«No 47 : 30 November 1977»

THE RIGHT TO LEAVE

• 8-1 Introduction.
• 8-2 Pentecostalists.
• 8-3 Those who Have Left.
• 8-4 The Jewish movement.

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PENTECOSTALISTS.

FAR EAST. KRASNODAR. ROVNO. BALTIC. ELSEWHERE. LETTER

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1.

Primorsky Region (Krai), Soviet Far East.

On 10 September Boris I. Perchatkin and V.F. Patrushev from Nakhodka (Primorsky Region) and M.I. Pimenov from Vladivostok addressed a letter to the participants of the CSCE Belgrade Conference on behalf of the Pentecostalists of Nakhodka and Vladivostok:

“… In September last year [1976] we addressed a request for emigration to world opinion and to the heads of government of different States.

“After this the authorities began a massive campaign against us. Several times a week from the platforms of clubs, houses of culture and lecture-halls of institutions and hostels, lectures are read out informing the population that believers are enemies, fanatics, traitors, CIA agents, spies. Notices are printed in local newspapers presenting us as monsters and traitors … This officially conducted campaign incites the population to beat up believers.

“Thus, it was with the beating-up of a group of believers, for example, which occurred on New Year’s Eve. As a result, there were many injured, and one of them, Ivan Durov, will be a cripple for the rest of his life. His skull was broken and his kidneys were crushed. In hospital he was intimidated with threats that if he did not leave the hospital he would be killed. The court rejected his complaint, the bandits went unpunished.

“The atmosphere in the town is tense, our women cannot go out on the street: they are threatened, beaten up. L.I. Vasilyeva was beaten up on the street. Bandits cried out: ‘Baptist, you work for the CIA, take this!’ In the middle of the day they punched Nina Mironenko, who is pregnant, and dragged her into a swamp, crying out: ‘You wanted to go to America? We’ll show you America!’ The hooligans enjoy the silent approval of the authorities; they throw stones and glass into our courtyards, and sprinkle our gardens with broken glass.

“On 19 May [1977] an attack was carried out by bandits on the house of the widow Chuprina, in which our prayer meetings are held. The house was burgled, the children were severely frightened, and the glass in the windows and on the veranda was knocked out by blows of an axe … The police authorities tried to force Chuprina to sign a statement that she had no complaints against the attackers …

“In the month of July this year thirty people who had invitations to emigrate for their families were called to the chief of the city police administration, where in his presence, First Lieutenant Smolentsev officially stated to us that in August we would leave the USSR, so we should get ready for departure. People started to get ready for departure: to sell their houses, property, belongings and winter clothing, in order to have the money to pay the tax.

“The processing of documents has turned into a continuous chain or delays, refusals and procrastination. Applications are returned because of poor or small handwriting.

“Twenty-two invitations were returned because of corrections made in the U S embassy. The authorities blackmail parents whose children are leaving, publish forged statements alleging they are from parents, intercept letters, and send forged letters with misinformation. They demand the consent of non-believing parents, who arc divorced, have abandoned their children from birth, or hidden themselves to avoid paying alimony. They use any opportunity to intimidate, in order to hold up an exit visa. They demand that the places of work, the addresses, the earnings and the patronymic of the persons who have sent invitations from the United States be indicated.

“Documents that have already been handed in and processed are returned or shelved for many months, and then refusals are sent.

“When we refer in complaints to the [1948] Declaration of Human Rights, to the Covenant on Political & Civil Rights, to points of the Helsinki Agreements [¹], representatives of authority explain our rights to us like this. These are the words of Colonel Spirin, head of the Region’s passport office: ‘The Declaration of [Human] Rights is printed abroad and is brought into the USSR illegally for subversive activities’.

“The commissioner for the affairs of cults in Primorsky Region, V. I. Chupin, pointing to the documents of the Final Act in Helsinki, said at a meeting in the presence of several hundred people, speaking to believers: ‘Nothing here will shine a light for you.’ The head of the passport office in Nakhodka, Smolentsev, stated: ‘What are you keeping on about that declaration for, I have a pile of instructions that big (he moved his hands half a metre apart). How things are interpreted here, that’s what we do.’ …

“We appeal to all of you who cherish lofty moral principles — help us!

“As a protest against the violence and lawlessness being practised by the Soviet authorities against believers, the congregation of the town of Nakhodka is declaring a hunger strike from 4 October, the day the conference opens, unless we are allowed to leave before that date.”

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On 21 September 1977 at a press-conference in Moscow V. Stepanov and Boris Perchatkin told foreign correspondents about the situation of Pentecostalists [²].

