir Putin.
"We have felt the beating of its heart and not only within our country, but also abroad. Over there are many Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians," the patriarch noted. "They live in various countries and send us requests for opening parishes, because there are in parishes of RPTs abroad people who find themselves in difficult situations and they feel a vital link with the motherland," Alexis II said. "And therefore the number of our parishes has grown so. . . . We have not opened them (parishes), but they were called forth both within the country and abroad," the patriarch of Moscow and all-Rus stressed.
Patriarch Alexis II identified as the common tasks of the state and church international peace, interreligious peace in Russia, resolution of social problems, and maintenance of monuments of culture for future generations. "Thus I thank you that we have here cooperation and support on the part of the state, "the patriarch noted, addressing the president. "Thank you that you have done so much to crystalize relations among religious organizations, not just for RPTs but also in general between religious organizations and the state," Alexis II said.
"We are partners in the resolution of common tasks who must work together, helping one another and supporting one another. We have common tasks, which we will resolve; such it was and such it will be," the head of RPTsMP said. The patriarch expressed gratitude for help, support, and understanding of common tasks. (tr. by PDS, posted 11 June 2005)
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Pentecostals subjected to more injustices
PENTECOSTAL SILENT PICKET REVIVED; POLICE CONFISCATE PENTECOSTAL BUSPortal-credo.ru, 10 June 2005
Members of the "Emmanuel" central church of Christians of Evangelical Faith on 10 June continued their action of protest on Tver Square across from Moscow city hall. The Pentecostal believers have been protesting against the illegal confiscation of a parcel of land that had previously been allocated for construction of a spiritual culture center of the "Emmanuel" church and the sentencing of two senior pastors, Alexander Purshaga of the "Emmanuel" church and Ilia Astafiev of the "News of Hope" church of Zelenogorsk, Leningrad province, to five days of administrative detention for participation in an allegedly unsanctioned picket on Tver Square, the acting senior pastor of the Moscow church, Elena Purshaga, told a Portal-credo.ru correspondent. Both pastors are conducting a hunger strike of indeterminate length.
According to E.Purshaga, about thirty members of the "Emmanuel" church are currently standing silently on the corner near the underground passage beneath Tver Street, next to the "Moskva" book store, since they do not have permission for conducting a picket and so they cannot use placards nor are they permitted to chant slogans. A group of enraged police officers and OMON special forces has tightly encircled them and they are crudely threatening to break up the picket and arrest its participants. In accordance with a scenario worked out at the time of the announcement of the sentences in the case of M. Khodorkovsky and P. Lebedev in the Meshchansk court, the police demanded that the silent picketers abandon the spot at the underground passage because repair work was beginning.
In the parking area near the Yury Dolgoruky monument there is a black Mercedes Sprinter microbus belonging to the Pentecostals. A man calling himself police Lt. Kalushkin climbed into it and demanded of the driver, Varazdat Eremian, documents for the vehicle. The driver presented him a driver's license in his name. According to E. Purshaga's account, Lt. Kalushkin put this license into his pocket, got out of the vehicle, and responded to the request to return the license that he did not take any license and he would now summon a squad of traffic officers who would remove the microbus. The owner of the microbus is a member of "Emmanuel" church, Sergei Alexandrovich Matvienko, who at the time is three hours from Moscow and is driving to the site of the incident. (tr. by PDS, posted 10 June 2005)
FIVE MORE PROTESTANTS SENTENCED
Portal-credo.ru,
10 June 2005
Another five members of "Emmanuel" church were sentenced on 10 June by Tver district court Jusdice of the Peace A.B.Kovalevskaia. The press secretary of "Emmanuel" church, Yury Popov, was sentenced to five days deprivation of freedom. Immediately after the announcement of the decision of the court, Yury Popov declared a hunger strike in the courtroom, the acting senior pastor of "Emmanuel" church, Elena Purshaga, told a Portal-credo.ru correspondent. Church administrator Bakur Azarian and parishioners Alexander Soloviev, Oleg Koliada, and Yury Puchkov were sentenced to fines of 1,000 rubles each.
