Orthodox believers with swearing and jokes destroyed and looted the Evangelical Church of the Holy Trinity in Moscow, citing a court decision
In Moscow, on the night of September 6, unknown persons plundered and destroyed the Holy Trinity Evangelical Church on Starostin Street in Novokosino.
Around midnight, men in civilian clothes, accompanied by police officers, burst into the church. They took the young woman who was on duty there to the police station, where they held her for about three hours, and they completely destroyed the church building, stealing all the sacred items, Pastor Vasily Romanyuk, the head of the church, told Granyam.ru.
The attackers also stole computer system units and a synthesizer worth a total of more than 100,000 rubles, and on the church grounds they smashed the windows of a parked car.
As noted by the Moscow website of the Evangelical Christian-Baptist Church “Word for You,” all valuable items were taken from the Holy Trinity Church building, including liturgical books and chalices for the Eucharist. A generator, a mixing console with microphones, musical instruments, and other valuables were carried off. According to witnesses, physical violence could not be avoided either. A hail of stones rained down on parishioners who tried to take photographs. Then excavators destroyed most of the building.
According to Pastor Vasily Romanyuk, the raiders introduced themselves as bailiffs and “people’s militia volunteers” carrying out a 2005 court decision to evict the congregation from the rented land.
One of the attackers introduced himself as “the free singer Elvis Presley.” “There are times when people curse, but do it without malice, but these people cursed in such a way that I felt cold inside,” the pastor said, noting that a bottle of incendiary mixture was later found next to the destroyed building.
In an interview with the non-commercial online radio station XRadio, Romanyuk estimated that there were 45–50 attackers in civilian clothes — they introduced themselves as “militia volunteers” and “local residents.” They appeared “half-drunk” and showed no documents. There were about six police officers (from the Kosino-Ukhtomsky District Department of Internal Affairs – OVD), who did not intervene in any way, although the worshippers asked them to stop the plainly illegal actions of the attackers.
Thus, the congregation still does not know who carried out this act against its place of worship — no official statements have been made. There were no identifying marks on the so-called “militia volunteers,” nor on the bulldozers they used to destroy the building.
The pastor of the Holy Trinity Evangelical Church, Vasily Romanyuk, has filed a complaint with the police and intends to send appeals to the Moscow government and the government of the Russian Federation, as well as to all “people of good will” abroad.
At the same time, the worshippers will try to hold services on the site of the demolished building — to the extent possible.
Video from the church’s official YouTube channel
The Pentecostal community — part of the Russian Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith — has existed since 1979. The parishioners owned a church building that was demolished in 1996. After that, the Moscow government provided them — as Vasily Romanyuk asserts, as compensation — with a lease on a one-and-a-half-hectare plot of land near the MKAD, where a new building was constructed with donations from the parishioners. However, the lease agreement was later terminated, and in 2005 a court ordered the congregation’s eviction. Since then, the prefecture has repeatedly promised to provide another plot, but to date this has not been done.
Full article on the website: https://www.newsru.com/religy/06sep2012/ham.html
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