Roman Lunkin. Sacrilege or Pogrom in Novokosino. Vigilantes, calling themselves Orthodox, destroyed a Christian church in Novokosino and stole sacred vessels

· Moscow, Vestibule, Pentecostals, Russia, Contemporary Persecution

A truly horrific story unfolded on the night of September 6 in Moscow — a Protestant church, a House of Prayer where Evangelical Christians (also known as Pentecostals) gathered, was destroyed. This is a thoroughly traditional Christian community, but because it is not Orthodox, it was treated with a brutality hard to imagine — the sort of thing that happened to churches only during the Bolshevik terror (just the pastors were left alive). What happened here was sacrilege, blasphemy, an insult to religious sensibilities, and clear incitement of religious hatred. This is worse than simply dancing in a temple. Yet somehow it is hard to believe that anyone will be punished for it.

The believers of the Holy Trinity Church (part of the centralized organization Russian Church of Christians of the Evangelical Faith) had long expected they would be driven off their land and the building taken away. This Protestant community — one of the oldest and best known in the capital — had been allotted a house in Kosino on Kosinskaya Street as early as 1980. In Soviet times, the authorities deliberately refused to formalize land grants for believers, but oddly enough, over the past 20 years, the Moscow authorities also did nothing to formalize them, dragging out the process. A decision was then made on commercial grounds to gradually force the church off its site. The old House of Prayer was demolished in 1996, and a plot was allocated on Starostina Street. However, land values rose, new microdistricts were built, the metro was extended, and so on — and once again there was a need to demolish the church. In 2005, the temporary land-use contract with the church was terminated, and on May 17 a ruling was issued for the demolition of “temporary structures,” by which the church was meant. As a mockery, alternative plots were offered to the believers in a conservation zone and on land where residents’ garages already stood.

No one imagined that everything would happen so harshly and inhumanely.

At around 12:15 a.m. on the night of September 6, about 40 thugs stormed the church grounds. The first thing they did was to neutralize the church’s “guard” — consisting of one young woman — and took her to the police station, supposedly for resisting the church demolition. They seized her phone (the telephone line inside the church was cut) and forced her to write statements until 3 a.m., while the House of Prayer was demolished by special machinery. Only at 3 a.m. was the young woman able to call, and then the pastors and other believers arrived at the scene.

The Christians saw a picture of a House of Prayer that was already practically reduced to rubble and looted like a marauding horde. The demolition site was guarded by men in hoodies with no identification markings. Pastor Vasiliy Romanyuk described what happened to the author of these lines: “No one introduced themselves to the believers; no one knows what organization won the tender from the Prefecture of the Eastern Administrative Okrug (VAO) to demolish the building. The leader of this crew came out and said they were carrying out a court order, and when asked who he was, he replied: ‘I’m Elvis Presley, and I sing songs for you.’ After that, everyone heard a chorus of guffaws and the choicest obscenities aimed at the pastor and the church. The belligerent men in hoodies said they were supposedly folk Orthodox vigilantes, who had come there to defend Orthodoxy from sectarians. But I do not believe real Orthodox believers can be like that.” They left together with the police, who did not intervene in what was happening, leaving the church members amid the ruins.

Eucharistic vessels were stolen from the demolished building, a car was smashed, a generator, a mixing board with microphones, a synthesizer, a video projector, musical instruments, and other valuable items were carted off. The remaining things, including liturgical objects, were trampled into the mud.

Also missing was a historic Eucharistic Chalice that had been used by the father of Pastor Vasiliy — Nikolai Romanyuk — during the persecutions of the 1950s. In the wrecked church office, the desecrators left only photographs of believers from the Soviet years in a little cupboard.

Moreover, the collection boxes used for donations were torn down. They were emptied and thrown to the floor.

Religious literature was mixed with trash and building debris; even chocolates intended for children were stolen.

As a crowning touch to the barbarity, the “vigilantes” photographed the license plates of the arriving church members and the pastor, threatening to burn the cars, especially those of anyone who tried to photograph the pogrom. Only the composure of Pastor Vasiliy Romanyuk prevented a brawl that the vigilantes were trying to provoke among church activists.

Thus, the “anti-sectarian pogrom” was, it appears, commissioned by the Prefecture of the Eastern Administrative Okrug (VAO), which has already admitted that no alternative plot was allocated to the church. A community numbering over 500 people — full-fledged citizens of Russia — has been left out on the street.

Property disputes can vary, and the church was prepared to leave, but they were not even allowed to remove valuable and sacred items (the damage, according to the pastor’s estimate, amounted to roughly 2 million rubles). Setting aside things and the building, it was the marauders-cum-vigilantes themselves who offended religious sensibilities and destroyed a church. Granted, for Protestants, a church is not as sacred a space as it is for Orthodox Christians or Catholics, yet it is a place of prayer, which is still perceived as a holy site. This is sacrilege, just as the theft of the Communion Chalice is sacrilege. Even if Russian law does not contain such concepts as blasphemy and sacrilege, there is an article concerning the insult of believers’ feelings, as well as one for obstructing the exercise of believers’ religious needs (so it turns out the Prefecture of the Eastern Administrative Okrug is guilty of stripping Christians of their building and providing nothing in return).

Against the backdrop of projects to build 200 churches for the Orthodox, the demolition of a Protestant church building is a flagrant lawlessness, a sign of double standards (Muslims, after all, likewise complain of discrimination against their interests when difficulties arise in constructing mosques). In this case, the authorities themselves are provoking propaganda for the superiority of one religion over another — it is no accident that the “vigilantes” justified their actions as defending Orthodoxy from “sects.”

Incidentally, in the autumn of 2011, a building constructed by a Catholic community in Moscow, where nuns worked with children, was demolished. The demolished annex was also torn down by court order… It all seems lawful, but is it right to treat religious associations, the work of believers, their liturgical objects, and the places where they serve in precisely this way — without any special respect, without realizing that in this case the main thing for an official is not property or commercial interests, but a policy of respect for faith, the fostering of religious tolerance, and interreligious peace in a megacity like Moscow? This is a special sphere, one that demands a flexible approach; every religion in Russia is protected by the Law on Freedom of Conscience and Article 28 of the Russian Constitution. Yet in practice, non-Orthodox Christians in Russia are hardly considered human beings and barely citizens.

Holy Trinity Church reasonably demands at least an apology from the prefecture of the Eastern Administrative District, since such pogroms are not prosecuted here — only things like dancing are.

As one believer, shocked by what was done to his church, said: “Rome fell, which crucified Christians. The Soviet Union fell, which shot them. Putin’s Russia will also fall if it does not come to its senses, repent, and rectify what it has done.”

It will be interesting to see whether the prosecutor’s office takes notice of these new “blasphemers” and “sacrilege-mongers.”

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Video from the official church channel on YouTube

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