Russian capital and the controversial "sale" of the property to "new owners", a human rights monitoring service said Tuesday, December 16.
The Forum 18 News Service (F18News) said Moscow city’s justice department failed to explain why it allowed the founding document of the Kwan Lim United Methodist Church in northern Moscow to be altered without its congregation’s knowledge or consent.
Church leaders and the Methodist Bishop for Russia suspect the reason for the document change that allowed last week’s seizure by the new "owners", was local city corruption, F18News said.
But the head of the local city registration department for religious organizations, Aleksandr Buksman, was quoted as saying that the take over of the church building met the demands of Russia’s religion law.
AMENDMENTS
Buksman said the amendments to the founding document, which made the change of ownership possible had been discussed at a church meeting that involved the unspecified "religious organization" in April last year.
The Methodists claim no such valid church meeting took place and that those who registered the amended founding document had done so after a meeting not authorized by the church, not involving church members and not held on church premises, F18News said.
Buildings of other organizations, including human rights groups such as the Soros Foundation, also lost properties earlier this year, according to other news reports, often with support from gangs involved in controversial business deals backed by government officials.
GUARDS
Eyewitnesses said 20 guards hired by the new "owners" of the church seized the building December 9, with the pastor and church officials remaining inside, reported F18News.
"We are staying here round the clock to try to prevent the illegal seizure," it quoted church administrator Svetlana Kim as saying. from inside the church Monday December 15. "But we know they won’t pay any attention to us," Kim added.
Guards representing the new "owners", believed to be a rival group backed by the authorities, have the building under their control.
SUNDAY SERVICE
Kim said the church was able to hold its Sunday service on December 14, after guards were persuaded to make way for the church members, but that the church does not know "if next Wednesday’s service will go ahead."
She told the news agency that some thirty church members remain "under siege" in the building. "This is a problem that deeply disturbs the Methodist community in Moscow," Bishop Ruediger Minor, head of the United Methodist Church, told F18News.
He said that propaganda against the church, described by some as a ‘ Korean sect’ and other invectives are used to justify the seizure.
1991 REGISTRATION
The Kwan Lim (Kvanrim in Russian) United Methodist Church was founded and registered in 1991 and gained re-registration with the Moscow justice department in December 1999.
The congregation, which Kim said has some 180 members, built its own church in northern Moscow in 1995 with financial support from Methodists in South Korea. Services are held in Russian and Korean.
Church groups have expressed concern that the recent election victory of President Vladimir Putin’s allies will lead to a dictatorship and more pressure on non Orthodox Christians and missions, according to monitoring by BosNewsLife.
