Sunday, April 17, after reports it was likely to be liquidated by the local authorities. Human rights groups, including the Voice Of the Martyrs (VOM) Canada said the pastor of the church received a second official warning this month from the Minsk City Executive Council that it was "holding unauthorized worship services."
The first notice was dated December 30, 2004, VOM Canada said. "According to Belarusian law,
after two such notices, the church can be legally liquidated," the human rights watchdog added in a statement obtained by BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest.
FACING DIFFICULTIES
"The New Life Church has been facing difficulties for several months" as they "have been refused permission to rent a facility," VOM Canada recalled. "City planners say that a new house of prayer does not fit into the development plans for the area, despite plans to build an Orthodox church there. Consequently, the church began meeting in a former cowshed," the organization said.
However city officials claim that this "is illegal", since a cowshed is not an "approved facility
for a church meeting." In March, Pastor Slava Goncharenko was reportedly fined 720,000 Belarusian roubles the equivalent to thirty months’ wages.
News of the latest stand-off between the church and the authorities comes less than a month after 1,000 protesters demanded the resignation of Belarus’ autocratic President Alexander Lukashenko, following a crackdown on churches and political dissidents. Reporters said at least dozens of people were detained near the presidential palace during a March 25 demonstration, where speakers made clear they tried to emulate the popular uprisings in fellow ex-Soviet republic Kyrgyzstan and earlier in Ukraine and Georgia.
CHURCH CRACKDOWN
Analysts say the crackdown on Churches like New Life Church comes amid fear among the Communist style government to lose control over rapidly growing Christian congregations.
"A key feature of state religious policy is an extensive centralized network monitoring religious communities and active religious believers. There has been at least one attempt by the secret police to persuade a pastor to collaborate with them," added the human rights group Forum 18 in a recent report.
American Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice described Belarus recently as one of the "outposts of tyranny" as the country borders the European Union. In a letter to supporters, VOM Canada urged Christians to "pray that the ministry of the New Life Church will be able to continue despite the ongoing opposition" from the government. "Pray for peace and comfort for Pastor Goncharenko and the members of the church," it said.
(With reports from Belarus, BosNewsLife Research and Stefan J. Bos).
