“The Jehovah's Witnesses* have a plan for surviving martial law. An example of anti-cult “help” to a family

On what basis? What were the police looking for? According to preliminary data, extremist brochures. And I must say, I have problems with the law" Jehovah's Witnesses"This is far from the first time in Russia. In several cities, their organization has already been completely liquidated. Our correspondent Elena Norkunaite- about suspicious worship services:

This is a cult built on lies and psychological pressure, Viktor Koretsky admits. His parents made him an adherent of the Watchtower or Jehovah's Witnesses at the age of 5. The boy grew up and left, but to adapt to real world spent years.

Victor Koretsky:“Jehovah's Witnesses are taught that outside is evil and scary world Satan, i.e. complete demonization of ours with you ordinary life. It takes time for rehabilitation, on average, as psychologists say, about 7 years.

Back in April 2010, the literature distributed by Jehovists was recognized as extremist in Russia. Thus, even the obsession with which adherents hand out pamphlets can become a criminal offense. But in fact there are no legal obstacles to the gathering of people. And in this St. Petersburg courtyard, almost every person is a potential victim of delusion.

Lyubov Romanicheva:“They always walked, campaigned for everyone, constantly, constantly told everyone something, and went from apartment to apartment, I even warned in my front door: in no case do not go there.”

Here, in the so-called "Kingdom of Jehovah's Witnesses" hall, about 50 people were detained the night before to check their documents. The four - alleged organizers of the meeting - were taken by the police to the department for individual interviews.

What is worth paying special attention to, people who attend such meetings do not want to openly mention the official name.

Corr.:“What is the name of your organization? Is there a name?

Maria Samokhina: " Well, I'm not in an organization, I just come here to study the Bible."

Corr.:"But how can you define it?"

Maria Samokhina: " No. A congregation of Christians… We come here… who wants to come.”

It is striking how nervous Maria Samokhina is. At the same time, she assures that employees law enforcement did not introduce themselves, did not explain their actions and generally violated human rights. Now it is obvious that this is a lie, but it is not clear - in the name of what. However, it seems that the supporters of a non-trivial reading of the Bible are very consistent: no one here is responsible for anything.

However, someone is still collecting donations for the so-called worldwide Kingdom work. But it is not recognized that he follows the instructions of the elder. And since these men, who allegedly “just came, just like everyone else,” turned out to be too demanding, the security services conducted a legal educational program for the entire assembly of elders.

“Can you imagine a little girl who is 11 years old, a child? Fears and thoughts that come to her mind? When did an elder, a grown man she trusted, abuse her?” - These shocking confessions of former Jehovah's Witnesses formed the basis of a sex scandal in the United States. Residents of the states took to the streets, demanding to ban the organization, in the forefront of which are pedophiles. Now there is special control over the Watchtower's admirers. But what about in Russia? Cartoons are shown in the largest center of Jehovah's Witnesses. Near Petersburg.

Dmitry Rozet, Leading Officer International Center apologetic studies:“Work in Russia and on some adjacent territories is heading just from Solnechny. There is the territory of the former pioneer camp, which they completely rebuilt. A person who is in this organization, he is forced to follow certain rules that put his life in danger.

Suicides motivated by sexual violence, the ban on blood transfusions, the rejection of meat - this is also all about them. Jehovah's Witnesses are increasingly banned. By decision of the Russian courts. However, adherents of the organization in most cases do not comply with legal requirements. Probably outright insolence is another new commandment of Bible students. In fact, one must somehow live if Armageddon is constantly postponed.

Orel confirmed the legitimacy of recognizing the local branch as extremist. In Karelia, Jehovah's Witnesses were sentenced to a fine of 50,000 rubles. Petersburg arrested literature and electronic media.

They are ready to ask questions and ready to answer them themselves. But they are not ready to answer their questions. Jehovah's Witnesses in St. Petersburg is an organization closed to the press. Only those who left them forever tell about what happens behind these walls.

