ADVENTISTS. PENTECOSTALISTS. JOSYP TERELYA.
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1. Adventists
On Saturday 22 January 1977 in the village of Klishkovtsy, near Chernovtsy (West Ukraine), a guest from a neighbouring village, 19-year-old Alexander Gorchenko, was received at the home of Adventist Karp Galichansky.
Suddenly a stranger came into the house and asked whether the radio-plug was working properly. Galichansky’s wife replied that their radio was in order and they had not called for anyone. Then the stranger went out and fetched another seven or eight people, who, without saying a word, began a search. As was later clarified, they were led by Major Okhotnik.
Gorchenko began to protest. Major Okhotnik demanded that he give his name. Alexander refused. On the order of Okhotnik some men tied his hands and dragged him to a car. In the sight of the owners of the house and their relatives they beat him up. Then they took Gorchenko to a public order support point in the village of Klishkovtsy, where they continued to beat him up. After this they drew up a report in which it was claimed that Gorchenko hit the detectives operations men and called them names.
Then they took Alexander Gorchenko to his village to establish his identity. On the way there and back he was beaten again. The driver, too, took part.
In Klishkovtsy a doctor, V.G. Pasechnik, was invited to the support point to examine Gorchenko after he had complained of being beaten up. The doctor examined him and said he should be ashamed to utter such slander. The vigilantes added ‘slander’ to their report in the doctor’s presence. After this the doctor signed a report that Gorchenko was healthy and there were no marks on him indicating he had been beaten.
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Alexander Gorchenko was taken to the district centre where he was held until the following day.
That day he was taken to Procurator A.A. Malyshko. Seeing that Gorchenko moved with difficulty, the Procurator enquired after his health. Alexander told him what had happened. The Procurator called a doctor who signed a report that Gorchenko was healthy, there were no signs that he had been beaten and that he was fit. The same day he was released.
On 25 January 1977 Gorchenko entered a country hospital complaining of pains in the region of his kidneys. On 27 January he was suddenly discharged; two days later he was sentenced to 15 days in jail for hooliganism.
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On 21 January 1977 searches were organized at the homes of five Adventists living in the South Russian Krasnodar area, on the pretext of a search for illegally sold objects.
M.S. Sych and P.F. Mashkov were searched in the settlement of Elizavetinskaya; in the settlement of Yablonovsky, Galina Trofimets and I.T. Maslov were searched and, in the settlement of Enem, P.A. Mikhel.
A large quantity of religious books published by the unofficial publishing house True Witness was confiscated from them. Also taken were: books of religious content published in the 1920s by Soviet publishing-houses; tapes with religious recordings; record-players; a typewriter and a device for binding books. Documents concerning his house and his savings-books were taken from Maslov.
After the searches, interrogations began. They were especially interested in the publishing-house True Witness and in the circulation of religious literature.
After the search Galina Vasilyevna TROFIMETS was placed in a detention cell, her fingerprints were taken, and her documents confiscated. She was told that she was being charged with circulating anti-Soviet literature. At the same time, they tried to persuade her to cooperate, promising in exchange freedom and a reward. Trofimets refused. Three days later she was released.
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2. Pentecostalists
The first community of Pentecostalists (“Christians of Evangelical Faith”) in the Soviet Union sprang up in 1918 in Odessa. Fleeing from persecution, the Pentecostalists settled in Central Asia: in the cities of Alma-Ata and Frunze [Bishkek], and in Azerbaijan and Siberia (Mariinsk, Anzhero-Sudzhensk, Abakan, Chernogorsk, Barnaul and Kemerovo).
Numerous communities of Pentecostalists exist in all these towns and cities up to the present day. They now embrace about 200,000 believers.
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UNDER LENIN & STALIN
In the first years of the Soviet regime many Pentecostals were shot without trial or investigation.
From the 1930s until the mid-1950s the sect was banned, and believers were convicted en masse under Article 58 (counter-revolutionary crimes). After the death of Stalin some of them were let out, but many served their full terms.
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REGISTRATION
Now criminal prosecutions of Pentecostalists usually involve charges under the ‘religious’ Article 227, or Articles 70 and 190-1 (RSFSR Criminal Code).