In the meantime, police Lt. Kalushkin, who seized in an outrageous manner from the driver of a microbus his driver's license, carried out his threat and called representatives of the traffic department and the vehicle was removed. Before the removal of the vehicle Mr. Kalushkin warned that the bus could be almost completely dismantled since there could be explosives inside, E. Purshaga said. If one believes in such an account then one marvels at the bravery of the police lieutenant who willingly remained a long time inside the cab of a vehicle which, in his opinion, could be mined.
A member of "Emmanuel" church, Vladimir Kishishian, who followed the microbus being removed in his own car, reported to Elena Purshaga that this vehicle was not taken to the garage of the traffic department but was left by the squad removing it in the traffic lane of Olympic Blvd. facing oncoming traffic. This elicited questions of amazement from local police. The owner of the microbus, Sergei Matvienko, who returned to Moscow, found his essentially stolen vehicle, and is now drawing up, with police officers, a statement about the theft of the vehicle and is preparing to go to the prosecutor's office with a request to open a criminal case in the matter.
At the same time, in the Tver district court of Moscow, Judge S.V. Ukhnaleva
began a review of the appeal by the senior pastor of "Emmanuel" church,
A.A. Purshaga, against the sentence of Justice of the Peace A.B. Kovalevskaia,
who sentenced him to five days deprivation of freedom. A. Purshaga himself
was not taken into the court and is not present at the review of his appeal,
which is a crude violation of procedural law. The defense of Pastor Purshaga
is being conducted by an attorney of the Slavic Legal Center, Vladimir
Piakhovsky, who is trying to get a review of the appeal in the presence
of Purshaga. (tr. by PDS, posted 10 June 2005)
EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS FIGHT FOR A CHURCH
by Stephen Boykewich
Moscow Times, 10 June 2005
Dozens of evangelical believers stood stunned on Tverskaya Ploshchad across from City Hall, their protest banners lying in police vans, their pastor being carted off to a holding cell. "This time it was pretty," Yelena Purshaga said last Thursday. Her husband, Alexander Purshaga, is the pastor of the Emmanuel church.
"You should have seen the way it was yesterday," she said on June 2.
The church had sought -- and thought it received -- permission to hold a weeklong demonstration across from City Hall over the loss of land that it had hoped to use to build a house of worship.
But on May 30 and June 1, police and OMON special forces violently broke up the demonstrations, throwing women and children to the ground and swearing at them, parishioners said. One of them, Marina Karandayeva, raised her sleeve to show an ugly ring of bruises around her arm.
For Emmanuel's believers, it was the latest indignity in a decade-long struggle to build a church for their 1,000-member Moscow parish. For some religious liberty organizations, it was further evidence of a mounting, and in some cases violent, trend to persecute Protestant religious minorities.
In mid-May, a group of young men stormed into the Moscow office of the Russian Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith, a main umbrella organization for evangelical churches in Russia, and announced that they had been sent to "beat sectarians." At about the same time, Perm regional authorities said they wanted to buy back a former palace of culture building that had been sold to an evangelical church -- a decision that came after the church was criticized by the local Russian Orthodox bishop, the mayor of Perm and city legislators. A Baptist home church went up in flames in an apparent arson attack in the Moscow region town of Lyubuchany in September.
Emmanuel's saga began in 1994, when it applied for land to build a church in Moscow. Protestant church membership was growing rapidly at the time, thanks in part to a 1991 law on religious organizations that has since become far more restrictive.
In 1996, the church was granted a plot on Prospekt Vernadskogo, and spent "many millions of rubles" over the next few years preparing the project, said Alexander Purshaga, who is both Emmanuel's chief pastor and president of the Russian Assemblies of God, an organization that includes 38 other parishes nationwide.
But when the Moscow parish was ready to start construction in 1999, authorities in the local administrative district said that residents opposed the project.
