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Church evicts veterans for historical justice

The Stavropol diocese demands the return of the hut, which once housed the hostel of nuns. Now six people are registered and live here. The barrack was built in 1850 and belonged to the John-Mariinsky Monastery. During the Soviet years...

The Stavropol diocese demands the return of the hut, which once housed the hostel of nuns. Now six people are registered and live here.

The barrack was built in 1850 and belonged to the John-Mariinsky Monastery. In the Soviet years, a regional psychiatric hospital was located in the premises of the monastery. There was a club and a sewing shop directly in the barracks. By the early 1990s, the building had fallen into disrepair.

In June 1993, at the auction of the Stavropol Commodity Exchange, Igor Shimko, a former doctor who opened a pharmaceutical business, bought a barrack from the hospital. Three years later, Shimko sold the bulk of the house to his parents and mother-in-law. People, I must say, respected. Father - Boris Petrovich Shimko, holder of the Order of the Badge of Honor, who worked for more than 30 years as the chief veterinarian of the Izobilnensky district of Stavropol. The mother-in-law is Raisa Ivanovna Fomenko, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, a disabled person of the first group, who has half a century of work experience.

The wreck was divided into three apartments (for parents, mother-in-law and Igor and his family) and began to equip. The Stavropol diocese had no claims. Its representatives, according to Shimko, appeared here in 1995, saw the title documents and left. But then the head of the diocese, Gideon, died, and Vladyka Theophan was sent to replace him. It was he who decided in 2006 to return the building to the ownership of the church, bringing a lawsuit against the family.

The trial in the Oktyabrsky court of Stavropol went on for more than a year. It turned out that the half-decayed hut is a monument of history and culture. Shimko objected: the building was officially included in the list of monuments in 1995, that is, after the purchase. The Archbishop of Stavropol and Vladikavkaz came in from the other side and turned to the police. The investigator wrote: the auction for the sale of the building was fictitious. But when Igor Shimko turned to the regional police department with a request to provide the materials of the inspection, he was told that "the materials have been lost."

As a result, the Oktyabrsky District Court completely refused the diocese. One of the arguments was that the claims were overdue. And the house was bought not from the church, but from the state. However, Vladyka Feofan filed a cassation appeal, and in three minutes the regional court not only overturned the decision of the district court, but also adopted a new decision: the claim of the diocese was fully satisfied. The barrack was returned to state ownership. It remains only to transfer it to the church. That is, people should actually be deprived of apartments, while providing nothing in return. The family has gone through something similar. Igor Shimko's grandfather, Jozef Zelsky, was repressed during the years of the Great Terror and died in the camps. Mom, being a little girl, as the daughter of an enemy of the people, was exiled to Kazakhstan.

In the diocese, Novaya Gazeta was informed that the residents should solve the problem with government departments. Veteran Raisa Fomenko spoke more specifically on this topic in her letter addressed to the president: “If the Church needs our house so much, why not buy it from us so that we can at least move somewhere?” However, appeals to the President did not help. The family has now filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights.

A few years ago, the Stavropol diocese was already fighting for a house located next to St. Andrew's Church on Dzerzhinsky Street in Stavropol. The building was allegedly required for the resettlement of seminarians. As a result, the clergy managed to take only one apartment, the keys to which went to a certain abbot from Moscow. On the site of the Assumption cemetery, where many famous citizens are buried, Feofan tried to start building an Orthodox gymnasium. When they began to dig a pit, human remains appeared on the surface. And before that, a plot of 68 thousand square meters of land in the very center of Stavropol was transferred to the ownership of the diocese. But for some reason, the diocese did not want to use its free site for construction. The public of Stavropol sent an application to the general church court with a request to deprive Feofan of the rank of archbishop (Novaya Gazeta, No. 57 of 01.06.09). The pit with the remains was filled up. But the application to the general church court still remains unanswered.