ROAC Priest in Stavropol Evicted from His Home at the Request of the Local Moscow Patriarchate Bishop
Persecutions continue against clerics of the Russian Church in the Stavropol region. Now being a member of a ROAC is the all that is needed to be persecuted, Vertograd reports.
MP Bishop Theofan (Ashurkov) has successfully orchestrated an eviction from the apartment of priest Andrei Fedyunin, the rector of the ROAC parish of the village of Kursavka. In June of 1999, Fr. Andrei and a number of the parishioners of the St Michael Church in the village of Kursavka left the Stavropol diocese of the MP, after serving in the parish for more than five years. During Fr Andrei's service in the MP local authorities granted the family a permit to live in a specified local residence. When Fr. Andrei withdrew from the MP there were no questions of the legality of the stay in their home. But soon after the passage of Fr. Andrei into the Free Russian Church was publicized in the local press, articles began to appear about "American sectarians" taking over the Kursava village temple, courtesy of the MP's Stavropol diocese.
In 2001, the parishioners of the local MP church concocted a statement under advisement from Kursavka's village administration, where it was determined that a direct transfer of residential property was needed for the MP community, which happened to be the same property where Fr. Andrei lived with his family for five years. Of course, they "forgot to inform" the priest of this fact, leaving him no time to seek any legal recourse prior to this decision. Priest Andrei Fedyunin repeatedly turned the procuratorship of the Andropovsk region of Stavropol with complaints of illegal actions on the part of the village administration, but the procuratorship found nothing illegal in these actions. Meanwhile, the MP St. Michael Parish filed a motion to the court evicting Fr Andrei from from the apartment he lived in. In response, Fr. Andrei filed a counter-motion arguing that the building transfer to the MP was illegal, but in the course of two years, nothing was done.
Assigned this past year to the MP's Stavropol diocese, Bishop Theofan (Ashurkov) turned to the deputy representative of the President of the Southern federal region, Korobeynikov (a native of s. Kursavka) with the request to assist taking the apartment occupied by Fr. Andrei "by any means". In spite of all their difficulties, the parishioners of ROAC's St Vladimir Church in Kursavka and their rector, Fr. Andrei, believe that the small community of the Free Russian Church, with God's help and through the might of prayer, will overcome all disorganization and oppression in which it finds itself.
