With the law banning registered religious communities from using residential properties as their legal addresses without specific authorisation, the many such communities that meet in private homes now face the risk of failing to gain re-registration or even being liquidated by court order, especially as transferring property from residential to non-residential use is very difficult. Forum 18 News Service has learnt that Minsk City Council warned Mount Tabor Baptist Church in January that failure to change its legal address from a residential property might result in the church being liquidated through the courts. Aleksandr Sakovich, head of the charismatic Full Gospel Church, told Forum 18 its ten registered churches in the capital – with an estimated 5,000 people – are unable to worship all together and have to meet in many smaller units in private flats. He said there have been no cases of these groups being prosecuted for doing so - "yet".
Even if a religious organisation
is registered, it may not use a residential address as its legal address or
gather there according to law. In a 9 December 2002 letter to Mount Tabor
Baptist Church, for example, the public prosecutor of Minsk's October district
warns that the church is registered at a residential address and that, in
accordance with Article 272, Part 3 of the Civil Code, an organisation
may be sited at such an address only after it has been transformed into
non-residential premises. A 20 January letter to the church from Minsk City
Council warns that failure to comply with the Civil Code may result in the
church being liquidated by court order.
This provision in the Civil Code is now reinforced by the 2002 law on religion,
Article 17 of which states that a new registration or re-registration
application requires a document confirming the right of a religious community
to be situated at the location indicated in its charter. Article 25 of the same
law prohibits the regular or mass performance of religious rites at a
residential address.
Speaking to Forum 18 News Service in Minsk on 19 September, the head of the
charismatic Full Gospel Church in Belarus said that his association's ten
registered churches in the capital – with an estimated 5,000 people – currently
meet in many smaller units in private flats. There have been no cases of these
groups being prosecuted for doing so, added Aleksandr
Sakovich, "yet".
Quite apart from the difficulties in finding premises to rent (see forthcoming
F18News article), transforming a residential address into non-residential
premises is problematic, Sakovich reported. The process
entails transferring the address from the state's catalogue of housing stock,
he explained, with the result that it is registered under the name of the
religious organisation rather than that of an
individual citizen. In such cases the cost of electricity and land tax is
"astronomical," added Sakovich, so that few
religious organisations can afford to make the
transfer.
Out of 64 registered Full Gospel churches in Belarus, only five have their own
houses of worship, he said, all of which are still officially listed as housing
stock. While other Protestant churches have a proportionally higher number of
prayer houses, these are also officially residential premises, he maintained.
Speaking to Forum 18 on 17 September, the Pentecostal assistant bishop of Grodno region confirmed that many of the 27 prayer houses
there are private houses. Typically, said Naum Sakhanchuk, such a building remains housing stock even if
its owner has officially offered it for use by a religious organisation,
which indeed poses problems for re-registration.
One attendee at a 12 September meeting between regional religious affairs
officials and representatives of religious organisations
at the State Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs in Minsk told Forum 18
that this issue proved to be of concern to all confessions to some extent,
including the Belarusian Orthodox Church. Forum 18 has found that those
confessions whose historical role in Belarus is recognised
in the preamble of the new law on religion report no related problems, however.
Ismail Aleksandrovich, who
heads the Religious Association of Muslims in Belarus, told Forum 18 on 20
September that only eight out of 24 of his organisation's
communities have mosques. The 16 others "mostly just meet at home,"
he said. While he was aware that this was technically illegal, "no one
takes any notice of us," said Aleksandrovich,
since fewer than seven people normally attend home gatherings and there are no
public calls to prayer.
Aleksandrovich also maintained that Islam was
"traditional" according to the new law on religion. Similarly
mentioned in this context in the 2002 law is the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Speaking to Forum 18 by telephone from Grodno on 22
September, the secretary of the consistory of the Evangelical Lutheran Church
in Belarus, which has 11 communities throughout the country, said that, due to
scant finances, only one owns a church building. Vitali
Sozinov added that some of the other communities
gather at residential addresses for worship "although it is not legal, of
course". He said that they have not encountered any restrictions:
"The authorities are understanding towards us."
It appears that non-prosecution of home gatherings does not necessarily depend
upon so-called traditional status, however. First practised
in Belarus in 1992, the Baha'i faith has groups of
believers in 40 localities, of which six are registered, Natalya
Kozelova, a representative of the Vitebsk
community, told Forum 18 on 22 September. None of these has experienced any
obstacles to meeting in private homes, she said. Kozelova
pointed out, however, that Baha'i home meetings are
typically attended by few people and only take place on festivals, which are
celebrated every 19 days.
She also commented to Forum 18 that the Vitebsk
group, which is registered, had encountered no problems with renting premises
(see forthcoming F18News article), including within a state administrative
building.
A factor in this situation may be the Vitebsk
regional official in charge of religious affairs, Nikolai Stepanenko,
whom local Pentecostal bishop Arkadi Supronenko described as "a positive person".
Speaking to Forum 18 on 23 September, Stepanenko
maintained that, under the Civil Housing Code, a registered religious (or
other) organisation could use a residential address
as its legal address if it was a detached building with a single owner, who
must first inform the local district executive committee in writing of his or
her consent. The religious organisation concerned
could then meet in the building subject to the approval of the fire service and
local sanitation department, he said: "They must make sure that there is
no one with an infectious disease living there."
According to Stepanenko, the Pentecostals have 31
prayer houses in Vitebsk region. All of these are
small, detached buildings adapted for worship but still officially included in
the state's housing stock, according to Bishop Supronenko.
He confirmed, however, that this does not concern the regional authorities:
"It just turns out that in such cases they don't pay any attention."