The Oktyabrsky District Court in Stavropol is considering the case of three families whose privatised apartments are claimed by the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC).

Alexei Sochnev

According to the clergy, the apartment block at 233 Oktyabrskaya Street is sited on land that in pre-revolutionary times belonged to the Ioanno-Mariinsky Convent.

One of the apartments is home to Raisa Fomenko, born in 1927 and a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, and her family. In conversation with Open Russia her daughter said that the residents of all three apartments were prepared to move to equivalent accommodation, but neither the administration nor the ROC had offered anything.

“The ROC has been trying to seize our only home for ten years. The case was opened in 2006 by Father Theophan, when he was Archbishop of Stavropol and Vladikavkaz. In the lawsuit they described our apartment block as a church monument, alleging that in the late twentieth century it was used to house nuns. But there is no documentary evidence of that. Nearly all the monastery buildings were demolished and our block was rebuilt many times. It’s a barrack-type building and has nothing to do with the convent. Maybe some of the foundations of the nuns’ lodgings remain, but I’m not sure,” said Raisa’s daughter Tamara Shimko.

According to the Open Orthodox Encyclopedia, in Soviet times “the monastery buildings were crumbling and dilapidated. By the mid-2000s four of the five monastic churches had been razed to the ground, while the fifth had been substantially reconstructed.”

To this day, the fifth building houses a psychiatric clinic, which, according to the above encyclopedia, “for a long time after the collapse of the Soviet Union refused to discuss the issue of returning the monastery to the ROC.” The resistance was broken in 2004, whereupon Stavropol Krai Governor Alexander Chernogorov kick-started the monastery restoration project and the handover of the buildings. Now it is open as a domestic church, home to more than 15 nuns.

“The clinic allocated them 600 square metres of standalone sites, where they took up residence. The nuns visit the local prison and help the inmates. We often see them on their way back home, sitting and smoking on a bench, worn out. By the way, we bought our block from the clinic. Before that it housed a sewing workshop and a library. My mother survived the war, but these events are taking their toll. My grandfather used to live with us. He was 85 years old. It was a strain on his nerves. He died this year, the news was too much to bear,” says Tamara.

The Fomenko family’s main argument against the ROC’s lawsuit is the bona fide acquisition of the building by its residents. This fact played a part in the Oktyabrsky District Court’s dismissal of the ROC’s claim back in 2007.

“In an interview with a local TV channel, Father Theophan said that he was ready to buy a one-bedroom flat for [my mother] out of his own pocket, as long as we vacated the building. Yeah, right… After the court hearing he looked me in the eye and said that me and my young children could pitch a tent on the lawn and live there. Theophan was posted elsewhere, thank God. Now we have Metropolitan Kirill, but he’s in town only briefly. We get visits from a representative of his. She knocks on the door and asks when we’re going to vacate the premises. I ask her what she’s on about. She looks at me and leaves,” says Tamara.

In April 2016 the Church filed a new lawsuit – this time against the Stavropol city administration – seeking the annulment of the privatisation. The Church believes that the municipality made a mistake by allowing the illegal privatisation of a residential building that should been transferred to the diocese.

“The year’s been full of meetings but no substance. Their lawsuit is a hotchpotch of whatever they can get away with. They’re making my mother appear in court. She’s elderly and needs a wheelchair. And in any case she put the property in my name long ago, but they don’t care. The privatisation was perfectly legal. We have all the documents to prove it. Is the ROC above the law?” says an indignant Tamara.

“It’s vital that the claim being filed with the district court is not satisfied, not least because the statute of limitations has expired,” says Igor Shimko, Raisa’s son-in-law.

Tamara is keen to stress that the families in the building are ready to relocate to equivalent housing and are open to negotiation with the administration, even though proposals have not been forthcoming.

“Unlike the ROC, which suggested that we live on the lawn, we’re not without goodwill and are ready to discuss options,” Tamara sums up.

At the time of publication the Ioanno-Mariinsky Convent had declined to comment.

This article was first published by Open Russia