English

New Life Church wins eviction battle

Minsk authorities have abandoned their plans to take away the prayer house and land plot of a Protestant community called New Life Church, BelaPAN said.

The Minsk City Economic Court`s eviction order required the community to vacate its building on Kavalyova Street by 11 a.m. on December 5.

However, Judge Volha Shcharbovich phoned New Life Church lawyer Syarhey Lukanin at about 8 p.m. on December 4 and announced that the court proceedings against the community had been terminated at the request of the Maskowski district housing authority. Mr. Lukanin visited the Minsk City Economic Court later that evening and collected papers confirming that the eviction order had been reversed.

"Unfortunately, New Life Church still doesn`t have any papers to prove that it owns the property," Mr. Lukanin said. "The housing authority may change its mind at any moment and file another suit. That is why we`ll try to deal with this issue without further delay and start a dialogue with authorities."

Mr. Lukanin said that the public outcry against plans to evict New Life Church had played an extremely important role. "In 2006, tensions were also very high, but there was no such outpouring of support," he said. "However, we see our victory as, above all, a response to our prayers."

New Life Church, the largest community of the Association of Full Gospel Christians, obtained state registration in December 1992 and is said to have more than 1000 members. In 2002, the community bought a former cowshed together with a four-acre land plot from a kolkhoz. It converted the building into a prayer house and some 500 to 700 people gathered there each Sunday for worship.

The area was later added to the territory of Minsk, and the city government decided in 2005 to confiscate the plot and ordered New Life Church to sell the former cowshed to the city for 37.6 million rubels, or some $10 per square meter. Officials explained that this amount was what the building had been worth before New Life Church converted it into a prayer house without permission.

In 2009, the community was ordered to vacate the building by June 1 that year and received a paper from the Minsk government declaring the building property of the city.

New Life Church defied the order and rejected the city government’s proposal that the community should build a new prayer house in another area in the city.

In July 2010, New Life Church was ordered to pay nearly $83,000 over alleged environmental damage, but the community decided to pay nothing.

For some reason, authorities then left the community in peace for more than two years.

After receiving the eviction order on November 27, 2012, New Life Church began an open-ended prayer vigil inside its building and appealed for help to Mikalay Ladutska, head of the Minsk City Executive Committee, and later to the Council of Ministers and the Presidential Administration.