Suzdal Diocesan Bulletin
#31
October 16, 2005
ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS OF THE VLADIMIR REGIONAL AUTHORITY CONTINUE TO DENY TRANSFER OF CHURCH PROPERTY TO THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX AUTONOMOUS CHURCH IN THE TOWN OF PAVLOVSKOYE , SUZDAL REGION
Litigation continues over ownership of the Church of St. John the
Forerunner in the town of Pavlovskoye, Suzdal region, between
government officials and the Suzdal Diocesan Administration of the
Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC).
On August 15, 2005, the Suzdal Diocesan Administration addressed an
appeal to the Office of the President of the Russian Federation with
the request to look into the activities of the officials of the
Vladimir Regional Authority, which has been refusing to issue
documents confirming the ROAC’s rights concerning this church
property.
On October 13th, the Suzdal Diocesan Administration received an
answer from the Ministry of Cults and Mass Media of the Russian
Federation, signed by a Mr. D. M. Amunts, in which it was stated that
the matter has been referred to the Vladimir Regional Authority for
action.
At the same time, the ROAC received an answer to its appeal from the
Vladimir Regional Authority. Citing law #490 of June 30, 2001,
“concerning the procedure for transferring property of religious
significance to religious organizations under federal jurisdiction,”
the lieutenant governor for the region, Mr. S. A. Martinov, stated
that, “among the documents that have come to be in the possession of
the committee overseeing management of regional government property,
unfortunately, there is no information establishing that the above
mentioned church property was ever in use by the Suzdal Diocese of
the ROAC, prior to its transfer to ownership by the government and
nationalization. In accordance with the foregoing, transfer of the
St. John the Forerunner Church property for use by the ROAC is beyond
possibility.”
In other words, this official requires proof that the Russian
Orthodox Autonomous Church owned the St. John the Forerunner Church
before this property was nationalized by the Bolsheviks in 1918!
According to the Suzdal Diocese’s lawyer, Mr. S. K. Mochenov, the
law requires no such document at all. When he asked the head of the
Department of Culture for the Regional Authority, a Mr. V. I.
Balakhtin to issue the deed, Mr. Balakhtin pointed to the absence of
any certificate showing that the St. John the Forerunner Church had
ever belonged to the ROAC confession. When the lawyer offered to read
through the wording of the law together with Mr. Balakhtin, the
latter hesitated for a long time, and then revealed, “We have our
instructions. Complain to whomever you wish.” All of the lawyer’s
attempts to explain to him that “confession” and “religious
organization” mean two different things under the law, were in vain.
According to information from the Regional Authority’s
Administration, the governor of the region, a Mr. N. Vinogradov, had
issued an unwritten order to give no documents of any kind to the ROAC.
Having lost in court, the Moscow Patriarchate built its own church
not too far away, from which it wages a propaganda campaign and stirs
up hatred toward the True Orthodox Christians in the town of
Pavlovskoye, and against the ROAC in general.
During the 1990’s, the Territorial Governing Authority and the State
Center for the Preservation and Use of Historical Monuments and
Culture for the Region of Vladimir prepared a packet of documents and
gave them to the Diocese of Suzdal (Preservation Contract and Free
Use Contract), establishing its right of ownership to the property.
The Suzdal Diocese used its own funds to restore the property, put up
an ikonostasis, and installed heat. Regular services began to be held
in the church. However, soon after, the Ministry for State Property
and the Ministry for Culture transferred ownership of the St. John
the Forerunner Church to the Moscow Patriarchate. The Suzdal Diocese
took these two ministries to court. The Moscow Appeals Court, which
concluded in 2002, pronounced this transfer to be illegal and ruled
that the property’s transfer to the Moscow Patriarchate should be
considered null and void. The church was to remain under the control
of the ROAC. Notwithstanding, the head of the Department of Culture
for the Vladimir Region, Mr. V. I. Balakhtin, continues to flout the
court’s decision, and this cultural monument has yet to be properly
registered as belonging to the Suzdal Diocese of the ROAC.
In the documentation regarding this matter, there is a certificate
from the archives concerning the confession to which this church
belongs, and namely, that the Church of St. John the Forerunner was
Orthodox. Therefore, under the law, this church can be given to any
Orthodox religious organization. However, under influence from the
Moscow Patriarchate, government officials recognize only the Moscow
Patriarchate as being Orthodox, and any other religious organization
not belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate, even if it is incorporated
as “Orthodox,” they consider to be “schismatic,” with no right
to claim any of the properties of the pre-revolutionary Orthodox
Church of Russia whose only legitimate successor, according to some
unwritten determination of theirs, is the Moscow Patriarchate.
The most frightening thing in all of this is not that these
government officials fail to uphold the exact dictates of the law and
defend the interests of the Moscow Patriarchate, without the right to
appeal, as a “state church,” “the church of the majority,”
“the church attended by the president of Russia;” not even the
fact that local officials refuse to allow ROAC communities to
incorporate (as in the Bryansk region); support any and every, even
the most absurd, court cases brought against them by the Moscow
Patriarchate (as in the city of Zheleznovodsk); or even try to
prohibit private persons who are members of the ROAC from erecting
buildings on their own land that contain “elements of cultish
architecture” (as in Novaya Kupavna); but that not even the
President of Russia, guarantor of the Constitution, is able to
protect people who are citizens of Russia from these manifestations
of religious persecution.
