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A small church at center of big debate
Breakaway group in El Rio is sued
Dana Rene Bowler / Star staff Members of the Holy Trinity Eastern Orthodox Church in El Rio have voted to separate from the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. It might cost them their 41-year-old church.
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More from County NewsImmigrant farmworkers from Russia pooled meager resources more than 40 years ago to build a beautiful, steepled church outside Oxnard, symbolizing the freedom to pray and live as they chose.
Now leaders of the church they built worry the same government influences they thought were left behind in Russia are behind a lawsuit to take away tiny Holy Trinity Eastern Orthodox Church in El Rio and, with it, part of their spiritual lives.
"This is where we were wed. This is where we were baptized. This is where our roots were laid to rest," said Michael Avisov, a Thousand Oaks man who serves as church warden. "It's part of our lives."
Last month, 14 members of the tiny congregation voted to leave its denomination, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, because that body was renewing long-severed bonds with the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow. The vote was unanimous, though a church member who didn't attend the meeting contends that people were misled and that there is dissent.
Last week, the archbishop of the denomination's local diocese answered the secession by filing a lawsuit that lays claim to ownership of the church sanctuary and property and would evict Avisov and others who want to leave the denomination.
A lawyer for Holy Trinity said the lawsuit is the diocese's way of punishing church members for their secession, but a denominational leader said the congregants are free to make any choice they want.
"If you choose not to be part of the church, you can leave," said Nicholas Ohotin, communications director for an executive arm of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in New York. "But you can't leave and take church property with you."
Church members disagree
Church members argue Holy Trinity is theirs. It was their money, sweat and prayers that erected the sanctuary out of concrete blocks, creating spires decorated with Russian-style crosses. Inside are paintings of images that include Jesus coming into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. The frescoes were painted by an artist from Russia who worked on them for three years.
The congregants in the beginning were mostly immigrants who were in displaced persons camps after World War II. Avisov said at least one watched family members being taken away by the KGB. They wanted personal and religious liberty and thought they had found it in a denomination that split from the Russian Orthodox Church because of fear that communism was running not only the government but the church as well.
But on May 17, an agreement becomes official uniting spiritual aspects of the two Russian Orthodox church families.
Ohotin said the denominations will retain financial and administrative independence. He said the long-severed bond is being healed because communism has fallen and there is religious freedom in Russia.
But Holy Trinity leaders believe the change exposes churches to intrusion by the Russian government. The church's lawyer, Daniel Lula, said that's why they voted to leave and temporarily join Orthodox Church of Greece Holy Synod in Resistance while still preserving the church's Russian Orthodox identity.
"They believe that during the communist era, the (Russian Orthodox) Church collaborated with communism and with the KGB," Lula said. "They still believe the Russian Orthodox Church is corrupt, collaborates with the government and is permeated with people who collaborated with Soviets during the communist era."
Local members are split
Not everyone believes it. Church member Mark Brajnikoff said there's nothing to fear and argues church members were told falsely by Avisov and a couple of others that the agreement with the Russian Orthodox Church meant that Holy Trinity members would lose their church. He didn't attend the vote and said church members weren't given enough notice.
Brajnikoff is a law clerk and said he works for the lawyer representing the archbishop who is suing Holy Trinity and leaders including Avisov.
The lawsuit states Avisov was fired as warden and excommunicated for plans to hold a vote on secession. That means he didn't have the authority to run the meeting, Brajnikoff said.
He said he thinks another vote should be held and argues that secession means the church will lose its Russian Orthodox identity.
"They've changed everything," he said, noting the lawsuit names four church members who disagree with secession.
Avisov characterized the criticism as the words of an angry, relatively new church member involved in the suit against Holy Trinity.
Avisov said he's met with church members a second time and that a large majority remain distrustful of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian government. He said they are still committed to leaving the denomination. "In my mind, it's a clear-cut case of standing up for what we believe in, which is the American way, democracy, freedom of practicing our religion and being masters of our destiny," he said.
The lawsuit revolves around who owns the church. Ohotin of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia said church laws state that an individual church's property belongs to the denomination. Parish bylaws also prohibit individual congregations from voting on secession.
Brajnikoff said there are other documents showing the wishes of church founders that Holy Trinity always be part of the denomination.
But Lula said Holy Trinity is registered as a nonprofit corporation and has a deed that proves its ownership of the property. He argued that laws protecting the El Rio church's right to control its property supersede canon laws.
Avisov said the battle may not end soon.
"They're rattling the sabers. We didn't want to fight at all," he said. "We'll be here until they're done."
Posted by ntsqd on April 20, 2007 at 11:39 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Who paid the property taxes, assuming there are some, on the church?
