News from Russia:
We just received news that our Church is being persecuted again in Russia and Latvia.
On Sunday morning, August 3rd, two fires were started on church buildings in Suzdal. The first fire was started on the big metal hangar that is situated next to the Synodal House at Teremki Street and to the garage in a yard of the Deposition of the Sash of the Virgin Mary Convent at Vasilievskaja Street.
At 4.30 in the morning, casual by-passers noticed a blaze rising over the hangar building that is used as a garage of the Synod and also as a storehouse of construction materials and fuel. Five minutes earlier pilgrims, who were at the building, heard the sound of a car departing in a quick manner. In it, in all probability, were the arsonists, who set the fire.
The starting point of the fire was in a firewood storehouse added to the hangar. Arsonists splashed liquid fuel through a crack in a wall of the storehouse. As a result, their stored saw-timber burst into flames. Soon a metal wall of the hangar glowed because of the fire, and it started to split. Then flames enveloped shelves with car spare parts, wheels and paints.
Protopriest Nicholas and Protodeacon Vladimir did their best to prevent an explosion of the cars, which were in the garage, and they succeeded: one car was rolled out into the street and the other, which was left inside, was continually cooled off by pails full of water. Miraculously the fire didn't spread to areas with fuel, among which was a tank with twelve tones of solar oil. A consequence of such a possible explosion of such a quantity of fuel could be placed on the same footing as a serious terrorist act.
In the building next door to the hangar was bishop Ambrose, several clerics and pilgrims, among whom were two children ages 7 and 9. They hastily left the building when a pungent smell of smoke began to penetrate in its corridors. Fire brigades arrived in five minutes after the conflagration was revealed. They coped with the fire in about half an hour. As a result of the conflagration several cubic meters of board, slate, other construction material and also the motorcycle of Subdeacon Ivan Kostin were burned. According to the most modest count, the damage caused by the conflagration amounted to 50 thousand rubles. Protodeacon Vladimir, who was among the first to fight the fire was poisoned by coal gas. Urgently needed medical help was given to him.
The second arson took place approximately at 9:30 in the morning. An arsonist splashed petrol from a jerry-can (which was later found) and threw a match inside a crack in the back wall of a garage. The fire was noticed at once and in several minutes nuns and workers of the monastery extinguished it. As a result, saw-timber and plywood stored in the garage were slightly burnt. Also the walls of the garage became covered with soot.
It is far from the first time that ROAC church buildings in Suzdal have become objects of arson. Last summer a conflagration took place in the Deposition of the Sash of the Virgin Mary Convent at Vasilievskaja Street, where a petrol bomb was thrown through window. The building was so damaged that its repair hasn't been completed yet. The disciples of the deposed Andrew Osetrov also set fire to the chapel on Znamenskoe cemetery in Suzdal and to a church house on Slobodskaja Street, where elderly nuns and invalids live. Several years earlier an unfinished building of women cloisters in the name of St. John of Shanghia was burnt down. Perpetrators of all these arsons, who are well known to many inhabitants of Suzdal "aren't ascertained" by investigation even up to now and criminal cases for the majority of such incidents are closed.
We also have news that our Church in Latvia has been assaulted.
Around five in the morning of the 28th of August, the day of the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, unknown hooligans gathered in Daoobavrelse and burned the Cathedral Church of the Holy Equal to the Apostles Prince Vladimir, belonging to the Autonomous True Orthodox Church of Latvia - the Latvian Eparchy of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church. The fire in the church was at once discovered by Archbishop Victor.
According to the report of the Latvian firemen, there were discovered two canisters of gasoline, one of which was full, the other empty, which proved the fire was maliciously set. The flames of the fire seriously damaged the roof of the church, the interior, and church property. The damage is estimated at $9000 U.S. dollars.
According to Archbishop Victor, about five in the morning he was woken by a neighbor lady, who informed him that the church was engulfed with flames. At that point the fire was burning the staircase on the second floor where the bishop slept. To flee the burning church, Archbishop Victor was helped by our Saviour. Vladyka was taken to the clinic with numerous burns. Later it became evident that the culprits threw bottles with a flammable mixture straight into the window of the Archbishop's residence.
Archbishop Victor had reported that he had been threatened continuously during the previous two months. Whoever threatened the hierarch referred to themselves as Christians.
The result of the fire was that the bishop's entire bedroom, the trapeza and the Eparchy's boardroom were burned.
It is obvious to us that this is again a continuation of the persecution of the Moscow Patriarchate. This corrupt organization cannot tolerate the existence of the True Church in Russia. Our prayers are with our faithful in Russia and Latvia.