"An ordinary adept has to do a decent number of hours of preaching - that is, going from house to house, many of them cannot afford to work full time. Also dubious practices in terms of refusing blood transfusions and involving underage children in preaching," says Victor Koretsky, who has been a Jehovah's Witness for 19 years.

And yet there are people in the world before whom the witnesses cannot close the door. Operatives knocked on the organization on Luzhskaya Street Investigative Committee. During the evening readings they found 50 people. Some have been detained.

The operatives were looking for materials of an extremist orientation. In other words, forbidden literature. Russian courts for last years contributed to federal list extremist materials 15 books of Jehovah's Witnesses, several issues of Awake! and The Watchtower and a dozen or three pamphlets.

In the Russian Orthodox Church Warning: Appearances are deceiving. Jehovists are called there only as sectarians. And they add: we need to look at the problem more broadly. Including warn against fascination with Scientology.

"The governing bodies of these organizations, like all totalitarian sects and destructive cults, they pursue certain goals. The goals are very simple: power and money," Archpriest Georgy Yoffe, chairman of the missionary department of the St. Petersburg Diocese, is sure.

In their own way, in the academic environment, they also look at the fight against sects. Moreover, Professor Stetskevich emphasizes that it is wrong to call them that. In his interpretation, these are minority religious groups.

"Any, including world religions, like Christianity and Islam, they began, if we use this terminology, as sects. What, in fact, is the community of I. Christ? It began as a small religious organization, we use this term, as a sect within the framework of Judaism,” says Mikhail Stetskevich, Associate Professor at St Petersburg University.

"The secular state is very poorly adapted to regulate the dogmatic religious life. In my opinion, there are founding documents in the form of the Criminal Code, AC and the Constitution. And in my opinion, they are quite enough, if some organization goes beyond what is permitted, to impose some kind of sanctions on it,” said Dmitry Rozet, a leading researcher at the International Center for Apologetic Studies.

The 28th article of the constitution, among other things, states: "everyone is guaranteed freedom of religion." However, in practice it is necessary to choose a church that has registration with the Ministry of Justice. Although this may not be enough.

I first heard about Jehovah's Witnesses when I was 5 years old.

I was visiting my grandmother and great-grandmother, who lived in the Kharkov region in Ukraine. My grandmother took me there to visit.

It was at this time that Jehovah's Witnesses met my mother. The young pioneer Irina Lyonkina began to tell her about the “truth”, sitting next to her right in the subway car.

Soon, a study was started with my mother. Which my sister also began to attend regularly. Having managed to be pretty impressed and imbued with new knowledge, they went to pick me up. On the way home, they began to tell me about the newfound faith.

Some of my initial ideas about religion had to be updated, and outdated ones forgotten. After all, before this incident, I had already managed to visit a Catholic church a couple of times with my father!

However, I could not even take communion there. The priest walked around with some kind of gilded plate, and I thought that everyone took something from this plate. Unsuccessfully, I fiddled with my hand in a mitten on a plate, but it was empty, and I got nothing, and the priest passed by. As it was later explained to me, it turns out that I had to open my mouth and wait patiently. Instead of rummaging around in search of goodies.

Upon my return home, I became a regular attendee of Bible studies based on the book You Can Live Forever in Heaven on Earth.

Of course, my sister and I were fascinated by the idea of ​​being in the New World, where there will be many good-natured animals that do no harm to people and even to each other. Paradise future has become an integral part of our games and drawings.

And every Sunday we began to go "to the clearing." This expression meant a large weekly meeting of Jehovah's Witnesses, who first came to the Devyatkino metro station (Leningrad), from where they traveled by train to Kuzmolovo. And there in the forest, in the clearing, there were meetings. I remember how a crowd of Witnesses, about 100 or even 150 people, walked from the station to the meeting place, in front of the astonished summer residents.