"We went out to collect signatures," Yelena Purshaga said. "We did everything by the book: last names, addresses, passport numbers. People knew us because of the charity work we had done with orphans and veterans. Out of the 10,000 people we asked, 6,000 said they weren't against construction." The church was then abruptly told that the land had been previously promised to the city government for public use, Alexander Purshaga said.
Igor Tabakov / MTAlexander Purshaga, pastor of the Emmanuel church, and his wife, YelenaOver the next five years, a series of alternative sites were offered to the church and retracted for various reasons. In 2003, Emmanuel managed to buy a house of culture on Ulitsa Bogdanova in southwest Moscow but was later denied permission to renovate it.
Lawrence Uzzell, president of International Religious Freedom Watch, said Emmanuel was far from alone in its plight. "Securing a meeting space is probably the most common type of problem that Protestant organizations in Russia have," Uzzell said.
Protestant churches throughout Russia have complained that owners of theaters and former cultural palaces have refused to let them rent rooms for religious services because of the opposition of local Orthodox priests or bishops, he said.
"In effect, Orthodox clergy were being given veto power over their competitors," Uzzell said.
Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II's chief spokesman, Mikhail Moiseyev, denied such practices.
Regarding Emmanuel's difficulties, he said: "Construction in Moscow is a problem for everyone. If in this case there are problems, it's by no means connected to the Orthodox Church." He noted, however, that "more than once the most holy patriarch has expressed the idea that the activities of many religious groups -- evangelists, neo -charismatics, pentacostals, whatever they call themselves -- have absolutely no historical tradition beneath them and are alien to Russian spiritual life." Emmanuel's members disagree. Protestants have been active throughout territory of the former Soviet Union for over a century. The Russian Assemblies of God have been registered in the country since 1933, and the families of both Purshagas have worshiped in evangelical churches for generations.
"They ask us who our foreign sponsors are," Yelena Purshaga said. "They say we've come from America to bring a democratic revolution. We don't want anything of the kind. All we want is the land they promised us." Last month, they decided they had waited long enough.
Emmanuel first held a rally of about 1,500 people on Pushkin Square on May 22. The church also filed for permission to hold a week of protests on Tverskaya Ploshchad. Alexander Purshaga said city authorities never contacted them to reject the request or to notify the church about a change in location within the three days required by law.
When parishioners gathered on Tverskaya Ploshchad on May 30, "the police came and asked to see our papers. We showed them, and everything was fine," Purshaga said. "But on Tuesday, no one asked who we were, whether it was legal or not. They started tearing our posters down and grabbing women and pensioners." The police department for the central administrative district has since produced a document dated May 26 -- three days after the legal deadline -- changing the rallies' location to Pushkin Square.
"They were not granted permission to demonstrate on Tverskaya Ploshchad. Therefore, the demonstration was unsanctioned," police spokeswoman Yelena Perfilova said.
Regarding parishioners' complaints of police force, she said, "The use of excessive force is forbidden by law." Alexander Purshaga argued that the May 26 document had no legal force because it had been issued well after the three-day deadline had expired. "This was a provocation," he said.
His argument held little sway in court hearings this week. Several Emmanuel members were fined 500 to 1,000 rubles on charges of participating in an unsanctioned demonstration. Ilya Astafyev, an evangelical pastor who came from St. Petersburg to support the protest, was denied a petition for legal representation on Tuesday and sentenced to five days in jail. On Wednesday, Alexander Purshaga also received a sentence of five days in jail.
City authorities insisted that no one was targeting Protestant believers. "Moscow is a very crowded city," said Andrei Parnov, the spokesman for Deputy Mayor Mikhail Men. "About 400 other religious organizations are now in a similar situation of waiting for land.
"These kinds of churches shouldn't be in a hurry," he said.
