Persecution begins? Pastor has been taken into custody

Yesterday, in Novokosino, Moscow district, pastor Vasiliy Romanyuk, whose church was vandalized and demolished recently, was taken into custody by local police.  The service which he conducted last Sunday next to the ruins of a church’s building, local police called “illegal meeting”. The local authority stated that demolition of the temporary building was planned  seven years ago.

Pastor Vasiliy called to NI news while he was escorted to the local police station Kosino-Ukhnomskiy. On the question what was the reason to gather together again, Pastor Vasiliy answered:" Because after church has been destroyed we did not have a place to worship. However, this meeting was called "illegal" for nor reason".

Erlier this month, on September 6, around midnight, a group of about 50 people including several policemen, burst into the church’s territory. There was a church’s security, a young female, whom they escorted to the police precinct and held her for about 3 hours; meanwhile the church’s building was completely destroyed. “All church’s belongings were stolen”, - stated pastor Vasiliy Romanyuk. “They stole our sound equipment, which cost about 100.000 Rub (about $3,100) and crushed the windows of a parked car on the property.

When pastor Vasiliy and other leaders arrived, they were physically confronted by unidentified people, who pushed them out of the church territory and threw stones at them. Then bulldozers arrived and destroyed the building.

Raiders presented itself as bailiffs and “people’s militia”, who came to enforce a dispossession proceeding from the year of 2005, said pastor Vasiliy Romanyuk. No court orders or any other documents were presented. Six police officers (Kostino-Ukhtomskiy precinct) stood nearby and didn’t interrupt raiders despite the fact that Christians were begging them to stop such lawlessness.