Tclose, has been fined almost 20 times the country’s average monthly salary for refusing to stop conducting worship services, BosNewsLife established Wednesday, September 28.
The Minsk-based New Life Church said the Moscow District Court of the City of Minsk had fined administrator Vasily Yurevich the equivalent of $2,000 in local currency.
It added that Yurevich "was declared guilty of repeatedly breaking the [court] order" to stop religious services. In a ruling judge Natalya Kuznetsova said the service was "conducted without the authorities’ permission," New Life reported. Officials were not immediately available for comment.
"I see this ruling as another step of the court to suppress the Protestant church in Belarus. But I believe in God’s judgment, which is a true one and that this will end some time," Yurevich said in a statement on the church website.
The court’s ruling would be appealed, New Life said. It was the second time that Vasily Yurevich received a fine for conducting worship services without the state’s permission, the church noted. In November, 2004, Yurevich was apparently fined 3.600.000 Belarusian Rubles, about $1670.
GOVERNMENT TALKS
News of the latest fine came after talks with national and local government officials about New Life’s future broke down Monday, September 19, a church representative said.
Sergei Lukashin, the lawyer of the 1000-strong New Life Church, told BosNewsLife last week that "bureaucrats" handed over a demand "from the city government to take over our building," a former cowshed, after authorities already confiscated New Life’s plot of land.
"They claim they need the building because they want to construct an apartment complex there. But we have nowhere to worship now as everyone is either refusing or afraid to give us space," Lukashin said after talks in the Ministry of Interior in Minsk between a New Life delegation and Deputy Interior Minister Viktor Filistovich as well as national and local religious policy officials.
NEW PROTESTS
Officials have defended their policy saying that the cowshed – purchased by the church in 2002 – can only be used "for its designated purpose." The New Life Church is considering protests against authorities’ attempts to close the congregation.
Human rights groups have described the pressure on the New Life Church as part of attempts by President Alexander Lukashenko’s government to crack down on non-Orthodox churches and other groups deemed dangerous for his autocratic leadership.
The former Soviet Republic of Belarus has been described by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as "the last true dictatorship" in Central Europe, charges the government strongly denies.
PASTOR HOPEFUL
However New Life’s Pastor Vyacheslav Goncharenko stressed he will not cry over the "liquidation" of his church as an organization, which he sees as a Christian challenge. If this [closure] happens I am going to dance for five hours. Because then we will split into many small groups, each of those very soon will grow to 1000 people [like the current congregation]} he said.
"Even if we suppose that the situation goes this way – we are going to benefit anyway, and the authorities will lose," he added. The pastor compared the situation with China where millions of Christians are gathering in house churches.
"For example, in China there are no officially registered Christian churches. The church has to hide there, people meet in homes, pray silently. [They] silently glorify God because it is not allowed to make noise [but] people rise from the dead,” he said.
New Life is one of about 60 congregations of the evangelical Full Gospel Union Church domination, but has come to symbolize what human rights watchers describe as "widespread persecution" of non-Orthodox churches.