The style of holding, the schedule and the content of the meetings then were very different from the world Western standard. There were much more hilarious gag, for example, the flights of fancy of the then odious elder, the elderly Nikolai Petrov, than a couple of years later, when foreign special pioneers arrived from Finland and Poland. In general, he was a funny grandfather - when a crowd of Jehovah's Witnesses walked from the station to the meeting place, he often walked at a distance, through bushes and ravines, and checked for surveillance. He often wore a leather jacket or raincoat, and he himself looked a bit like a Chekist.

Significantly less often, several times during the summer, larger meetings were held that lasted the whole day, and in another place - in the area of ​​​​the Kamenka River. It was like a one-day district convention. And like all conventions, there was a baptism.

And in the early summer of 1990, at one of these "congresses" my mother was baptized. Georgy Polyakov, Valera Pomogaikin and his wife, and other legendary Jehovah's Witnesses of those years were baptized on the same day. The baptizers were the elder and anointed from Estonia, Evdokimov, and another elder, Stanislav Zhivel, from the same place.

A month later, my mother, sister and the Pomogaykin family went to an international congress in Poland. Due to the presence of small children (I am 5, my sister is 8, and the daughter of the Pomogaykins is generally 1.5 years old), we decided to fly by plane. We remember one episode from this flight. In the middle of the journey, burning with zeal, Pomogaikin picked up the Bible and went to preach to the passengers sitting next to him. Something unimaginable began to happen! Numerous Georgians sitting around jumped up from their seats and began to hug, kiss, and pinch our cheeks with our fingers! It turns out that they were Georgian Witnesses flying to the same convention where they flew from all over the Union.

This stormy meeting (they flew and flew calmly, and suddenly how let's hug!) Was a shock for the secular Chinese and Japanese peacefully flying to Warsaw.

I don't remember much about that convention, I only remember large cluster Jehovah's Witnesses, the singing of a stadium of many thousands, receiving new literature. I also remember that we all lived at school and slept on mattresses. Adults said the school was surrounded by young Catholic fanatics who threw stones at the windows, and the situation outside was restless. But I remember one not weak stressful moment clearly, not so much in terms of pictures, but in terms of sensations.

The fact is that I almost lost my life due to severe poisoning. Kind sisters treated us to smoked sausage, which made a long journey to Warsaw from Leningrad by bus, and, apparently, acquired a rather strong poisonous effect, something like botulism. Eyewitnesses then said that I had poisoning up to foam and convulsions, partial loss of consciousness. They did not want to call an ambulance, apparently for fear of publicity. The only thing that saved me was a remedy brought by one of the Polish brothers. traditional medicine which saved my life. The next day, the echoes of this incident returned, when right at the stadium I was twisted by a strong spasm and pain in my stomach, so that I could not walk on my own. There was already qualified medical assistance at the stadium, where they could give me the necessary medicines. They took me to the tent of the first-aid post, putting me in the pram of Polina Pomogaikina.

After that, my adventures with health ended happily. At the stadium itself, we met Polish Witnesses, who invited us to stay at their home for the remaining days before departure.

Probably, because in March 1991 Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia received official registration, secret gatherings in nature ceased, and the time came for meetings in apartments and in the first rented halls. Foreign brothers and sisters began to arrive more and more often, black-and-white magazines gradually gave way to rare, and then regularly arriving color ones. The book You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth has become more accessible to a wide range of Jehovah's Witnesses, and only six months ago it was available only to elders and pioneers.

At the same time, “missionary” trips to remote cities became a frequent occurrence, where you could only get there by train or bus. The term "unassigned territory" did not yet exist, although it was just that. The city of Vyborg became such a place of regular preaching outings for our congregation. Early in the morning, at 6-7 in the morning, my mother and sister took the metro to Finland Station, in order to then spend 3.5 hours in the company of young and cheerful pioneers, who, together with us, went to do the most important thing on earth - preaching to the Vyborg residents. I still remember the spirit of romance and adventure that prevailed on these trips. It was fun and not boring. Most often, I was sent third in a pair of two pioneers, because I was not yet a full-fledged combat unit. I remember that already in the evening, for some reason, my mood deteriorated, and the sisters Olya Vergiles and Ira Gurenchik rocked me by the arms and legs, and lowered me into a pile autumn leaves to somehow cheer up and switch to the positive. At that moment we were in the central park, where the monument to the elk is still installed.

