OGORODNIKOV. ADVENTISTS. PENTECOSTALS & BAPTISTS.
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In May and June 1977 Alexander Ogorodnikov (CCE 41.2-3, CCE 43.11) was receiving treatment in Moscow City Hospital No. 4.
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1. OGORODNIKOV
On 7 June Rimma A. Semyonova, a section head, called him into the surgery for an examination.
Immediately after this, Doctor Yelena V. Polikarpova summoned the other patients in the ward to a lecture. Fifteen minutes later the patients were allowed back into the ward. Then they saw that Ogorodnikov’s bed and bedside table had been ransacked. During this secret search religious books and a draft copy of a “Bulletin of the Religious-Philosophical Seminar” had been confiscated.
On 13 June Ogorodnikov was discharged from the hospital. When he went out into the street, he was pushed into a car and taken to a police station.
There he was subjected to a body search. After being searched Ogorodnikov was told he was free to go. However, as soon as he went out into the street, he was again pushed into a car and this time was taken to a wood. He was told to get out. They surrounded him … They stood there for a while and then took him back to Moscow.
After this, he was driven round to various police stations a number of times, then set free for a few minutes at a time. This continued for over 12 hours.
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BULLETIN
The Bulletin, a draft copy of which was stolen, was intended for the internal use of those who attended the seminar.
Its approximate contents were:
- story of the seminar’s creation and the history of its persecution (CCE 43.9),
- B. Roshchin article in Literaturnaya gazeta and the replies of people libelled in it (CCE 45.19-1 [16]);
- article on the seminar’s activities and the range of its problems;
- creation and activities of the Christian Committee for the Defence of Believers’ Rights;
- Easter sermon by Father Dmitry Dudko;
- appeal for support to all the creative young people of the Church;
- diary of events for the seminar and a diary of current affairs.
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2. ADVENTISTS
VORONEZH. On 21 May 1977 a police squad surrounded the Safonovs’ flat, in which an Adventist prayer meeting was taking place.
The guardians of public order rang the doorbell of the flat and knocked at the door.
The siege lasted for 13 hours. When the believers began to disperse, four Adventists were taken to the local police station and interrogated. One of them, Tamara Korneva, was detained by the police for three days.
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CHERNOVTSY REGION. On 23 March 1977, Adventist Dmitry Mikhailovich FLORESCUL was arrested in the town of Storozhinets for refusing to take part in military training. The conflict with the military enlistment office arose because of his refusal to bear arms for religious reasons. In April Florescul was sentenced to a year of corrective labour under Article 192 (UkSSR Criminal Code = Article 198, RSFSR Code).
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DZHAMBUL On 30 December 1976 Adventist A. F. Miller was arrested.
Before his arrest he had applied more than once to the Procurator’s Office and the military enlistment office, begging them to let him work in a construction battalion instead of training for war purposes. On 3 March 1977 a court sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment in an ordinary-regime labour colony, according to Article 66 (Kazakh SSR Criminal Code: “avoiding routine call-up for active military service”).
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3. PENTECOSTALS & BAPTISTS
According to information from the Council of ECB [CECB] Prisoners’ Relatives, 53 Baptists were imprisoned on 15 May; of these, five are women.
Nine are serving their second sentence; one — his third; and one (Ivan Shteffen: CCE 42.6, CCE 44.26-1) — his fourth.
After presbyter Ivan Shteffen had been sentenced to five years in November 1976 (CCE 44.26-1), 138 members of his congregation, who considered the sentence unjust, protested by renouncing their Soviet citizenship and sent back their passports.
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According to a report from the Council of ECB Churches and Christian publishers house, on 21 March 1977 I.I. Leven and the sisters Ludmila and Larisa Zaitseva were arrested in Ivangorod (Leningrad Region). During a search of the house where they were living, three tons of paper, a printing press and other typographical machinery were confiscated.
A week later the owner of the house, D. I. Koop, was arrested.
Other searches were carried out in connection with this case, two in the small town of Ivangorod and one in the city of Narva (Estonian SSR).