The main problem of sectarians in the USSR are connected with the necessity of registration. The practice of registration is such that it effectively bans the following: religious education of children; assemblies of young people and women; propagandizing, missionary and charitable activities; and also the performance of a number of the most important religious rites (see also CCE 41.2-4).
Registered communities, formally united with the local Baptists, embrace about half the total number of Pentecostalists in the USSR: mainly those in Odessa, Kiev, Rovno and a number of villages in Western Ukraine. The Pentecostalists of Central Asia, Siberia and the Pacific region have not wanted and do not want to register their communities.
Members of unregistered communities are constantly subjected to searches at which Bibles and psalm books are taken away. KGB commissioners for religious affairs regularly hold conversations with them, using threats and intimidation. Participants in prayer-meetings are fined (50-80 roubles) and houses in which meetings are held are often confiscated. In 1971 in Chernogorsk the authorities dispersed worshippers with fire-hoses, while the house in which they had assembled was demolished with a bulldozer.
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WORK
It is very difficult for Pentecostalists to find work and to keep it for any length of time. The majority, after numerous moves from place to place, have become building labourers, but even their employment on building sites has been made difficult.
At present official anti-religious propaganda has started to be carried out at the workplaces of Pentecostalists. “The Baptists” (as all sectarians are usually called) are declared to be spies and saboteurs, living off the money of American imperialism.
The Pentecostalists arc constantly persecuted for the religious education of their children. There are cases of believing parents being deprived of their parental rights and the children being placed in boarding schools, where they are forcibly re-educated.
The families of Pentecostalists, as a rule, include many children. Often, they contain 10-12 children. Yet parents are sometimes deprived of the material benefits stipulated for such cases. The children often do not receive subsidies, or free meals at school. Pentecostalist families with many children often live in poor conditions, yet they are not given priority over extra living space as the regulations require.
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SCHOOL
Since they receive a religious education at home, the children refuse to become members of Soviet youth groups: Octobrists, Pioneers and then the Komsomol or Communist Youth League.
In this way they incur persecution: lowering of their marks, public humiliation at school assemblies, and beating by other children, sometimes directly provoked by the teachers. “During the whole period of school education we and our children feel as if we are at the battle front,” writes a mother of many children, L. S. Rybak.
If children of believers manage to complete their schooling, they receive from their school a reference which effectively bars their path to higher education: “… adheres to anti-Soviet views” — is a widespread phrase in school testimonials for believers.
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ARMY
When they reach call-up age Pentecostalists encounter a new difficulty.
Their religion forbids them to take the oath, to carry a weapon and to shoot at people. For refusal to do military service, they go before a court and are sentenced to terms of imprisonment from three to five years. Sometimes believers agree to serve in building battalions but do not want to take an oath. It happens in such cases that they are judged by a military tribunal, although by law the tribunal has the right to judge only persons who have taken the oath.
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EMIGRATION
These conditions have led about five thousand people from unregistered communities of Pentecostalists to decide to emigrate from the USSR.
Many families have put in applications about this to various bodies. The most active in this sense are the communities of Nakhodka (300 people) in the Far East, and of Starotitarovskaya (100 people) in south Russia (Krasnodar Region).
Judging by the conversations of Commissioners For Religious Affairs with believers, the authorities would willingly let out the most active families if they had invitations from Israel.
NAKHODKA
After the movement for emigration sprang up amongst the Pentecostalists, a certain decline in reprisals was observed in Nakhodka (Primorsky Region).
Members of the sect have been allowed to assemble openly; a number of those called up for military service have managed to obtain a deferment; and others are serving in building battalions without having taken the oath.
STAROTITAROVSKAYA
The community in Starotitarovskaya (Krasnodar Region) sprang up at the end of the 1960s when a presbyter of the Nakhodka community, Nikolai Goretoi, arrived there after serving a term of imprisonment.
Pentecostalists from Nakhodka and other towns made their way there after him.
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3. TERELYA
Doctor-gynaecologist Terelya, wife of Josyp Terelya (CCE 41.7, CCE 43.8), was summoned to a professional qualifications board and warned that she would be deprived of her diploma, as her views *do not correspond to the ethics of a Soviet doctor”.
On the walls of her flat hang icons and pictures of religious content.
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(See also “Arrests, Searches, Interrogations”, “In the Prisons and Camps”, “Events in Lithuania” and “The Right to Leave” in this issue, CCE No. 44.)
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