Once, on the way from Vyborg, there was some kind of incident or accident on the tracks, because of which our train stood at the Kirillovskoye station for four hours! To brighten up the expectation, they played and had fun as best they could. We returned to the city very late, and the attendants at the Udelnaya metro station themselves let us onto the last train without nickels, so that we would only have time to run down the escalator and leave.

That same year, when I was 6 years old, I became an unbaptized publisher on my third try.

The brothers who interviewed me, although they made allowances for my age, and the scheme of their questions was simplified, they still wanted to hear from me a more intelligible understanding of some teachings, and specific answers, so the first couple of times they "hacked" my attempts.

I remember one episode when I accompanied my mother and another sister in the ministry. We were on a site near our house, and as a listener we came across some smart and educated uncle, I think a professor. I, like most SW children, was often given a Bible verse to read (I was already fluent reading at the age of 5 or 6). And then, in addition to this, I managed to screw in some phrase from myself on the topic under discussion.

At the end of the conversation, that uncle said to the adults: “Just don’t let him talk.” In the context of his words, this meant that “all this, of course, is very nice, and even if he says something on the topic, there may be proud and educated people who may be annoyed by my participation in the conversation.” What I heard, of course, was somewhat offended. Soon we returned home, and then my mother remembered that there were still a couple of return visits left. To which I readily said to her: “Let's go again!” And we returned to the site for another half an hour.

Although participating in door-to-door preaching has always, all my life, been stressful for me, it was the factor of overcoming fear and uncertainty that brought relief and joy immediately after the service. Even at an older age.

At that time, there were difficult moments when there was a shortage of everything in the country, and especially food. I clearly remember how on the shelves of a nearby store there were only canned "seaweed".

The organization then actively helped its fellow believers in St. Petersburg. There was a period when humanitarian aid from Sweden, Denmark and Finland. It happened that somehow in our apartment they arranged a temporary warehouse of such a humanitarian aid for the entire congregation. At about 2 am, in order not to attract attention, volunteer brothers dragged 12-kilogram cardboard boxes to our floor and to the apartment. From the light and noise from their walking, my sister and I woke up, and through the glass door in our room, we watched this process with 4 eyes.

In each such box there was powdered milk, muesli, very delicious cheese with large holes, canned stew and ham, and these canned goods were opened in a circle with a key attached to the bottom. The brothers and sisters who, according to the lists, received from the responsible brothers a box per family, were urged not to tear or throw away the boxes and the tape that fastened them right here, at our house. Of course, many people immediately completely forgot about this request, and soon these empty boxes and tape were lying in the garbage near our house. And because some of our neighbors still long years they thought that the parents were selling food "for the elite" at that difficult time.

Somehow I was asked to take part in the program of the congress, which was held in the Gorky Palace of Culture. The first, by the way, major congress in a rented room in St. Petersburg. The point of the program was with the elder Sergei Vasiliev. With several brothers and sisters, he planned to take a short interview, as is customary in such cases.

I had to say something about my spiritual goals. In particular, the phrase: "I want to be baptized, and wear a microphone in the Kingdom Hall." But it so happened that at the final rehearsal, 20 minutes before going on stage, I was involuntarily embarrassed and frightened by one brother who excitedly told other adult responsible brothers that he had just discovered a certain well-known apostate in the basement of the Palace of Culture, who is sitting there , "all entangled with wires," and is clearly plotting some kind of intrigue. This story, along with the unconditional excitement before going on stage, did its dirty deed during the performance itself: I caught a complete stupor, and could not utter a word. Only after long pauses and leading questions from the host, I was able to utter a couple of rehearsed phrases with great difficulty. Many years later, I repeatedly heard that many who then saw my confusion were very worried about me and rooted for me.