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On 30 September Stepanov, Perchatkin, Patrushev and Burlachenko were summoned to the city soviet executive committee in Nakhodka (Primorsky Region). They were read a warning that a criminal charge would be brought against them for slander and subversion of State Security. The same day Stepanov and Perchatkin were summoned to the head of the city KGB department.

On 4 October 1977, 46 Pentecostalists in Nakhodka and Vladivostok began a hunger strike.

In Nakhodka extra police forces were summoned from Vladivostok, students at the naval academy were put on military alert, two fire engines were on duty near the city soviet executive committee, and the square in front of it was filled with police. On various pretexts cars and motorcycles were withdrawn or impounded from Pentecostalists, constant surveillance was instituted over all of them, and a military vehicle with a radio-transmitter was stationed near the house of Stepanov, where prayer meetings were being held. All those taking part in the hunger strike were summoned to interrogations. The police visited the Hats of believers and checked their passports.

On 6 October Stepanov and Perchatkin were again summoned to the KGB. They were told that if they attempted to leave the town or to meet foreign correspondents they would immediately be arrested. Essentially they were under house arrest.

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After 10 days of the hunger strike documents for exit visas were accepted from all those who had invitations (about 47 families). The only exception was the Chuprin family.

At the end of October the Chuprins house was wrecked for the third time in recent months. Hooligans besieged the house for 40 minutes, and about 200 cobblestones were thrown into it.

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During the November festivities [⁴] a military unit was summoned to Nakhodka from Vladivostok.

At the end of November 1977 five hundred Pentecostalists from the Far East received refusals to applications to leave the USSR.

The reasons given for refusal varied: (1) Moscow had refused; (2) Spirin, head of the OVIR passport section, had refused; (3) The Regional Commission (a temporary body, to which it is impossible to appeal since it has already been disbanded) had refused.

In addition, it was said that only invitations from relatives or from a President were valid. Religious reasons are not regarded as a sufficient explanation for the desire to leave and invitations from co-religionists are not recognised as valid.

After the authorities’ announcement of the refusals a KGB car stood near the house of every Pentecostalist in Nakhodka for several days. Now shadowing is being continued at places of work. Telephone conversations and correspondence from abroad are being blocked.

Since they are convinced that the Lord will lead them out of the USSR this year, many Pentecostalists have sold their houses, cows, etc., and with their young children are taking shelter in cramped conditions and living in poverty. At railway and Aeroflot ticket offices lists are kept of believers’ names, and tickets are not being sold to them.

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2.

KRASNODAR REGION (KRAI), South Russia.

2.1 Starotitarovskaya Cantonment.

In the summer an official of the Region’s KGB administration, Lieutenant-Colonel Starostin, repeatedly visited the homes of Pentecostalists who have applied to leave.

Starostin advised them not to go abroad, describing the horrors of life there. The mass persecution of the sects in the 1960s was a mistake, he said. Believers noticed that during these conversations Starostin tried to provoke quarrels between members of the congregation.

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“THE APOSTLE GORETOI”

On 23 July an article by R. Zakiyev was published in the newspaper Soviet Kuban, “The Life of the Apostle Goretoi”. It fills almost four newspaper columns. The reason for its appearance was the report on the Voice of America radio station about the meeting of Goretoi and other Pentecostalists with Western correspondents in Moscow in July of this year.

Goretoi is presented in the article as a man who has refused to work in his profession and “brazenly builds his prosperity in another field”, continually deceiving believers. The author of the article notes that Presbyter Goretoi had a positive influence on co-religionists as regards the observance of laws and loyalty to the authorities. Zakiyev explains the aspiration of members of the congregation to leave the Soviet Union in this way: Goretoi fell under the influence of anti-social elements acting at the command of Western secret services. He “intimidates believers concerning non-existent persecution on the part of the authorities and stirs them up to emigrate”. From some members of the congregation he obtained applications for exit visas by a trick, while the others are a small group of renegades.

The trip made by Lydia Voronina to Starotitarovskaya (CCE 44.10) is also mentioned in the article.

She was sent, writes Zakiyev, on the instructions and money of Western protectors, and “she threw hysterical fits and stirred up believers to apply to leave”. Part of her mission was to “collect tendentious material so that ‘foreign friends’ could disrupt the Belgrade Conference.”

The elder children of Goretoi and other Pentecostalists from Starotitarovskaya sent a letter of refutation to the newspaper Soviet Kuban. They accuse Zakiyev, author of a recent article, of libel and remind him that almost every family of Pentecostalists has someone who was imprisoned or died for his faith. The believers reproach him for keeping quiet about certain episodes in the biography of Bishop Nikolai Goretoi:

“when he returned from the front, Goretoi taught drawing in a school but was deprived of this job for being a believer. Subsequently, he was constantly forced to move from one job to another for the same reason. In the 1960s Goretoi served six years in camp and in exile for seeking to obtain free meetings for Pentecostalists”.

