OPPONENTS OF CHURCH IN "TORFYANKA" ACCUSE ORTHODOX ACTIVIST OF ATTACK ON THEIR COLLEAGUE
Interfax-Religiia, 3 August 2015
Opponents of the construction of a church in Torfyanka Park accuse the deputy head of the Moscow division of the Union of Orthodox Citizens, Yury Shuvin, of aggressive behavior, as a result of which one of their colleagues was wounded.
The director of the Moscow division of the Union of Orthodox Citizens, Kirill Frolov, told an Interfax-Religiia correspondent that last Friday Yu. Shubin was beaten by opponents of the church during a rally that they were conducting. The victim was taken to the police where the blows were photographed and given as evidence of what happened.
Meanwhile, later one of the participants in the fight, Evgeny Lebedev, told the news agency that it was he who was wounded and not Yu. Shubin. E. Lebedev said that his colleagues asked Shubin not to film them with a camera so as "not to violate his personal space," but a police lieutenant colonel said that Shubin "is not violating anything and is permitted to photograph."
"At that moment I heard shouts and I saw that Shubin had begun grabbing women by their arms. I ran up to him and grabbed his arm and took him to the police department and at that moment I received a blow to the head. Later in the emergency room they concluded that I have damage to the soft tissue of the head," E. Lebedev explained.
However Yu. Shubin insists that he was not the initiator of the brawl and that he, as well as a representative of the police, consider that "I had complete rights to film the rally with a camera."
"They were upset that I was filming them and they tried to prevent me from doing this. They twisted my arms, splashed something sticky on me, tore the neckband of my shirt, and wounded my leg. The level of aggression simply rose," Yu. Shubin described the incident.
E. Lebedev was one of the initiators of a lawsuit about the illegality of the procedures of public hearings on the issue of building a church. Last Friday the case was closed in court at the request of the plaintiffs. (tr. by PDS, posted 3 August 2015)
MOSCOW DIOCESE WILL BE READY TO CONSIDER POSSIBILITY OF NOT CONSTRUCTING KAZAN CHURCH IN TORFYANKA PARK BUT IN ANOTHER SUITABLE PLACE
Interfax-Religiia, 31 July 2015
The diocesan council of the Moscow city diocese declared its readiness to consider the possibility of building a church not in Torfyanka Park but in another spot, if it is decent and has the support of local residents, Patriarch Kirill's press secretary, Deacon Alexander Volkov, told journalists on Friday.
This is how he commented on the results of today's session in the Babushkin court of Moscow, at which it was announced that opponents of the church had withdrawn their lawsuit. According to their lawyer, they acknowledged that the procedure of conducting public hearings regarding construction of the church had been conducted without violation of the law, although they did not rule out that they could initiate new judicial proceedings.
"Although the decision of the court in effect confirmed the absence of legal impediments to building the church in Torfyanka, the diocese of Moscow, following its peacemaking mission, will be ready to consider the possibility of building in a different spot, in the same microdistrict and within the limits of walking distance. But this new spot befitting a church should also receive the support of local residents, just like the parcel that was allocated," the patriarch's press secretary quoted the words of the diocesan statement.
"We must not permit the conflict over the church in Torfyanka to cause a slowdown of the task that is so important for the spiritual development of the country as the building of Orthodox churches," he cited the position of the diocesan council.
The document also says that the conflict over building the church in Torfyanka only seems to be a struggle of local residents for preserving the park. "Many local residents were deceived by falsehood and changing of the facts by those political forces that in reality are standing behind this attempt to create an artificial division among residents of the district," the representative of the church said. These forces, he continued, "set as their goal not concern over the park but a systematic struggle with the construction of new churches, which at the present time is actively being rolled out throughout the country," and the appearance of new churches "frightens and annoys just those who see their purpose to be a radical change of the development of Russia."
The diocesan council urged "not to permit a repetition of the tragic events of the beginning of the 20th century, when the actions of similar political forces led to two revolutions," and it declared that "the construction of churches will be continued" in order to prevent a repetition of the mistakes made in the past. (tr. by PDS, posted 3 August 2015)
Editorial disclaimer: RRN does
not intend to certify the accuracy of information
presented in articles. RRN simply intends to certify the
accuracy of the English translation of the contents of the
articles as they appeared in news media of countries of
the former USSR.
If material is quoted, please give credit to the
publication from which it came. It is not necessary to credit
this Web page. If material is transmitted electronically, please
include reference to the URL,
http://www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/.