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Published by Stetson
University Russia Religion News, August 19,
2004
Resolution in church seizure achieved
CHURCH IN
KADASHI TAKEN FROM RESTORERS ON PATRIARCH'S
REQUEST
by Ivan
Tiazhlov
(Kommersant
daily, 19 August 2004) Yesterday a commission for
receipt and transfer of the building of an
affiliate of the Central Aerohydrodynamic
Institute (TsAGI) on Radio Street to the Grabar
restoration studios began work. The building of
the church of the Resurrection of the Lord in
Kadashi, which the studios occupied for the past
forty years, was seized at the beginning of August
by a group of parishioners of the Orthodox parish.
Yesterday the leadership of TsAGI and the Grabar
center officially received the decision of the
Federal Agency for Administration of Federal
Property, ordering the restorers to move out of
the church into the building on Radio Street.
According to the order signed last Friday by
Deputy Director of the Federal Agency for
Administration of Federal Property (FAUFI) Dmitry
Aratsky, of all the immovable property allotted to
the Zhukovsky TsAGI, the building of its Moscow
affiliate at 17 Radio Street is excluded. It will
be transferred to the Academician Grabar
All-Russian Artistic Scientific Restoration
Center. Mr. Aratsky indicated in his order that
the basis for the transfer was the Civil Code of
the Russian federation and an appeal from
Patriarch Alexis II.
The decision of the federal agency surprised all
participants in the conflict, about which
Kommersant reported on 3 and 9 August. When the
parishioners of the church of the Resurrection of
Christ seized the building of the Grabar center on
Kadashi embankment, the administration of the
restoration studios spoke confidently about the
illegal seizure of the building of the former
church, which had belonged to the Grabar center
since 1964. The head of the Federal Agency on
Culture and Cinematography, Mikhail Shvydkoy, even
sent to the Office of the Prosecutor General a
demand that a criminal case be instigated over the
act of seizure.
However yesterday, as the director of the Grabar
artistic center, Aleksei Vladimirov, told
Kommersant, the commission on receipt and transfer
of the building on Radio Street had already begun
its work. According to Mr. Vladimirov's
calculation, repair of this building will cost
about 1,000 dollars per square meter (the overall
area of the building is 6,000 square meters) and
"who will pay for the repairs is still unknown."
"This is a great surprise for us, but judging by
everything it is already impossible to do
anything," the director of the Moscow affiliate of
TsAGI, Vladimir Sokoliansky, told Kommersant. Mr.
Sokoliansky said that it is still unknown where
the affiliate will move to. According to
Kommersant's information, the question of
accommodating the evicted laboratories on the main
territory of TsAGI in the Moscow suburb of
Zhukovsky is under consideration.
Archbishop of Istrinsk Arseny, who supervises
questions of church property in RPTs, told
Kommersant that the decision in principle about
evicting the restorers from the church building
was made back on 7 August at a conference in the
Federal Agency for Administration of Property.
"Representatives of all interested parties were
present there," Master Arseny said, and added that
it is much easier for church hierarchs to work
with the present leadership of the agency than
with the former head of the Ministry of State
Property (in March of this year FAUFI, headed by
Valery Nazarov, became the successor of the
Ministry of State Property, which had been headed
by Farid Gazizulin).
The only thing that remains unclear in this story
is the fate of Mikhail Shvydky's written request
to Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov, which is
awaiting its turn for review in the Prosecutor
General's office. "Nobody has recalled the
request," Kommersant was told at the Center of
Public Communications of this agency. "It will be
reviewed when its turn comes, and the decision of
the Federal Agency on Property will have no effect
on this at all." (tr. by PDS, posted 19 August
2004)
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