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UKRAINE
In autumn 1975 the Pentecostal believers Anatoly Didovets and Valery Nazaruk got four years’ imprisonment each for refusing to take the military oath.
Both are from Ukraine’s Rovno Region, both are sons of presbyters of local congregations. They were both were sent to serve their terms as orderlies at the Sychovka Special Psychiatric Hospital (Smolensk Region). Didovets has now been given partial freedom and works in a chemical factory in Sychovka.
The Pentecostal Konstantin Pitsul (Cherkassy Region, Ukraine) had already served five months in the army when, on 7 October 1976, he was sentenced to three years in camps by a military tribunal, for refusing to take the military oath.
In January-February 1977 the Baptists Viktor Peredreyev (b. 1958) and Timofei Lukin (b. 1957) got 3 years each for the same offence.
All of the above were sentenced under Article 249 (RSFSR Criminal Code, or corresponding Article, the UkSSR Code).
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Nikolai Kravchenko, a reform Baptist from the town of Sumy (northeast Ukraine), was called up into the army on 26 November 1976.
Kravchenko would not take the military oath. Pressure was continually exerted on him. KGB Lieutenant-Colonel Tokmakov came from Sumy to Kursk (west-central Russia), where Kravchenko was serving. He and Special Board Captain Leshchenko tried to persuade Kravchenko to renounce his convictions and suggested that he collaborate with the KGB. After this talk, detachment officers threatened more than once to beat Kravchenko up.
On 27 March 1977 at 5 pm detachment commander Sergeant Melnik called Kravchenko into an empty classroom.
He and Junior Sergeant Dzyubenko gave Kravchenko a cruel beating, adding “That’s what it’ll be like every day.” Both Nikolai’s jaws were broken and his teeth were knocked out or damaged. The next day he was placed in the military hospital, in a serious condition. Kravchenko was discharged from the hospital and sent back to his detachment while he still could not eat normally, and felt ill.
The KGB Is threatening to try him for refusing to take the military oath.
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In May 160 Pentecostal believers from Rovno Region refused to serve in the army.
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In May the police tried to disperse the mourners at a funeral in Artyomovsk (Donetsk Region).
Also in May a wedding held in a prayer house near Kiev was broken up.
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Vasily Kovalchuk (from Krivoi Rog) has had his children taken away and sent to a children’s home.
In Gorlovka (Donetsk Region) the authorities are threatening to deprive Olga Sidorchuk of her 14-year-old daughter.
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ESTONIA
According to material provided by the Bulletin of the CECB Prisoners’ Relatives:
On 23 March 1977 searches were carried out at the homes of D. V. Minyakov and N. I. Ovchinnikov in the town of Valga (Estonian SSR). During the search the following were confiscated: Bibles, Gospels, hymn-books, hymn-books with music, letters, exercise-books, photograph albums, tape-recorders, cassette recordings and a typewriter.
The KGB officials carrying out the search refused to give their names.
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Prayer meetings have been broken up in varios sites and locations:
- in Sumy: twice, in January;
- in the Moscow Region: on 13 March in the town of Zheleznodorozhny, at the home of M. Pshenitsyn; and on 27 March in Vatutinki settlement;
- in Omsk on 7 April, at the home of N. P. Popov; on 10 April, at the home of Yelena Zyuzi.
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SIBERIA
In winter 1977 a registered prayer-house was taken away from believers in Barnaul by a decision of a district soviet executive committee.
OMSK
A district court in Omsk took a decision to confiscate the house of V. T. Fedorchenko, a reform Baptist whose husband is now in prison. The excuse was that its floorspace had been enlarged to an impermissible extent by building additions. There are ten people in the Fedorchenko family.
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K. Kasyanova, a Baptist from Omsk, was sentenced to two years in 1969. After her release she was put on the police register. Now, six years after her release, she has again been put on the register. In answer to this, Kasyanova handed in her passport at the police station.
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See also “The Right to Leave One’s Country” (CCE 46.9).
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A Chronicle of Current Events 