Christa Brown
Christa Brown is an author at Religion News Service.
All Stories by Christa Brown
NEWS FEATURE: Orthodox Church Plays Controversial Role in Russian Politics
By Christa Brown — January 1, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service MOSCOW _ When President Boris Yeltsin resigned and made his dramatic New Year’s Eve transfer of power to Vladimir Putin, the historic event was witnessed not by the heads of the legislative or judicial branches of Russian government. Instead, the solitary, robed figure of Patriarch Alexii II, leader of the […]
NEWS FEATURE: Russian Army, Orthodox Church Cementing Patriotic Relationship
By Christa Brown — January 1, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service VLADIKAVKAZ, Russia – At the close of the final service on the most important day in the Orthodox Christian calendar, Father Vladimir Samoilenko stood before hundreds of parishioners dressed in their Easter best. In a broad baritone somewhere between a shout and a roar, he delivered a blessing. “This great […]
NEWS STORY: Renegade Orthodox group targets minority faiths in former Soviet republic
By Christa Brown — October 26, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service TBILISI, Georgia _ Lying in a hospital ward here with blurred vision and a bruised body, Fati Tabagari described in calm, level tones how she and her 13-year-old son were beaten Oct. 17 by a mob of renegade Orthodox Christians. Tabagari, a 40-year-old housewife, was among 20 Jehovah’s Witnesses hospitalized […]
NEWS FEATURE: The Crimean Karaites: Portrait of a sect on edge of extinction
By Christa Brown — September 8, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service YEVPATORIA, Ukraine _ Galina Sultan Pendill, an interpreter from Washington D.C., is going to extraordinary lengths to get in touch with her roots. She purchased a $6,500 apartment in this dusty Crimean resort, her father’s hometown, and plans to spend a part of each summer here. But then, Pendill has […]
NEWS STORY: Russian police raid three Scientology facilities
By Christa Brown — February 27, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service MOSCOW _ Carrying automatic weapons and wearing bulletproof vests, Russian law enforcement officers have raided three Scientology facilities here over two days as part of an investigation of suspected tax evasion by the group. The police actions were part of an 11-month investigation into the activities of the Church of […]
NEWS FEATURE: Yugoslav Jews in solidarity with Serb neighbors
By Christa Brown — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service BELGRADE _ David Pesah, a Jew living in Belgrade, is a refugee, having escaped from ethnic fighting in Sarajevo by the skin of his teeth in 1992. Now that he and his wife, a Serb, are being bombed again, Pesah vows not to leave, not to emigrate to Israel and […]
Relief worker charged with vehicular manslaughter awaits trial
By Christa Brown — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service TBILISI, Georgia _ An American Catholic Relief Services worker facing charges of vehicular manslaughter believes this week’s papal visit to this former Soviet republic may help his case.”I work for a Catholic organization and I would hope that it would be brought to his attention,”said Loren Wille, 54, of Golden, […]
NEWS FEATURE: Refugees predict flight of Kosovo Jewish community
By Christa Brown — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service BELGRADE, Yugoslavia _ Just hours before this city erupted in spontaneous, noisy celebrations marking the peace agreement reached last week, two families arrived on a cramped bus from the Kosovo city of Prizren, the first of the embattled province’s tiny Jewish community to make it out. After enduring 77 days […]
NEWS FEATURE: The beleaguered Jews of Abkhazia struggle to survive
By Christa Brown — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service SUKHUMI, Abkhazia – For Shalom Shuminov, a 72-year-old who endured the hardships of World War II and life as a Jew in the Soviet Union, the last 10 years in this sub-tropical republic on the Black Sea have been by far his hardest. During Abkhazia’s 16-month war to break away […]
NEWS FEATURE: Growth of Catholic church upsets Orthodox
By Christa Brown — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service SUKHUMI, Abkhazia – Most aspects of life in this tiny, self-declared country are tinged with a weirdness eluding description. After breaking away from Georgia in 1993 in a 16-month war, Abkhazia declared itself a sovereign state, issued its own stamps, flags and visas, and waited for world recognition. It hasn’t […]
NEWS FEATURE: Growth of Catholic church upsets Orthodox
By Christa Brown — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service SUKHUMI, Abkhazia _ Most aspects of life in this tiny, self-declared country are tinged with a weirdness eluding description. After breaking away from Georgia in 1993 in a 16-month war, Abkhazia declared itself a sovereign state, issued its own stamps, flags and visas, and waited for world recognition. It hasn’t […]
NEWS FEATURE: Minority faiths under siege in Russia
By Christa Brown — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service MOSCOW _ In a voice hoarse from lack of sleep, Lena Sinyapkina, 24, described what she said was one of the longest days of her life. It began on a recent morning when she and dozens of other Scientologists were rousted from their rooms and given five minutes to leave […]
NEWS FEATURE: Religious leaders debate Moscow explosion motives
By Christa Brown — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service MOSCOW _ In the first hazy moments after a massive midnight bomb recently destroyed her nine-story apartment building, Yelena Obukhova jolted up in bed, certain that Armageddon had arrived. She called for help.”I cried out, `O Jehovah, save us!'”said Obukhova, a 35-year-old Jehovah’s Witness, explaining,”In the Bible it is written […]
NEWS FEATURE: Fighting takes toll on Chechnya’s religious groups
By Christa Brown — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service MOSCOW _ Mikhail Ivanov, a retired Baptist truck driver, talks proudly about how he lived in the Chechen capital of Grozny for 49 of his 73 years, working as a truck driver,”helping to build the city that they are destroying now.” Ivanov, an ethnic Russian who helped lead Grozny’s beleaguered […]
NEWS STORY: Russian Pentecostal congregation seeks asylum in United States
By Christa Brown — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service MOSCOW _ Over 300 members of an embattled Pentecostal church in a remote Russian city are seeking political refugee status in the United States, citing”growing threats of physical punishment and pogroms”from local law enforcement officials. While U.S. law gives priority to persecuted Jews, Pentecostals and Greek Catholics seeking to emigrate […]