(posted 10 June 2005)
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Pentecostal pastor sentenced to five days in jail
NEW "EMMANUEL" CHURCH PROTEST AGAINST CITY HALLPortal.credo-ru, 9 June 2005
At Moscow's city hall on Tver Square a new action of protest has begun, which is being conducted by members of the "Emmanuel" central church of Christians of Evangelical Faith Pentecostals that unites more than 1,000 persons. The action is directed against the arbitrariness of city authorities in relations with the senior pastor, the press secretary of the "Emmanuel" church, Yury Popov, reports to Portal-credo.ru.
From the second half of the day of 8 June, when it became known that Senior Pastor Alexander Purshaga had been sentenced to five days detention for conducting an unsanctioned action, members of "Emmanuel" church began to assemble across from the building at No. 13 Tver Street for a peaceful prayer demonstration of protest against such tyranny. In their opinion, Judge A.B. Kovalevskaya, who sentenced the pastor, was guided by testimony from police officers that distorted the events and she ignored the appeals of those who had been arrested and their defense attorneys to existing legislation.
At the present time around thirty members of "Emmanuel" church are on Tver Square and they are continuing the prayer protest. Various persons have gathered around the participants in the action of Christians of Evangelical Faith, some of whom are police officers in uniform, who are threatening the believers with arrest and affirming that they have "orders from the prosecutor's office" to put an end to and break up the action of the participants. In particular, a certain person in civilian clothes representing "Prosecutor Sergeev" has cited this order.
According to Yury Popov, in the morning of 9 June police officers, without any reason, arrested one of the members of "Emmanuel" church. Popov notes that it has been established that "some do the arresting and reports were prepared by others."
Despite threats on the part of representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and other institutions, members of "Emmanuel" church intend to erect a sign at 5:00 p.m. with photographs of the arrested ministers and the inscription "Free the ministers of our church!" There also will be signs with calls for the return to "Emmanuel" church of the illegally confiscated parcel of land at the edge of the Fiftieth Anniversary of October Park that had been allocated for construction of a spiritual culture center. Members of the church also have sent letters to Russian President Vladimir Putin requesting "intervention and ceasing of the tryanny like that of the 1930s."
As noted in a conversation with a Portal-credo.ru correspondent, the wife of the senior pastor, Elena Purshaga, the Council of Heads of Confessions of Protestant Churches, of which Alexander Purshaga is a member, has already sent a letter to President Putin requesting help in resolving the problems that have arisen for "Emmanuel" church over the lot in the "Prospekt Vernadsky" metro district that was assigned to them in 1996. "For two years now they have not prepared the documents for a new parcel in the Solntsevo for the 'Constructors House of Culture,"'"she said. "They make evasive replies."
In the course of the next five days members of "Emmanuel" church intend to conduct nonviolent actions of protest against the arrest of the clergy , for which existing law does not require filling out special documents nor receiving permission from the authorities. However observers are sure that these actions will be illegally terminated by city authorities, just as they terminated attempts to conduct a picket last week. (tr. by PDS, posted 9 June 2005)
HOW PROTESTANT PASTOR SENTENCED
We already have had Basman and Meshchansk justice. Now Tver justice
has appeared. It is now time to speak of Muscovite justice
by Oleg Vladimirov
Portal-credo.ru,
9 June 2005
For three days now a trial of participants in the picketing conducted by protestants on Tver Square in front of Moscow city hall has been going on. On 8 June, in the afternoon, the case of the senior pastor of the "Emmanuel" church, Alexander Ananievich Purshaga, was reviewed, a Portal-credo.ru correspondent was told by the church's press service. Attorneys from the Slavic Legal Center, A. Pchelintsev and V. Riakhovsky, citing the laws, effectively refuted all points of the indictment. Distrust on the part of the justice of peace of the Tver court, A.B. Kovalevskaia, toward the words of witnesses and the defendant, on one hand, and complete mutual understanding with police Major A. Krylov from the Tver District Department of Internal Affairs, on the other, permit the press center of the church to draw conclusions about a prejudicial attitude of the court toward the case.
