Christian Committee’s Reports
The Christian Committee for the Defence of Believers’ Rights in the USSR (CCDBR) reported recent instances of violations against believers’ rights in a document dated.8 February 1978.
First, M. M. Yurkiv, a Pentecostal, was arrested on 23 December 1977 after applying for permission to emigrate from the USSR for religious reasons. He was charged with «misappropriation of state funds».
Second, three Pentecostals (Perchatkin, Chuprin and Stepanov) were forcibly expelled from Moscow in January 1978 after receiving an official invitation from the American Embassy to come and present amendments to their official invitation for permanent residence in the USA.
The two incidents came in the wake of a pr·ess statement, issued on 21 September 1977 by the CCDBR, appealing for support for Soviet Pentecostals who want to emigrate as a result of the cruel attitude of the Soviet authorities. Official pronouncements, chiefly Art. 25 (on
communist education) of the new Constitution, cause Pentecostals to fear for the fate of their children and their religious education. The press statement was also signed by Tatyana Khodorovich and Kronid Lyubarsky, members ·of the Russian Social Fund to Aid Political Prisoners in the USSR, and Tatyana Velikanova, member of the Action Group for
the Defence of Human Rights. Deprivation of parental rights against the Xhailo parents (Baptists) is the third instance of violation of believers’ rights.
The case was to have been held on 3 February 1978. This case is alarming because it may signal a change in· the attitude of the Soviet authorities : during 1977 there were no known cases of deprivation of parental rights for religious reasons, and sentences previously passed have not been carried out.
Keston Institute Journal: Religion in Communist Lands Volume 6, Issue 3, January 1978, article «News in Brief» page 202
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