In the city of Guryevsk, Kaliningrad region, workers destroyed the foundation of an Orthodox chapel under construction

On September 19, in the city of Guryevsk (Kaliningrad region), workers destroyed the foundation of the chapel of the Assumption of the Virgin under construction. told Interfax As one of its parishioners, Vladimir Krutikov, , "in the morning, the parishioners who came to the prayer service found migrant workers destroying the walls of the temple with the help of an excavator and jackhammers." "We were told that a certain businessman bought this land and intends to build a bar and a parking lot here," said V. Krutikov.

Permission to build the chapel was received by believers back in 1994, but shortly after that, construction work was frozen, as the local diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church decided to build a new church in the city center. “Now that the church has been built in the center of Guryevsk, the construction of the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary has resumed. Apparently, the entrepreneurs hastened to show the authorities that there was nothing to restore, and even illegally, if the land was sold to a new owner,” V. Krutikov believes.

The Orthodox regarded the incident as an act of vandalism and filed a complaint with the police.

The secretary of the Smolensk-Kaliningrad diocese, Archpriest Marian Pozun, commenting on the situation, noted that for the diocese the destruction of the unfinished chapel (in which, by the way, divine services had already been held) was a complete surprise: and the rector of the temple several times asked the head of the city administration for a meeting, but each time the meeting was disrupted for reasons beyond the control of the priest. In any case, we did not expect that the temple would begin to be destroyed without notifying the rector and parishioners about it."

Sources

• The foundation of an Orthodox chapel under construction was destroyed in the Kaliningrad region // Interfax-religion. 2007. September 20.