At the time of the hearing it was established that violations by the prefecture of the Central Administrative District of the city of Moscow [TsAO] have not been confined to their extending the period for presenting information about the transfer of the site of the picket but also they did not inform the organizers of the picket about their overdue suggestions. In addition, at the prefecture a document about transferring the place of the picket was drawn up in violation of the law. The notification was signed by the deputy prefect of TsAO, S.A. Vasiukov, when the decision on such question does not lie within his competence. The suggestion to move the site of conducting the event could be made only by the prefect of the district, in this case TsAO Prefect S.L. Baidakov.
A second document that the defense subjected to criticism that the prosecution did not refute still lay at the basis of the indictment; it was a document drawn up by three specialists of the TsAO prefecture saying that they allegedly telephoned the press secretary of the "Emmanuel" church, Yu.N. Popov, with the suggestion to move the site of conducting the picket in oral form. In accordance with law, such suggestion must be made no later than three days after submission of the notification about conducting the action, which had been submitted to the TsAO prefecture on 20 May. One of these women, commenting on the document in court, was not able to explain to the court how she, not being a responsible official, could make any kind of suggestions several days before the order signed on 26 May from the deputy prefect appeared. On the basis of these two documents, which are defective in the juridical sense of the word, Judge A.B. Kovalevskaia had already put two senior pastors behind bars and fined many parishioners of "Emmanel" church arrested at the time of conducting the picket sums equal to five to ten times the minimum wage.
Also at the time of the hearing it was explained that according to the law "On gatherings, demonstrations, etc" police officers themselves do not have the right to terminate the picketing, as is the case in any other public event. This can be done only by an official authorized by the prefecture in the event of any of the violations enumerated in the law. And only in the event that the demands given by the authorized official are not fulfilled can recourse be taken to help from police officers. In this case, the prefecture did not appoint an authorized official and the police officers substantially exceeded their authority. Thus, the demands by the police to cease the picket cannot be called legal.
There also were other demands on the part of workers of the Department of Internal Affairs of Tver district. Thus Major Krylov threw threats at Senior Pastor Purshaga, shouting "Tear off my shirt; Come on!" This demand also the senior pastor did not fulfill, from ethical and aesthetic considerations. In the trial the major had difficulty answering: for failure to fulfill which of the two demands was Senior Pastor Purshaga arrested and indicted--for not stopping the picket or for not tearing the major's shirt? In any case, each of the demands is equally illegal.
On her part, Judge Kovalevskaia reacted completely calmly to Major Krylov's admisstion that for tearing a policeman's shirt the senior pastor would receive a much longer sentence.
And so, Tver Justice of the Peace A.B. Kovalevskaia sentenced the senior pastor of the "Emmanuel" central church of Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostals) of Moscow, A.A. Purshaga, to five days for violation of the rules of picketing and disobedience to police officers. In response to this arbitrariness Alexander Purshaga announced a hunger strike of indefinite length and he sent a declaration to Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov. (tr. by PDS, posted 9 June 2005)
CASES OF FOUR MORE MEMBERS OF "EMMANUEL" CHURCH TO BE REVIEWED 10 JUNE
Portal-credo.ru,
9 June 2005
The case of four ministers of "Emmanuel" church who were arrested for participation in picketing on Tver Square will be reviewed in Tver court on 10 June, church press secretary Yury Popov reports.
The cases of participants in the picketing, the larger part of which were sentenced to fines, have been reviewed in Tver court by Justice of the Peace A.B. Kovalevskaia. On 10 June the church's press secretary, Yury Popov, Pastor Bakur Azarian, and church members Soloviev and Koliadov will be summoned to court. It is quite possible that some of them will join the two already sentenced to confinement: the senior pastor of the "News of Hope" church in Zelenogorsk, Leningrad province, Ilia Astafiev, and the senior pastor of the Moscow "Emmanuel" church, Alexander Purshaga.
