Keston Institute about Chuguevka church struggle and Zinaida’s and Ludmila’s Perchatkin hunger strike after 2nd sentencing Boris to Kolyma strictest camp
Soviet Religious Samizdat
Persecution of Pentecostals wishing to emigrate
Keston College continues to receive documents from PentecostaIs in the Soviet Union containing information about the various pressures to which they are subjected because of their desire to emigrate on religious grounds.
Forty-five members of the Pentecostal Church in Chuguyevka, Eastern Siberia (mainly of German nationality) have written an open letter addressed to the governments of the Soviet Union and West Germany and the participants at the 38th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations with the request that it should be distributed as widely as possible.
I am happy that I was counted worthy to share in Christ’s sufferings. On 3 April 1981, I was sentenced. Photograph taken after one of the court hearings in February–March 1981. A group of believers was waiting for me, and Anatoly Kabinov managed to photograph me and toss the camera back into the crowd (he was given a two-year sentence for that photograph). My wife Zinaida passed this photograph to Western correspondents when she went to the cassation court (on appeal) at the Supreme Court of the RSFSR in Moscow in August 1981. The photograph is from an Italian newspaper, taken by the author of the book Amalia, who gave me her book during my brief time in Rome in the summer of 1988 on the way to my speech in the U.S. Congress about the genocide of Pentecostals in the USSR.
They write that from 2 January 1984 they will conduct a hunger strike unless the question of their emigration to West Germany is resolved in their favour. «Because of the harsh persecution of believers by the local authorities … as a result of which we have heen fined more than 4,000 roubles, have spent more than 220 days in investigation cells — and during one year some have been sentenced 6-9 times … On 30 March 1983 we sent our Soviet passports, together with a declaration renouncing Olir Soviet citizenship, to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. »
In July they received an official refusal. The head of the emigration office in Vladivostok
told them, «there are no laws for you in olir country . Your declarations and receipts have been thrown in the dustbin and instead of West Germany there is a noose waiting for you.» (Open Letter to the Soviet and West German governments, etc., from Pentecostalsliving in Chuguyevka, undated, but 1983; 3 pp. [3933]. Photocopy.)
The Perchatkin and Istomin families from Nakhodka similarly announced their intention of starting a month-long hunger strike from 2 January 1984 because of the deadlock situation in which they found themselves. One of the women (Zinaida Perchatkin — ed.) has seven children and is expecting another child (has said — ed.): «Despite this, we have firmly resolved to take this step for the sake of our children or else they wiIl face the same fate as their fathers.» (Their fathers were sentenced on the basis of trumped-up charges and are serving camp sentences.) «If the Presidium of ,the Supreme Soviet of the USSR does not allow us to leave the Soviet Union, we will fast until death.» (Situation of families by Istomin and Perchatkin families, undated but 1983, 2 pp. [3975]. Handwritten original.)
Before returning their Soviet passports, declarations renouncing Soviet citizenship and notification about their (second) hunger strike from 2 January, Pentecostals in Chuguyevka sent a letter to the Soviet government in February 1983 which set out in detail the persecution to which they had been subjected since their arrival (summer 1981) in a village from Uzbekistan. They write that before accepting the· proposal made by the authorities to register their congregation, all the members of the church studied the conditions of registration. It became clear that these conditions contradict Holy Writ and the Bible and the believers decided that if they accepted registration this would be equivalent to denying God because the laws on registration are directed against the fulfilment of many of the commandments. All the Sunday prayer meetings were broken up and all who were present were fined up to 50 roubles, arrested for 15 days or sentenced to 1-2 months corrective labour with 20% loss of wages. In some cases the amount of the fine imposed exceeded. the monthly pension.
Others had to find extra work in addition to their regular jobs in order to feed their families (some of them as many as nine people) and to pay th.efines. When they complained they were told that the local authorities and the People’s court were acting
in accordance with the law. Some parents were warned that their parental rights would be withdrawn if they continued to give religious education to their children, and were fined. In the factories where atheist meetings took place one lecturer said openly, in the presence of some believers, that believers are «our enemies and we must struggle against them». After this incitement there were genuine attacks on some properties by hooligans. Windows were smashed with stones and sometimes even the window frames were destroyed. Washing that had been hung out to dry was slashed with knives or thrown into the dirt. There were cases of believers being beaten up by hooligans. (Appeal to the .Soviet government from Pentecostal believers in Chuguyevka, February 1983, 10 pp. [3780]. Carbon copy; 4 pp. [3932]. Photocopy.)
In the College archive there is a list of all the detentions and fines imposed on believers from Chtiguyevka (actual date, surname of judge, amount offine or term of arrest and number of children in family). In addition to this list there are nine original decrees issued by the authorities imposing fines on various individuals amounting to a total of 305 roubles and the reply issued by the Council of Deputies of Primorsky province stating that the action taken by the local committee and the judge was correct. There is also a compulsory instruction addressed to V. S. Val’ter (one of the leaders of the religious congregation) in which he is warned that if the fellowship is not registered he will be held personally responsible and have to answer under law. «Persecutions in Chuguyevka, Primorsky province) signed by 25 Pentecostals, undated but 1983, 15 pp. [3781]. Original and Carbon copy.)
A declaration has been sent by 282 Pentecostals from various. republics of the Soviet Union addressed to the United Nations and other bodies. They report that in 1977 they petitioned for emigration from the Soviet Union on religious grounds. The local authorities, using threats and violence, have tried to force them to give up their attempts to emigrate. «We do not have the right to hold peaceful Christian meetings without being dispersed and fined, to preach the Gospel freely, to educate our children freely.» They write that they are continually separated from close relatives who are serving sentences in prison and camps. Prisoners are not allowed to possess New Testaments because the Bible is regarded as anti-Soviet literature. They are told by agitators that the Declaration on Human Rights circulates only in capitalist countries. (Declaration to the United Nations, the International Association of Democratic Jurists and the Politburo from 282 Pentecostals, undated but 1984, 7 pp. [4018]. Photocopy.).
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