English

Pastor of embattled New Life Church appeals to Lukashenka for assistance

Vyachaslaw Hancharenka, the pastor of an embattled Protestant community called New Life Church, has urged Alyaksandr Lukashenka to help once again the church in its dispute against the Minsk city authorities, BelaPAN said.

New Life Church is seeking the invalidation of the city executive committee's decision to take away the building and an adjacent land plot that the community bought in 2002 to conduct worship.

In his appeal, Mr. Hancharenka recalled that the chairman of the Supreme Economic Court had contested all court rulings against the church only after the Belarusian leader's interference.

The pastor said that the community had filed a new lawsuit with the Supreme Economic Court, but no decision on it had yet been taken.

He said that Deputy Prime Minister Alyaksandr Kasinets this past September had ordered the religious and national affairs commissioner to help resolve the dispute, but the latter would "not abide by the order."

Mr. Hancharenka also complained about "pressure that has sharply increased in the last month," saying that the city executive committee "is deliberately creating situations in which New Life Church turns out to be an alleged offender."

The pastor referred to attempts by emergency management officers and officials of the city water and power utilities to get access to the community's prayer house. The community currently denies the access, fearing that the authorities want to slap it with unlawful fines.

Mr. Hancharenka asked the leader to ""interfere once again for the sake of the peaceful resolution of the matter."

The Minsk city authorities decided to confiscate the plot on Kavalyova Street and order New Life Church to sell them the building, a former cowshed, after the area where they are located was added to the territory of Minsk in 2004.

The Minsk City Economic Court upheld the plot confiscation order and ordered the community to sell their prayer house to the city authorities for 37,581,476 rubels, or some $10 per square meter.

Parishioners went on a hunger strike four days before the deadline for vacating the building in October 2006. They suspended the protest after the chairman of the Supreme Economic Court had contested all court rulings against the church and requested the Court's board to consider the New Life Church case as a court of primary jurisdiction. The community filed the appeal with the Court on the advice of Aleh Pralyaskowski, the then presidential aide for ideology, who said that Mr. Lukashenka had directed that the church should be helped.

Judge Katsyaryna Karatkevich suspended the hearing on March 23, 2007.