HOW WORK WINS PRAISE IN MOSCOW

IN 1998 a civil suit calling for a ban on the activity of Jehovah's Witnesses was brought before a municipal court in the Golovinky of Moscow. You may find it ironic, therefore, that the Witnesses were recently praise by local officials in the Golovinsky District  Administration.

Why did the Witnesses receive praise from Moscow officials when, at the same time, attempts were being made by some people to eliminate them from the city?  A brief review of the activity of the Witnesses there will provide answers. 

The Witnesses in Moscow

In the mid 1950's, Moscow was one of the few capital cities of the world where not one of Jehovah's Witnesses lived.  The reason? Because the Witnesses in Moscow had be deported, even as thousands of others in the Soviet Union had also been. Where to?  Most were taken to Siberian slave-labor camps. 

As years went by, a few Muscovites began to study the Bible with the aid of Witness publications, which at the time were banned in Russia. In the mid-1970's, the few who had then became  Witnesses were meeting for Bible study in the Moscow apartment of Murat Shakirov. In the  1980's, the members of this small group were able to interest many others in  Bible study. 

When the activity of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Soviet Union was legalized in March 1991, a large congregation of Witnesses in Moscow began functioning openly. Thousands of people were eager to learn why the Witnesses had been persecuted. And they wanted to know what the Bible really teaches. So when a a convention was held in Kiev, Ukraine, in August  1991, more than 2,000 from Moscow traveled about 550 miles to attend. Many of these were among the 1, 843 who were baptized there. 

When in 1993 a large international convention of Jehovah's Witnesses was held in Moscow's Locomotive Stadium, 23,743 persons from over 30 countries were in attendance. By the end of that year, the number of congregations in the Moscow metropolitan area had increased  to 21. Today, some eight years later,  there are 104 congregations in the same area. 

During June and July of this year, 18,292 persons attended four district conventions of Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow, and 546 were baptized. The dramatic growth in the number of those joining the Witnesses in the Bible study has caused leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church to try to influence Moscow officials to ban their activity.

In the early part of 1998, the court case seeking to ban the Witnesses came before Golovinsky court. Finally, on February 23, 2001, the judge ruled against them. However, when the prosecution appealed the case to a higher Moscow court, it was remanded for reconsideration by the original court. 

Yet, why, despite  attempts by some people to ban the Witnesses, did local city officials of Moscow's Golovinsky District Administration praise the Witnesses? 

Next time: HOW WORK WINS PRAISE IN MOSCOW-New Meeting Place Involved 

From the AWAKE! magazine, 2001