Attempt to Desecrate the Cross on the Construction Site of an Orthodox Church

March 3, 2016. Law enforcement officers of Losinoostrovsky North-Eastern Administrative District of Moscow (Russia) prevented an attempt to desecrate the orthodox cross located on the construction site on Ostashkovskiy Alley, as orthodox radiostation Radonez and the press service of the ‘Sorok Sorokov orthodox movement reports.

Police officers ordered to dismantle the tent camp in the Torfyanka Park that was set up without lend tenure agreement. Unidentified persons from the tents attempted to hamper the police officers’ legal act and to block the traffic on Ostashkovskiy Alley. Later, after the work on dismantling was completed, they tried to break into the construction site of the orthodox church by breaking the fence in three places but were timely caught by guards and prevented from committing unlawful acts.

Operative investigative measures are being conducted to identify the organizers and perpetrators of the night break-in. According to Decree 280 of the Moscow City Government and the decision of the Babushkinskiy district court, an orthodox church in honour of the Kazan icon of the Mother of God shall be built to Losinoostrovsky District. Since 2012 the area residents have been filing requests to the executive authorities asking for construction of a church in their district.

Sorok Sorokov’ movement published a video report prepared by ordinary people where they declare that opponents of the church want to repeat the Ukrainian cross demolition ‘campaign’ in Russia. According to them, this attempt to pull down the cross is not the first one. In June when the construction was just starting, they did also undertake some actions to demolish it but encountered resistance from the part of orthodox believers.

They accused certain Duma deputies of having poisoned people’s minds against the church falsely alleging that the whole park territory would be devoted to the construction of a monastery whereas the church occupies merely 1% of the park area.

After the previous protest actions, where the opponents declared that their main objective is to overthrow the actual authorities, the prefect Vinogradov stated that no violation has been found out; the general of MIA, Skuba in turn took away the surveillance camera located in the construction site. Consequently, malefactors cannot be identified.

Video from ‘Sorok Sorokov’ movement