The Bobarykin family writes that such publications sow enmity between believing and non-believing citizens. “… It should not be forgotten that kingdoms are not created by violence, enmity and lies, but destroyed, however strong they might be.”

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VILLAGE GATHERING

On 27 July 1977 a gathering of villagers took place in Starotitarovskaya to discuss “the anti-social activities of the group of Pentecostalists”.

The day before, the chairman of the village soviet Kirichenko summoned Bishop Goretoi, deacon N.G. Bobarykin and F. Sidenko. In the village soviet they were told that the article in the newspaper Soviet Kuban would be discussed at the gathering and believers Sidenko would be given the opportunity to speak about it. Kirichenko asked for all the members of the congregation to attend the gathering.

On the 27th, Komsomol members and voluntary police (druzhinniki) were brought to Starotitarovskaya in busloads from other villages and towns, and senior officials came from Krasnodar. Music was playing and loudspeakers called the villagers to the gathering at the Jubilee (Yubileiny) cinema.

Kulik, Party organizer at the llych state farm, presided at the gathering. The subject of discussion was the desire of the Pentecostalists to emigrate.

Orators briefed in advance called the believers ‘traitors’ and ‘renegades’. Goretoi, Bobarykin and Sidenko were singled out for attack. They were accused of acting together with enemies of the socialist system: Sakharov, Ginzburg and Orlov. People in the crowd called out, “Put them in prison! Hang them! Swine, they should be shot!” None of the Pentecostalists was allowed to speak. This aroused the indignation of the inhabitants of the village.

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During the meeting the visitors made a tape-recording and a film. The believers also tried to record the events: they had brought two tape-recorders and a camera with them.

The head of the KGB for the Temryuk and Anapa districts snatched one of the tape-recorders and broke it to pieces. Policeman Butenko, while taking away a microphone from Pentecostalist Galushkina, almost injured her hand with the flex. In response to this the Pentecostalists got up, intending to leave the hall, but the chairman ordered the police to stop them and return them to their places. Goretoi was threatened with immediate arrest if he tried to leave. The police and civilians used force to make everyone sit down in their places. Several people had their arms twisted. In this way, the believers were forced to sit through until the end of the meeting, which lasted another three hours.

The second tape-recorder and the camera were in the possession of Ilya Goretoi and Alexander Bibikov. They were taken off to the police station and told that it was prohibited for believers to take photographs and make tape recordings, as all this could land up abroad.

The gathering passed a resolution warning the Pentecostalists that criminal charges would be brought against them if they did not stop their anti-Soviet activities.

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In a letter to L.I. Brezhnev Pentecostalist Irina Yakovlevna MATYASH described how the gathering proceeded; she requested that a commission be sent out to investigate the actions of the KGB and district Party officials who organized the undertaking. In addition, her letter refuted Zakiyev’s article in the Soviet Kuban newspaper.

The letter by Irina Matyash was returned from Moscow to the Temryuk district authorities for ‘local investigation’. On 17 August 1977 a secretary of the district Party committee, Radionova and a secretary of the district executive committee, Kulish, arrived in Starotitarovskaya to chat with Matyash on the subject of her complaint.

The objections of Matyash to Zakiyev’s article were listened to in silence. About the gathering Radionova repeated several times that they had wanted only to show the believers the face of their leaders. Kulish asked why the members of the congregation had not spoken at the gathering in defence of Goretoi and others. Matyash reminded him that he had been sitting on the presidium to which the believers passed notes requesting that they be allowed to speak.

Radionova tried to persuade Matyash to renounce her desire to emigrate, asking what had forced her to take such a decision, “For nowadays no one harasses registered congregations of Pentecostalists”. Matyash explained that she had ten children and she could not bring them up calmly in a religious spirit, as she could do abroad.

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Thirty-two members of the congregation addressed an open letter to the UN Committee on Human Rights, the World Council of Churches and the delegates to the Belgrade Conference.

The letter described in detail the circumstances in which the gathering at the Starotitarovskaya cantonment [stanitsa] took place. The authors ask “all humanists and intellectuals of the world” to speak out in defence of Goretoi, Bobarykin and Sidenko, who are threatened with criminal prosecution. The letter ends with the words: “Help us to leave”.

Some members of the congregation wrote individual letters to the same addresses.