Pentecostal Aleksei Pankov, who was arrested along with the above-mentioned "organizers" on 2 June, was sentenced, according to Yury Popov's information, to a fine of 1,000 rubles. On 8 June the same fine was assessed on Sergei Sviridkin and Alexander Kucheinik. A fine of five times minimum wage was assessed against Tatiana Zaitseva, a mother of several children, who, according to information from the Russian Assemblies of God centralized religious organization, of which the "Emmanuel" church is a member, was arrested by police at 11:00 a.m., even before the start of the picketing. (tr. by PDS, posted 9 June 2005)
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Pentecostal minister declares hunger strike
THIRD DAY OF TRIAL OF PARISHIONERS OF "EMMANUEL" CHURCHPortal-credo.ru, 8 June 2005
The trial of believers arrested during the conduct of picketing by the "Emmanuel" protestant church near Moscow city hall continued on 8 June. The hearing began on 6 June before Justice of the Peace for Tver District of Moscow A.B. Kovalevskaia.
As a Portal-credo.ru correspondent reports, on 8 June the cases of Sergei Sviridkin and Alexander Kucheinik were reviewed. They both were fined 1,000 rubles, that is ten times the minimum wage.
The court also heard testimony of the chief specialist of the prefecture of the Central Administrative District of Moscow, Elena Poliakova, from which it follows that established legal procedures regarding permissions for events conducted by public and religious associations have been frequently violated in the prefecture. The blatant violations on the part of the prefecture led to the breakup of a peaceful picket, and the loss of freedom for Ilia Astafiev and the fining of ten people. Nevertheless, the court refused to give to this the proper assessment and, ignoring the arguments of attorneys, condemned the believers.
On 8 June a sentence also will be issued in the case of the senior pastor
of "Emmanuel" church, Alexander Ananievich Purshaga.(tr. by PDS, posted
8 June 2005)
DECLARATION OF SENIOR PASTOR OF "EMMANUEL" CHURCH
To Moscow Mayor Yu.M. Luzhkov
The requests and demands of the "Emmanuel" central church of Christians of Evangelical Faith of Moscow regarding the issue of the return of the illegally confiscated parcel of land at the edge of the Fiftieth Anniversary of October Park in the "Prospekt Vernadsky" district for construction of a Spiritual Culture Center have not been heeded. The process for return of the land has not been begun. Our rights have not been respected. The promises of bureaucrats that there will be a meeting with the mayor of Moscow have remained unfulfilled.
In addition, the legally conducted pickets on Tver Square in the period from 30 May to 3 June 2005 were frequently broken up by police officers and those guilty of the confrontations, the vice-prefect of the Central Administrative District, S.A. Vasiukov, prefecture worker E.I. Poliakova, and others have not been punished. Using falsified documents that have no juridical force, a justice of the peace of the Tver district, A.B. Kovalevskaia, has issued judgments of guilt that completely ignore the state of the law and also the arguments of attorneys and witnesses for the defense.
Seeing this whole judicial farce and violence against conscientious and law abiding citizens, I, the senior presbyter of the Russian Assemblies of God and senior pastor of the "Emmanuel" central church of Moscow, Alexander Ananievich Purshaga, today, 8 June 2005, declare a hunger strike of indefinite length and I demand
1. to order an investigation with regard to violations by the deputy prefect of the Central Administration District, S.A. Vasiukov, in drawing up permissions regarding notification about the picketing by "Emmanuel" church on Tver Square from 30 May to 3 June 2005 which, by his incompetent or intentional actions, provoked the confrontation between the police and believers.
2. to begin the process of returning the piece of land illegally seized in 2001 on the edge of the Fiftieth Anniversary of October Park in the "Prospekt Vernadsky" district, which was allocated in 1996 for the construction of a spiritual culture center of the "Emmanuel" central church of Moscow.
For the resolution of these matters I request a meeting with the city mayor, Yu.M. Luzhkov, since bureaucrats of the government of Moscow are not authorized to resolve this matter.
Purshaga, A.A.
Senior Pastor
(tr. by PDS, posted 8 June 2005)
Posted on Portal-credo.ru
site, 8 June 2005
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