A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY
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| Volume 6 Number 20 - Tuesday, May 18th, 2004 |
A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY |
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Paganism attracts art studentsTHREE PAGAN WORSHIPPERS AWAIT TRIAL IN CASE OF VANDALISM IN OREL CHURCH Portal-credo.ru, 14 May 2004 - The identity of three suspects in the case of two incidents of arson in the church of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God in the city of Orel has been established, a Portal-credo.ru correspondent reports. Information on this was distributed on 13 May by the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Orel province. The arson occurred in February of this year.
After the first incident, in which books in the church book stall were destroyed, windows were broken, and an attempt was made to set fire to the iconostasis which was undergoing restoration, a criminal case was opened based on article 167 of the Criminal Code of RF ("intentional destruction and damage of property"). After the second fire, when 250 packages of candles worth 30,000 rubles were burned up in the basement of the church, the investigation of the two cases was joined into a single case and was recategorized under article 214 ("vandalism.").
After the first incident the intruders left a slogan on the walls of the church saying "The Jewish God will depart; praise to the gods," to which was attached a symbol reminiscent of a nazi swastika.
In March in the city of Livna, of Orel province, a worker in the Sergius church discovered in a donation box a note containing a threat to set fire to the church roof, in which the Orel incidents were mentioned.
A search for the persons who committed the arson was conducted by a specially formed operational group in the Directorate of Internal Affairs among radical, nationalistically minded youth and groups of occultic activity.
By the middle of April the first suspect had been arrested, a 23-year-old unemployed graduate of the Orel Institute of Culture and Art who had converted to paganism. The suspect admitted the crimes, explaining that he had been drunk and the slogan was produced by memory from a book on paganism. Several days later two 19-year-old students of the same institute were arrested. They are awaiting trial while free on a promise not to leave the city.
Article 214 of the Criminal Code of RF "Vandalism"
provides for a punishment in the form of a fine of
50 to 100 times the minimum wage or corrective
labor of from six months to one year. (tr. by PDS) |
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