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At the end of July the police threatened Goretoi with a charge of parasitism.

At the end of September or beginning of October 1977 the authorities proposed to Nikolai Goretoi that he leave the Soviet Union. He agreed on the condition that all the members of his family be let out with him.

In October a round-the-clock watch of police and voluntary police in buses and cars was instituted near the houses of believers; some Pentecostalists were accompanied round the village by a car.

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2.2 Leningradskaya Cantonment.

On 5 September 1977 a village gathering took place here. The theme was the “anti-social activities of Melnichuk and Kravets”, who have applied to emigrate from the USSR.

Melnichuk and Kravets themselves were not invited to the gathering. Of those who had applied to leave, an invitation was sent only to A. Zhiltsova, who was on duty at work that day. Pentecostalists who had not applied to leave were invited to the gathering in the cantonment [stanitsa]. In addition, workers and collective farmers, who did not know where they were being taken, were driven to the gathering from work.

Melnichuk and Kravets were accused of trying to persuade co-religionists to leave the USSR. Teacher Ponomaryova and engineer Bakanov called them “traitors to the motherland” in their speeches.

On 8 September 1977 the district newspaper Steppe Sunsets published an article “Censure by a Meeting”. It reports that Melnichuk and Kravets were engaged in inflammatory and provocative activities and encouraged people to emigrate

A group of Pentecostalists from the Leningradskaya cantonment have composed a refutation of this article. They write that they decided to leave the USSR when they discovered that it was possible in accordance with the international obligations signed by the Soviet Union.

“… and no one tried to persuade anyone; neither Melnichuk, nor Kravets, nor the ‘recruiter Goretoi’. This was done freely and with the full consent of each person.”

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3.

ROVNO REGION (UKRAINE SSR)

ROVNO City. Pentecostalist Olga Krasun is being promised that if she rejects emigration, she will be transferred to work nearer to her home, her salary will be raised, and she will be allowed to go on a tourist trip to any Western country, and to enter an institute.

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DUBNO town. Glukhovsky, a senior presbyter of the official All-Union Council of the Evangelical Christians & Baptists (ECB) proposed to Nikolai Kunitsa [³] that if he rejected emigration, he could direct the official Union of Pentecostalists, receive a high salary and make trips to the USA and Canada on the Union’s money.

Deputy local police chief Knyaz threatened Kunitsa with punishment if he did not reject emigration.

On 29 September 1977 an article by M. Ivanchuk, “Mould”, was published in the district newspaper. It accused Kunitsa of being a parasite, living on financial subsidies for children, building a house on unearned income, and beating his mother.

On 5 October Kunitsa was arrested at the railway station.

The next day he was taken to the Rovno Region KGB administration. It turned out that the reason for his arrest was the statement of a man who had lost his purse. Kunitsa declared a complete, ‘dry’ hunger strike. Eight days later he was released.

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Before the November 1977 festivities [⁴] Kunitsa was summoned to the local procurator’s office. Senior Investigator Kolyuk warned him that he must not leave the town or his house before 9 November: “If you are seen on the street, you’ll get a minimum of 15 days [in jail]”.

His passport and military card were taken away from Kunitsa; without them he cannot work, even on a contract basis.

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4.

THE BALTIC AREA

Lithuania.

On 21 October 1977 Pentecostalists in Lithuania handed a general application to leave the USSR to the Republican OVIR. Attached to the application was a list of those wishing to emigrate, compiled throughout Lithuania.

On 27 October seven representatives of the believers tried to obtain an appointment with Major-General Zemgulis, deputy minister of the Lithuanian SSR Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD). They entered their names on special forms. However, as soon as the officials at reception found out who they were and on what business they had come, they tore up the forms. When all the other visitors had been received, they began to drive the Pentecostalists out, saying they were preventing them from working.

Zemgulis allowed one of the seven to stand in the doorway of his office and spoke to him without closing the door. He refused to receive the believers, calling them a gang, threatened to call the police, and, finally, demanded that they produce invitations from abroad.

One of those who had come, Pavlovich, had an invitation from Australia: his case has been under consideration for two years already. They received Pavlovich and promised to resolve his case. They led the others out of the reception room by force and locked the door behind them.

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Latvia.

On 26 October 1977 Pentecostalists in Latvia tried to obtain an appointment at the republican OVIR. They were rudely driven out of reception.

After this they sent a telegram to Brezhnev in which they described the incident in OVIR and asked him to assist their departure from the USSR.

In Riga, Grigory Petrenko, who is trying to obtain permission to leave, has been on a hunger strike since 21 November (CCE 46.6).

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Estonia.

