Paval Sevyarynets Allowed to Go to Church Once a Month :: Charter'97 :: News

Political prisoner, leader of the “Young Front” Paval Sevyarynets who serves a two-year sentence of personal restrain in the village Malae Sitna (Polatsk region, Vitsebsk voblast) has received an answer from the commandant’s office in the settlement of Vetryna concerning attending church services. The thing is that there is no Orthodox Churches within 20 kilometres from the village, and leaving Malae Sitna and railway station Alyoshcha is banned for Paval Sevyarynets.

The director of the colony of number 5 of the open type Alyaksandr Domut’ allowed Paval Sevyarynets attend services in Polatsk, but only “as an exception” and only once a month. Moreover, workers of the colony warned Sevyarynets that he cannot stay in Polatsk for more than three hours.

“A Christian should attend church at least once a week, on Sundays,” Paval comments. “Besides, the schedule of traffic from Malale Sitna to Polatsk does not make it possible to manage everything within three hours. I would certainly strive for permission to go to church every Sunday, and to prolong the time allowed to stay in Polatsk.”

Paval Sevyarynets was ordered to work in an integrated logging-lumbering enterprise at the station Alyoshcha as a pile-maker, a worker of low qualification. At 7.15 a.m. he is to check in by the director of the enterprise, to work from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. six days a week (one Saturday a month is a day-off as well), and to be at place of residence at 10 p.m. There is no mobile communication in Malae Sitna, and he cannot call home from the post office which closes at 3 p.m.