City Halts Construction of Catholic Church With Legal Hardships

Country: Russia

Date of incident: October 6, 2011


The archbishop of Moscow, Msgr. Paolo Pezzi has critized the city of Pskow (North-West Russia) to discriminate against the Catholic Church by denying the prolongation of a building permit.

The city council of Pskov has denied the local Catholic parish the prolongation of the building permit for a church. The reason given is "the non-commencement of construction before the permit expired", what violates the Russian Federation Building Code. The action of the city council gives "the impression of deliberate discrimination against the Catholic community of Pskov", says the Catholic archbishop of Moscow, especially because problems with public authorities already occured several times before, which lead to a cease of building already in 2002. The construction of the only Catholic church in Pskow began ten years ago and is almost finished by now. Sources: http://www.kath.net/detail.php?id=33381 http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Permission-to-build-a-Catholic-church-in-Pskov-denied-22860.html http://www.zenit.org/article-33625?l=english <http://www.zenit.org/article-33625?l=english