The congregants are falling to day-and-night prayers for retention. They will ask God to steer the authorities onto the right path and tell them how they should react on the authorities’ actions, New Life lawyer Siarhei Lukanin said.
Special prayer meetings in support of the church are to be held daily, all concerned people including journalists being welcome there. The New Life church’s parishioners do not even consider the option of voluntary eviction from their building, he stressed.
On November 27 New Life church received court summons from the Supreme Economic Court officer, named O.N. Scherbakovich, in which the church is offered to vacate its building, located at the address in Minsk, Kovaleva street 72 not later than December 5, 2012.
For seven years the Minsk City Executive Committee has been making attempts to drive them away. It is noteworthy that it is the parishioners who built premises more than twenty years ago at the site of a former cowshed.
Aiming at drawing public attention to New Life’s problems, in October 2006 its members went on a month hunger-strike. Hunger-strikers substituted one another permanently staying inside the building. A wide public response brought up a change: the authorities had to backwater. New Life was upheld by representatives of democratic forces, countries of the EU bloc, foreign politicians, priests, religious congregations.
Over the years of its existence New Life has received more than 30 court summonses; priest Viachaslau Hancharenka ans lawyer Siarhei Lukanin were repeatedly brought to administrative responsibility.
Belsat
