BELARUS TAKES PROPERTY OF POOR CHURCH

EMBATTLED CHARISMATIC CHURCH IN BELARUS LOSES PROPERTY 

BELARUS (ANS) -Dec 7/05- Having failed to overturn the state's decision to confiscate its building and land, it now looks like the embattled charismatic New Life Church in the Belarusian capital of Minsk will lose its property.

Belarus is located in Eastern Europe, east of Poland (www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/bo.html). 

According to Forum 18 News Service, the latest developments in the complicated story of New Life's attempts to keep its property originated in Oct. hearings in the Belarusian capital's Economic Court. 

In the hearings, New Life attempted to challenge the validity of Minsk City Executive Committee's Aug. 17 instruction curtailing the church's land rights and ordering the sale of its building, a disused cowshed it purchased in 2002 (see www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=640 ). 

The Executive Committee's decision was based on the church's alleged violation of Article 49, Part 4 of the Land Code, which states that rights to land may be curtailed if it is not used in accordance with its designation.

Ruling against New Life, the Forum 18 reported the Economic Court claimed that the Aug. decision was valid because the church had both used the cowshed as a house of worship and modernised it without obtaining state permission to change the designation of either the building or its attached land. 

According to the Court's Oct. ruling, such “modernization” legally qualifies as “a form of reconstruction” which, in turn, requires the state's approval under the 2003 Law on Architectural and Construction Activity. 

Forum 18 reported that in its appeal against the Economic Court's decision, posted on the church's website, New Life points out that the 2003 Architecture Law is no longer in force, and that, since its 2004 replacement does not mention either “modernization” or “reconstruction,” “no legislation exists regulating the procedure for converting or modernizing a building.” 

Even if there were evidence that construction legislation had been violated, Forum 18 reported the church wrote, this would not constitute a legal basis for asserting that the land had not been used in accordance with its designation. 

Also in its appeal, Forum 18 reported New Life argues that the Economic Court ignored the fact that the church is unable to use the cowshed in accordance with its designation because keeping cattle is illegal within city limits. The church adds that Minsk City Executive Committee has failed to present any legal grounds for withholding permission to change this designation.

In particular, it points to the invalidity of the Committee's reference to its 1999 plan for a new suburb in which there is “no provision for” a church on the site of the cowshed (see www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=516) since, as a draft, this document “has no legal significance.”

Arguably in the church's favor, however, Forum 18 reported the Economic Court's verdict did note that Article 240 of the Civil Code indicates that confiscation of improperly used land and related property must be pursued via the courts - and thus may not, as in this case, be effected by order of a state department. 

In the meantime, Forum 18 reported the city authorities have already begun carrying out the Executive Committee's Aug. instruction by drawing up an estimate of the building's value. Received by New Life on Nov. 22, a Oct. 5 evaluation of the modernized cowshed claims it is currently worth 35,552,939 Belarusian roubles (15,863 US Dollars). 

While this is more than twice the original purchase price, Forum 18 reported that a Nov. 22 statement on New Life's website notes that it is equivalent to less than 14 US Dollars per square meter. In its evaluation, Minsk City State Property Territorial Fund states that it has not taken into account “expenditure on reconstruction carried out by the owners of the object in view of their illegal construction work.” 

Found to have violated Article 65 of the Land Code due to improper land use, New Life's Pastor Vyacheslav Goncharenko was fined three times the minimum wage (32 US Dollars) in Feb. 2005 under Article 52 of the Administrative Violations Code. The same article sets the maximum penalty for this offence at ten times the minimum wage.

Because of its lack of state-approved worship premises, New Life Church has been unable to obtain compulsory re-registration under the 2002 Religion Law. Some other religious organizations are in the same position (see www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=560 , www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=619  and www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=682 ). 

On Nov.17 New Life received its third re-registration rejection, in which Minsk city's Moscow district administration noted the church's lack of registered property rights among its grounds for refusal.

According to Forum 18, the latest re-registration rejection also requested the original of a document which would boost New Life's attempts to legalize its position - a so-called “Technical Passport,” issued by the relevant local state department on Oct. 21 2005. A description of the church's building, this gives its designated usage as a house of worship, whereas the previous Technical Passport, dated Feb. 8 2002, stipulated the designation of the building as a cowshed. 

On Dec. 7 Vasily Yurevich, New Life's administrator, told Forum 18 that, unbeknown to Minsk City Executive Committee, New Life requested a new Technical Passport in June 2005, and that the relevant local department - whose employees he described as “normal people” - confirmed that the building was a church following its Sept. survey. 

Once Minsk City Executive Committee learnt of the existence of the new Technical Passport, however, they ordered its withdrawal, said Yurevich, and the designation of the building is now officially “undetermined.” 

In late Nov. Forum 18 reported that New Life's website stated that the head of the department which issued the Oct. 21 document - church member Lyudmila Yakimovich - had been informed that her employment contract would not be renewed at the end of the year and that her Nov. wages would be reduced by 30 per cent.

In support of New Life, Forum 18 reported that rPentecostal Union leader Sergei Khomich, Baptist Union leader Nikolai Sinkovets, Full Gospel leader Aleksandr Sakovich and Adventist leader Moisei Ostrovsky wrote to presidential administration chairman Viktor Sheiman on Oct. 25. 

Their letter asked Sheiman to annul Minsk City Executive Committee's Aug. 17 decision confiscating the church's property and to give the congregation either the disputed plot of land or another of equal value for the construction of a house of worship. This was requested while allowing New Life temporary use of the disused cowshed until a new church could be completed. 

New Life has been worshiping at its disused cowshed, Forum 18 reported, as a last resort ever since being barred from renting a local house of culture in Sept. 2004. As church administrator Vasily Yurevich told officials in Dec. 2004, the church was earlier refused requests to rent other public facilities by district administrations throughout Minsk (see
www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=477 ).

Under the 2002 Religion Law, unregistered religious activity is banned. Unable to comply with the same Law's registration requirements, New Life has now received five official warnings from Minsk City Executive Committee for continuing to hold consequently illegal worship meetings. 

The fourth and fifth warnings, dated Nov. 8 and 17, were issued on the
basis of large fines handed down on Sept. 23 and Oct. 7 to Vasily Yurevich, as the alleged organizer of “religious gatherings with the reading of prayers and sermons.” Under the 2002 Law, Forum 18 reported, two warnings are sufficient to close down a religious organization