In the summer of 1991, my family and I were at the district convention " Clean Language”, held in Tallinn. At that convention, my father and my sister were baptized.

We were placed with a witness family. And like a year earlier, in Poland, this trip was also not without incident. My sister and the owner's daughter and I went for a walk in the yard around the local five-story buildings, to the playground. Some girl was swinging there on a heavy iron swing. And I was staring at something, and did not control the area where these swings could reach. As a result, the swing flew into my head, hit it with all its might, and cut my eyebrow a centimeter from my eye.

There was a lot of blood, and other children took me back to where we lived. It's funny that at that moment one of the adults was telling my mother about an accident that had just happened in the neighborhood, where a certain child was "demolished half the head." And then they bring me bloody. Coincidence, but scary. Of course, everything was not so dramatic for me. I remember how sister Olga Kvashnina wiped my blood with a cold rag and treated the wound. A couple of hours later, in order to somehow cheer me up, they took me alone, without my mother, on a Moskvich tour of Tallinn and its environs. That day I tried the famous Tallinn ice cream, and on the shore Baltic Sea I saw jet skis for the first time in my life.

My first sin as an unbaptized publisher

My mother studied with a family who had two daughters, about my age. Mom, as expected, invited one of the adult brothers to conduct a lesson, focusing on the head of the family, but mom on his wife. Most often I was present in the same room and actively participated in the discussion. And sometimes, when the complex and confused "blue book" was being analyzed (the so-called book "United in Worship of the One True God", which was obligatory for study after the "red book" - "To live forever", and was necessary to be baptized) . Sometimes the head of that family, not a stupid and slightly caustic man, had too many questions (by the way, he and their daughters never became Witnesses, unlike their mother). And at such moments I could be sent to play in the room with their daughters.

One of them, her name was Tanya, apparently heard that the adults were discussing the issue of blood transfusion. And she decided to experiment on me. When we were sitting with her alone in the room - I am 6 years old, and she is 7 - she offered me a whole "Hematogen". I was firmly taught that Jehovah's Witnesses do not eat this chocolate bar. There are blood components! To which the cunning girl said: "Well, a little bit, a small piece! I won't tell anyone." To which I flinched and ate the offered tiny piece of chocolate. Of course, she did not keep her promise, and at that very moment she happily ran to report to the adults. "And he agreed! And he ate a hematogen!" My brother, who was taking the class, did not scold me much, he just gently reproached me. But my ears burned with shame and a sense of betrayal, and I was ready to fall through the ground.

Congresses and constructions after 1992

In 1992, a huge international congress was held in St. Petersburg, called "Carriers of Light". There came a lot of people from all over the former Soviet Union, almost all Finnish Jehovah's Witnesses, for whom half of the stadium was reserved. Of course, there were some members of the Governing Council. For them, a visit to the Leningrad public library, where they were given to see, and maybe even hold in their hands, fragments of the Leningrad Codex, a Hebrew scroll of part of the Bible, which is stored here.

1992 Governing Body members outside the public library. From left to right: Jaracz's wife, Henschel's wife, John Barr with his wife, on the right Albert Schroeder with his wife

At the same time, my father was approached by a friend who never became an exemplary interested Jehovah's Witness, for he was a highly educated atheist. He told him that in the Kurortny district, in the holiday village of Solnechnoye, a plot of the former pioneer camp was being sold, and that it was now good moment for purchase (everything in the country then greatly depreciated). My father connected this man, the sellers of the site, and potential buyers - responsible brothers. From the German branch in Selters came the coordinator Willy Pohl, from Brooklyn Sam (aka Alex) York, the representative of the Finnish branch was Pauli Sivonen. As a result of successful negotiations, this site was purchased.

Thus, directly thanks to the participation and assistance of my father, Jehovah's Witnesses got this wonderful place, where they could successfully live and stay for 26 years.

Since my family was in close contact with many builders, management and various workers from among the inhabitants of Solnechny, I constantly visited there all my childhood, most often I went there with my father alone, and in the period from 1992 to 1995 sometimes several times a month.