The presbyter of Pentecostalists living in Estonia, Vasily Gorelkin, was summoned to the district KGB at the end of October. A Major-General, KGB chairman in Estonia, had a conversation with him. He threatened Gorelkin with arrest for writing to the International Red Cross requesting it for help in leaving the Soviet Union for any non-communist country.

Police sentries have been stationed around Gorelkin’s house in Tapa.

In the city of Narva and the town of Tapa before the start of the Belgrade Conference the authorities tried to collect the passports [ID documents] and army cards of Pentecostalists wishing to leave as if to process the documents for exit visas. However, the Pentecostalists would not give up their passports. They were then warned that no one should leave the urban areas to go anywhere.

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5.

ELSEWHERE

GEORGIAN SSR. In Batumi a similar policy on the part of the authorities passed off successfully. As a result, the Pentecostalists of Batumi cannot leave the town.

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SIBERIA. The family of Pentecostalist Shevchenko from central Siberia (Chernogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Region) has been trying to obtain an exit visa for 15 years.

Earlier Shevchenko and his wife Kalinina were convicted for their faith and deprived of their parental rights over several children: there are altogether ten children in the family. Shevchenko was transferred to a lower paid job and deprived of the pension which he received as a war invalid.

Now the Shevchenko couple have an invitation from the USA and are asking for their children to be returned to them and for all to be let out of the Soviet Union.

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TOLSTOY FUND. Congregations of Pentecostalists trying to obtain exit visas from the USSR through Lydia Voronina (CCE 44.10) have appealed to Alexandra Lvovna TOLSTOY to provide loans from the Tolstoy Fund to pay for their visas and transport. All believers without means, she told them, could use the money of the fund and of certain church congregations.

A group of Pentecostal women have thanked Alexandra Tolstoy in an Open Letter. They write:

“… our families are full of strong young sons and daughters who, working in new places of residence, by God’s grace, will compensate your temporary financial loss in not too lengthy a period with the legal percentage, and with heartfelt gratitude for such generous and magnanimous kindness, so that still other may use it.”

And further:

“… but we do not know how to use these means from your Fund! Whence and how do we receive them?”

The women ask for it to be explained to them to what embassy or bank in the USSR they can turn for this money. In addition, they ask Alexandra Lvovna to petition the Soviet authorities to simplify the procedure of legalizing exit visas for Pentecostalists. The authors of the letter hope that the ‘esteemed age’ of A. L. Tolstoy and the ‘good memory’ of her father will play their role in this.

The letter is signed by 19 mothers who have many children.

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6.

A LETTER

TO:

• Kurt Waldheim
• Jimmy Carter, the US Senate
• all countries participating in the (CSCE) Belgrade meeting
• the World Council of Churches
• the UN Committee on Human Rights
• Comrade Brezhnev

20 September 1977

The Pentecostalists ask for help in obtaining permission to leave the USSR not for their own sake, but so that all who have signed international documents on human rights can prove to the world that they are striving to carry out these laws and agreements.

In the letter one reason for the emigration of Pentecostalists receives particular emphasis: the activities of presbyters who are officially registered with the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians & Baptists (AUCECB). The authors write that when they themselves were serving their terms in prisons and camps, such men publicly maintained that there were no Pentecostalists in places of imprisonment.

“… These presbyters adopted resolutions to prevent our children from praying, and they entered the ranks of the godless so that we should not give alms one brother to another.”

It describes further how the authorities are now using the presbyters in theECB All-Union Council to persuade Pentecostalists to reject emigration.

The letter is signed on behalf of more than ten thousand Pentecostalists who have applied for emigration by the following:

• Goretoi — Krasnodar Region (Krai),
• Litvin — Latvia,
• Shilyuk — Rovno,
• Kiriyak — Chernovtsy Region,
• Smushko — Vilnius,
• Kunitsa — Dubno,
• Gorelkin — Estonia,
• Pavlovich — Lithuania,
• Trachuk — Kremenets,
• Sumborsky — Lvov Region,
• Tkachenko — Dnepropetrovsk.

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NOTES

1. Summarised with links in International Agreements.
   
   Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948); Covenant on Political and Social Rights (1966; ratified by USSR, 1973); Helsinki Accords (1975); and European Convention on Human Rights (1953; ratified by Russia, 1996).
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2. See Reuters report of 21 September 1977.
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3. Kunitsa also took part in the 21 September press conference in Moscow. (Reuters report that day, note 2.)
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4. ‘November festivities’ refers to the Revolution Day, 7 November (New Style) celebrations, when the “Great October (Old Style) Socialist Revolution” was marked each year.
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