Document #2016317
Forum 18 (Author)
Complex, sometimes contradictory, and often inconsistently applied legislation can lead religious communities to lose their places of worship. Officials barred a Baptist community in Novorossiysk from using its church "for religious purposes", despite the fact that it has worshipped on the same site for two decades. Local authorities are often unwilling to permit the construction of purpose-built churches and mosques.
Baptists in the village of Verkhnebakansky, on the outskirts of Novorossiysk in southern European Russia, have been forced to hold services in their front yard and the street after local authorities had them banned from using their own prayer hall and bailiffs sealed the door on 7 July 2019. The community is led by Pastor Vitaly Bak.
The ban is a "flagrant violation" of the Religion Law and of the Constitution, another Novorossiysk Baptist presbyter Yevgeny Kokora commented, as it prevents believers from coming together to profess their faith.
"Unfortunately, such a situation became possible due to the reluctance or inability of the head of the Novorossiysk administration to conduct interfaith dialogue," Kokora complained on his Facebook page on 15 July. "Despite the scandal, so far, none of the local authorities has even tried to contact us in order somehow to discuss this problem and find a solution."
On 17 January 2019, nearly six months before bailiffs sealed the door, Krasnodar Regional Court had upheld the Novorossiysk city administration's lawsuit aimed at prohibiting the house's owner "and other persons" from using it for "religious purposes", as (according to the court decision, seen by Forum 18) its land plot lay within a "zone of educational facilities and scientific complexes" (a secondary school occupies the next plot).
The judge also concluded that no formal agreement existed granting the community use of the building, and that the building lacked the security cameras and sprinkler system required in "places of mass gatherings of people". This ruling overturned Novorossiysk's Primorsky District Court's original refusal on 24 September 2018 to grant the administration's request.
The Novorossiysk zoning laws of 2014, cited by the administration and seen by Forum 18, do not, however, forbid the continued use of existing structures which ended up in the "wrong" zone. According to the cadastral register, the house containing the Baptist prayer hall was completed in 2012.
Neither religious nor residential buildings are among the explicitly permitted uses of land in an "educational" zone, but the rules state that existing plots and structures whose use is not in line with latest regulations may be used as before, as long as such use does not endanger people's lives or health, the surrounding environment, or historical and cultural monuments (in such cases, use can then be prohibited).
Article 16, Part 2 of the federal Religion Law states that "worship services [and] other religious rites and ceremonies" may be held unhindered on residential premises, and mentions no requirement for a formal agreement. The Baptists also insist that their building did have the necessary cameras and sprinklers in place.
The Baptists' cassational appeal is still pending at Krasnodar Regional Court. They are also trying to obtain an "Anti-Terrorism Protection passport" (which certifies the presence of security and fire safety systems, etc.) from the National Guard, "but there they don't understand how to do this", according to Yevgeny Kokora. He outlined in a Facebook post of 10 July how the National Guard had in fact refused to issue the "passport" as religious buildings are not legally required to have one, despite the Baptists pointing out that the house is technically residential property.
"Therefore, the decision is to continue to go through the courts and reach the European Court of Human Rights," Kokora told Forum 18 on 27 August.
On 12 July 2019, Pastor Vitaly Bak also lodged a suit requesting that the administration's and bailiffs' actions in sealing the hall be ruled unlawful. Novorossiysk's Primorsky District Court rejected his suit at a hearing on 2 September 2019, according to the court website.
"If we do not defend our constitutional rights, then, using the example of Verkhnebakansky, other prayer houses that conduct religious services in residential buildings will begin to close," Kokora commented to Forum 18 on 27 August. "In Russia, at the behest of the state, most communities in the Evangelical churches gather in private households, since it is impossible to obtain official permission to build a house of worship."
The Verkhnebakansky congregation is an unregistered religious group which is part of the Russian Baptist Union. It has worshipped in the building – a residential house built on land designated for individual residential construction, according to the cadastral register – since it was completed in 2012, and on the same site for over twenty years, Kokora told Forum 18.
The congregation had had no problems with this arrangement until spring 2018, when the city administration initiated a series of legal measures against it. Until November 2018, both the house and its land plot belonged to community member Ivan Gavrilov. Because of poor health and the multiple lawsuits involving the property, he then sold it to Pastor Vitaly Bak.