I remember spending time with Mike Polanski, who was a year older than me, he was the son of " gray cardinal from Brooklyn, Albert Polanski. Bethel workers of Jehovah's Witnesses are not allowed to have children of their own, but the rarest exceptions are those valuable "freelance" employees who already have children, but the parents are very much needed by the Organization. They were provided with housing either in a separately rented house five minutes drive from the branch, or right on the territory of the branch.

Together with Mike, we could climb the entire construction site, warehouses, communicate with funny and interesting Finns and Swedes. Thus it is unusual place I knew very well from the moment of his appearance.

I still remember 1992 because my parents and I regularly traveled to Slantsy and Kingisepp. The purpose of the trips was, of course, as always, the strengthening and inculcation of the theocracy in the small and newly formed witness groups. At that time, I was regularly invited to study with children and youth precisely as an example of a "spiritual child" who early decided to set "spiritual goals" and behaved in an exemplary manner. During the period of 6-10 years, I involuntarily realized that this was because there were simply no other such children around who would be an unbaptized publisher, or who had already been baptized. Therefore, due to the lack of other “especially spiritual” children, this role went to me.

In his early childhood, based on everything I knew from the testimonial literature, I understood that baptism is a very mature and responsible step. When asked if I wanted to be baptized, I answered that probably at the age of 16 or 20...

In addition, I never heard from my parents a call or encouragement to baptism, in the spirit of “if you don’t get baptized, you won’t be saved” or “look at this, he’s been baptized, but you haven’t yet.” But despite this, the example of those around me could not help but influence me.

I thought, well, since I already know the basic teachings and many different details of behavior in the Organization, why not try it? Therefore, I expressed my desire to be baptized. Some mature Witnesses discouraged my parents from doing this, but they thought why not.

In the end, I was fully interviewed on the three sets of baptismal questions from the book Organized to Conduct Our Ministry. Each section was led by one elder - two Polish special pioneers, Krzysztof Chaponik, Artur Bauer, and local elder Kirill Vinogradov. As a result of the interview, there were no obstacles to my baptism. Therefore, having successfully passed it, I was baptized on July 27, 1993 at the “God's Teaching” congress, at the Lokomotiv stadium in Moscow (in the photo I am walking to the pool).

Especially for this congress, an abridged version of the collection of songs translated into Russian was published in light green color. (It published no more than 50 songs out of the 225 that were in use by the rest of the witness community abroad). This songbook became "famous" for a year and a half - a very strange and funny accompaniment to meetings. Of course, because of the "difficulties of translation."

"People honor their gods, true god dead to them"; “Servants of Jehovah do not live carelessly. And the world, the rulers, do not please the rod ”- these are a few of the quotes from there.

Well, by the way, then it was re-released, and the next one, a brown hardcover songbook, “like abroad”, was not translated much better. It, according to eyewitnesses, was translated into Russian by immigrants from Ukraine in the German branch in Selters. The famous Anatoly Timur saw the preliminary result of their labors, and, according to him, what he managed to correct, he corrected.

The years 1993-1995 became very rich in terms of impressions for me and my relatives, largely because during these years the very first Finnish, and then Polish, special pioneers began to come to St. Petersburg. The image of a “serious boy with a book”, unsmiling and immersed, was then densely created around me.

Of course, I was in the family an ordinary child. But in the witness society, I naturally entered into that image of the correct external behavior to which he was accustomed from the age of 5. And so my sister and I were grateful and thankful to those few Poles who were able to discern simple children in us, and gave us a lot of personal free time, just walking with us, inviting us to visit and in every possible way “liberating” our witness external clamp.

