The Harvest Church of St Petersburg, Russia, was closed by the Russian government without warning, it was reported on March 19.
Government officials reported that the church was conducting unregistered educational activities, namely holding Sunday school classes during the week without explicit permission.
Wade Kusack, the project manager for Russian Ministries with his speciality being religious issues in Russia, explained: ‘In Russia, the church is supposed to have registration. Without registration, no one has the right to practice their religion. The church was stripped of its legal registration’.
Since the Harvest Church did not acquire the proper documentation necessary to hold the weekday Christian education classes, the church was liquidated without question.
No warning
Kusack believes that the Russian government did not have to react so harshly. ‘They could give a church a warning. Or they could come and investigate what was really happening. But they decided – when they spotted so-called not licensed activity – [and] they immediately closed the church.’
The Russian Supreme Court supported the liquidation of the Harvest Church. The case will be presented to the European Court of Human Rights, but Kusack says that success there is unlikely to alter the decision to close the church. ‘We should understand and realise that those times of persecution of the church are coming back, and it has become more obvious year by year. We unfortunately can observe more and more persecution of the church in Russia.’