One tenant lives in the building, Kokora explained to Forum 18, and he has retained access to the rest of the rooms. At first, the authorities had "wanted to evict him and seal the whole house, but when they saw he was elderly and had disabilities, they took pity and sealed only the main entrance and the hall".
Religious groups are not legal entities, and so cannot buy or rent property on their own behalf, or have it legally transferred to them. They therefore rely on their members to provide space for worship, which is almost invariably in residential or commercial premises.
Presbyter Kokora traces the beginning of the Verkhnebakansky congregation's problems to a change in leadership in the Novorossiysk administration and "new people in the internal politics of the city".
He noted that the administration has also brought about the demolition of a Pentecostal church and has banned another Protestant congregation from using its building too. "There are no other bans in relation to the rest of the Baptists [in Novorossiysk]," Pastor Kokora added, "but this is only because we have taken an active and public position". Novorossiysk has a total of eight Baptist Union communities.
The administration's actions against the Verkhnebakansky Baptists began with the issuing of a demolition order on 15 March 2018. The authorities claimed that the house was an "unauthorised structure" (samovolnaya postroyka), built without proper permissions.
Then-owner Ivan Gavrilov's attempts to have this order ruled unlawful were unsuccessful (on 21 June 2018 and 8 November 2018, according to court documents seen by Forum 18). The order was later rescinded when the Baptists managed to show that all documentation for both house and land was "in perfect order", according to Yevgeny Kokora. "I think this was calculated as an act of intimidation," he added, "but we're hard nuts to crack".
Meanwhile, the administration was also preparing its suit to have religious use of the property prohibited. Novorossiysk's Primorsky District Court initially rejected the suit without consideration in May 2018. It was then accepted for consideration on appeal and refused. It was upheld only in January 2019 by Krasnodar Regional Court.
Ivan Gavrilov and Vitaly Bak lodged two cassational appeals against the suit on 8 May 2019. Bak's was rejected without consideration on 5 June 2019, but Gavrilov's is still pending, according to the court website.
According to reports on state-owned NTV and a 9 July statement on the Krasnodar Region Bailiffs' Service website, there had been "numerous complaints from neighbours" about the Baptists' services. On 12 July, however, local news service Svobodniye Media asked the Novorossiysk police if Verkhnebakansky locals had made any complaints to them about the Baptists. The police confirmed on 17 July, in a letter seen by Forum 18, that no such complaints had been received.
Administration officials, accompanied by police and FSB security service officers and Cossacks, made an unannounced inspection of the building on Sunday 7 April 2019. They disrupted the Annunciation Day service which was underway at the time, and forbade church members from filming what was going on.
Yevgeny Kokora remarked in a Facebook post of 15 July that the visit was in fact recorded on the building's own security cameras, which the community had been accused of not having installed.
Shortly afterwards, presbyter Yury Korniyenko, who had been leading the service, was charged with unlawful missionary activity under Administrative Code Article 5.26, Part 4 ("Russians conducting missionary activity").
On 14 June, Novorossiysk Magistrate's Court No. 79 fined Korniyenko 10,000 Roubles (about 10 days' average local wage), despite the fact that, on the one hand, no non-Baptists had been present at the service, and on the other, he had full written authorisation from the religious group to perform missionary activity anyway.
The judge noted the regional court ruling of 17 January prohibiting religious use of the building. Korniyenko appealed unsuccessfully against his conviction at Novorossiysk's Primorsky District Court on 23 July 2019.
Forum 18 wrote to the Novorossiysk administration's press service and land and property department on 25 August and again on 4 September to ask why the administration wants to bar the Baptists from their building, when they have used the site for over 20 years, and why the 2014 Rules of Land Use had been invoked in court when they allow for continued use of existing structures.
Forum 18 also asked how the Baptists could get their prayer hall unsealed and whether the administration would allocate a plot of land elsewhere for the construction of a purpose-built place of worship.
Forum 18 received no reply by the middle of the working day in Novorossiysk on 6 September. Telephones at the land and property department went unanswered when Forum 18 called on 5 and 6 September.
Since the start of August, the Baptists have made three unsuccessful attempts to arrange a public meeting in Novorossiysk "to draw the attention of the local authorities and the state" to the requirements of the Constitution and the necessity of inter-confessional dialogue, and the obligation to allow religious groups to worship freely in accordance with the Religion Law, according to the latest application, seen by Forum 18.
The city administration has rejected all three event notifications on grounds of technical irregularities. The Baptists plan to try again to arrange the meeting for 22 September. (END)