My christening, I'm walking out of the pool and kind of happen to be next to Jarac

We especially remember a young Polish special pioneer, Anna Smok, who spent several years as a Catholic nun before becoming a Jehovah's Witness. Most of the special pioneers studied Russian in St. Petersburg, and then single brothers or married couples went inland as circuit overseers, while less tough brothers and single sisters left simply as special pioneers. Anna Smok, together with her partner Talita, left to serve in Ulyanovsk in 1996. From there she wrote us many letters. In particular, about the culture shock they experienced from the local Witnesses, their traditions and everyday habits. To the point that the members of the congregations there ate almost nothing but potatoes, they lived very poorly. And they did not have a special habit of cleanliness, for example, they could wash themselves once every two weeks. And from the foreigners, who used to take a shower twice a day, they were shocked, and considered them "princesses".

Those, in turn, reported the local "troubles" to the district overseer, a Pole. And on his next visit to the congregations of that area, in his speech he paid special attention to cleanliness in everyday life, and categorically stated that “the genitals should be washed every day!”

In the period from 1991 to 1996, our family was constantly invited to participate in the programs of thousands of congresses. Either an interview, or participation in a training skit or in a biblical costume drama. In 1995, in a drama about the prophet Elijah and the worshipers of Baal, I was sitting on the stage as an extra, in a crowd of "Israelis". A year later, I took part in the voice-over recording of the drama about Judge Gideon, where I played the role of a 12-year-old boy trying to quit smoking and overcome peer pressure. The voices of my "parents" in this production were recorded by Anatoly Timura and Natalya Toporkova. The father of Gideon, who stood up for his son, was voiced by Yuri Toporkov, famous throughout St. Petersburg for his theatrical reports. And due to lack of resources, he also voiced one of several villains from the crowd who wished Gideon dead for destroying the altar to Baal and cutting down sacred tree, saying in an altered voice: "Yeah, let's kill him!"

Since there were very few other “specially spiritual” baptized children, Jehovah's Witnesses, I was also attracted to play on stage the same role for which I recorded the voice acting.

Well, then there was a school of pioneers, youthful reflections, "love during the plague" with my sister, who was many years older than me. But you will learn about all this next time from the Yearbook 2019.

More than 10 million brochures of religious content were detained at the Svetogorsk checkpoint Leningrad region since the beginning of this year. The sender of the cargo is the religious society of Jehovah's Witnesses banned in Russia. Adepts are ready to donate books printed in Germany to like-minded Russians for free distribution. What kind of sect is this, with what mission does it enter our country and why does it recruit children?

Adherents of the Jehovah's Witnesses sect are shifting on Belorussky Station Square. Students of the Orthodox St. Tikhon's University became interested in the booklets, but figured it out in time. “A lecture on sect studies was given at our course, so we are aware of who is what,” they explained.

Viktor is no longer a sectarian, although he knows more about Jehovah's Witnesses than anyone else. He knows where the female preachers come from on our landings in front of the apartment with an offer to talk about God.

“All Jehovah’s Witnesses are advised to donate all their energy to doing the most important thing on Earth,” says Viktor Koretsky, a former adherent of the sect. “For them, this is a sermon “from house to house,” as they come to all of us in the morning. They equate it with the rescuers of the sinking Titanic. This is “the number one thing for them.” And young people, young women say - “I will only marry in the New World”, that is, in some kind of “paradise”.

Can you believe that the six billion population of the planet is wicked and will be destroyed? That only those who believe in the Kingdom of God, which is about to come, will remain? And you can save yourself only by joining the brotherhood of Jehovah's Witnesses? Many believe, joining a huge army that despises any political system, calling this world "the lecherous and deceitful Babylon the great." And with this thought they gather in stadiums, halls, congress centers.

Gathering at the hippodrome in Barnaul. Other Jehovah's Witnesses filled the whole village in Ivanovo region. Despising the laws, they are looking for legal ways to recruit new members. “Our event falls under the legal law “On Divine Services,” says Alexei Tsarkov, an adept of the sect. “And this annual practice has been confirmed by various authorities.”

Jehovah's Witnesses are banned in Taganrog. Thousands of copies of magazines were arrested at the North-West Customs. Their international site - it is not clear why, but works, although the Ministry of Justice clearly defines: the site of Jehovah's Witnesses is extremist.