Posted by markbraj on April 20, 2007 at 11:50 a.m. (Suggest removal)
What the article does not state is that the founder, Lydia Nasaroff, single-handedly grew three thousand avacado trees which she sold to pay for the property and materials to build the Church. Her late husband then took off from his work for four years, wherein, he and Lydia built the Church with their bare hands, and very little help from others in the way of money or physical help. Lydia Nasaroff does not want the Church to disassociate from the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, and is backing a 40% faction of the voting membership to return the Church to ROCOR. By annalogy, converting the Oxnard Church to some other demoniation is like turning the Taj Mahal into a hotdog stand. The Church was always intended by the founders to be a Church under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. A Russian Orthodox Church is not simply walls, a ceiling and floor. A Russian Orthodox Church is a uniquely different type of structure, built with the specific intention of being part of ROCOR. The acts of Avisov and company are desicrating the very ground the Church is built. The assertion that some how the Russian government is going to exercise power over the Oxnard Church stinks of the type of mania of former Senator McCarthy, now know as McCarthyism". No there are no communists waiting in the wings to take-over the Oxnard Church, and assertions to the contrary are nothing but the fantasy of a few twisted individuals.
Posted by markbraj on April 20, 2007 at 12:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)
In order to understand the ownership issues of the Church, you have to understand the structure of the Church. There are two types of Churchs, congregational and heirarchical. In a congregational Church, the membership owns the property, while they are affiliated with some type of religious group, they make their own rules, they decide who their minister will be, and they have the right to disassociate from that affiliation anytime they chose. In a heirarchical Church like the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, which is (not unlike the structure of the Roman Catholic Church) in order to join the jurisdiction you must agree to certain bylaws. The bylaws of ROCOR specifically state that even though the property is held in the name of the parish, the property becomes the property of ROCOR. If the parish decides to join ROCOR, they do so with open eyes. They could have joined any other jurisdiction, but they chose ROCOR. Also, when the parish decides to split-up and go their separate ways, the bylaws state that the Church is tendered by the membership to ROCOR. The membership is only managing the property for ROCOR. The United States Supreme Court has upheld this concept, as well as have many other decisions made under the law of California. The Defendants were intentionally misled into believing that they fell under the same law as which applies to a congregational Church, which the Oxnard Church is not. They were willing to believe the unfounded legal advice because it supported their private agenda.
In fact, court decisions have clearly found that the court can not interfer with ecclessiastical decisions, for to do so would constitute a violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments regarding the separation of Church and State, and would constitute a violation of equal protection under the law. A court does not have the power to determine which group is the lawful group when a faction exists. As to the issue of property taxes, the membership agrees when they join ROCOR to pay all costs of maintaining the Church. That is the simple cost of becoming a member Church of ROCOR. Those bylaws were in place for nearly one hundred years and served the Church without any problems until March 24th, when the transgressors suddenly acted beyond their powers.
Posted by ouroboros2000 on April 20, 2007 at 12:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
There is a lot of misinformation being posted here by people who aren't familiar with either the facts or the law.
Two of the four original founders of the church are still living and are adamant that the church disaffiliate from ROCOR. The person the prior commenter refers to is the *widow* of another founder. She was present at the 3/25 meeting and voted in favor of disaffiliation. The commenter has his facts wrong.
Holy Trinity was not founded as a ROCOR church. It is a separate California nonprofit corporation, and its articles say only that it is an "Eastern Orthodox" church, which is still is. Holy Trinity never "agreed to certain bylaws" as the commenter claims. Holy Trinity's own bylaws, enacted in 1965 when the church was founded, do not "state that the property becomes the property of ROCOR" nor do they state that in the event of a disaffiliation, "the Church is tendered by the membership to ROCOR." The commenter again simply has his facts wrong.
The commenter is also wrong regarding the state of the law. California courts (unlike those of some other states) pay no regard to whether a denomination is "hierarchical" or whether some religious "hierarchy" has made pronouncements. California looks to neutral principles of law to resolve church property disputes, such as who holds the deeds, who paid for the church property, and what the church's articles of incorporation say. Here, all of these factors fall on the side of Holy Trinity church.
One last word -- the 3/25 meeting was properly noticed under both the church's bylaws and California corporations law. Not one single person present voted against disaffiliation. A member or two who chose not to attend may have a different view, but that doesn't mean anyone's rights were violated. Nonprofit corporations, including churches, are governed by democratic majority vote of their members. Just because someone chose not to attend but claims that they would have voted "no" if they did, doesn't mean some "faction" exists out there who can overturn the result of the vote.
Posted by elmager on April 24, 2007 at 12:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Perhaps it pays to note that the "church" ROCOR is uniting with is the "Moscow Patriarchy" formed on orders and by Stalin in 1943. It is really not a church, but a "church-like" institution, created on a whim of a dictator. Furthermore, at the time of its creation, Soviet Union was an atheistic country, militantly antireligious. The fall of Communism did not produce a concommitant result for the "Moscow Patriarchy", which did not abrogate its Communist past. According to last data, 46% of its "bishops" received their ordination with the connivance of a godless state. The last leader of the true Russian Orthodox Church as it lasted from 988 AD, was poisoned by the Communists in 1925. There has been no true church there since then. The "church" present ROCOR is uniting with is a department of the post-Soviet government and has only the appearance of a church.
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