At the Vologda action, people opposed the sectarians who flooded the city. On the pavement are plaques with the names of members of the sect or their children who died due to the fact that blood transfusions are banned in the sect around the world. And finally, the sect recruits children.

The giant international corporation Jehovah's Witnesses is growing. The myth of "cleansing the Earth" for the benefit of one sect works. This usually happens near the apartment. Brochures printed in Germany. But most of what Jehovah's Witnesses say is "biblical educational activity" is printed in the United States, in the home of the sect, in Brooklyn.

“There is a huge international corporation that acts as a publishing complex that publishes all this waste paper in circulation of tens of millions of copies,” says a professor at St. humanitarian university, sectologist Alexander Dvorkin. “And all members are required to purchase this waste paper.”

The seven American elders - the governing body of the Jehovah's Witnesses - have a power that even the Pope does not have. Millions of adherents around the world, in fact, are fanatically ready for anything. But for now, they just come up to you with a harmless question: "Have you read the Bible?"

18:45 — REGNUM

The ban by the Russian court of Jehovah's Witnesses (an organization whose activities are banned in the Russian Federation) will to some extent affect the functioning of this organization in Russia, but members of the sect already have a plan for survival in a “martial law”. This opinion today, April 21, in an interview with a correspondent IA REGNUM shared former member organization banned by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation Victor Koretsky.

Despite the ban on the organization in Russia, its adherents "will not disappear anywhere," Koretsky is sure, because "the fanatical wing will remain just as fanatical and will become even stronger in its conviction."

“Already now they have a plan ready for them to survive in such a state of war. Every grandmother has a tablet or smartphone at their meetings, and everyone is trained on how to use an anonymizer to bypass the ban on reading their site, which is also considered extremist. They easily download literature from there, draw all the instructions. It's like canceling torrents that didn't affect anything. Also, this ban will not affect their lives too much, ”Koretsky is sure.

According to him, they probably still “will not be able to gather congresses of many thousands, but nothing will prevent them from meeting in a more chamber version.”

At the same time, Koretsky is confident that the ban will make it more difficult for new members to join the organization. “From my point of view, this is an absolute plus. Financial actions and legal issues will also be limited. In general, there is harm from them, but rather in the fact that they destroy their own lives.<…>They will go to social networks, media space, ”Koretsky suggested.

As reported, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, by its decision on April 20, decided to confiscate all property of the banned organization in favor of the state. A former member of the Jehovah's Witnesses (an organization whose activities are banned in the Russian Federation) is sure that Jehovah's Witnesses will take all steps to profitably sell their property so that the state does not receive anything from them. In St. Petersburg and the suburbs, the sect has significant real estate.

“As far as I know, they have O Most of the property was re-registered to their foreign organizations. 11 hectares in the village of Solnechnoye (administrative center) are issued on foreign organization"witnesses". I don’t know who the 1,600-seat congress hall at 21 Kolomyazhsky Prospekt is designed for,” Koretsky said.

He stressed that the relatives and friends of those who fell under Negative influence now officially banned organization should try to show even more more love and worries.

“A person who has fallen into this sect is taught from the first days that relatives and friends will be against it, and this is just a sign of “God's chosen people”. If relatives and friends begin to resist with all their zeal, this only plays into the hands of the sect, since a person is becoming more and more strengthened in the newly acquired faith. But if they love him, continue to be friends with him, show that they feel good without this faith, this will demotivate a person, ”explained Viktor Koretsky.

In addition, he added, those who have fallen under the influence of the sect must find the strength to read the so-called apostate literature or books on psychology about the impact on consciousness, since “witnesses are instilled with a fierce animal fear before reading such literature.”

“Those who found the strength to read the books of Raymond Franz (a former member of the governing board of Jehovah's Witnesses (an organization whose activities are banned in the Russian Federation), who served in the organization's international management for 15 years), these people were released. I myself am one of them,” said Koretsky.