CHECHNYA BEGINS RESTORING ORTHODOX CHURCHES








PYATIGORSK, March 8, 2001. /RIA Novosti correspondent Valery Oliyanchuk/. Chechnya is beginning to restore Orthodox churches. A delegation of Terek Cossacks handed icons of Mikhail the Archangel and the Iverian Holy Virgin and church plate to the Mikhail the Archangel Church in Grozny, destroyed by Chechen terrorists.


	The church also received aid collected by Terek Cossacks in the Pyatigorsk area.


	The delegation returned to Pyatigorsk on Wednesday "with a firm conviction that the Chechen Republic should be given more assistance in restoring the demolished Orthodox churches," said press-secretary of the Terek Cossacks Alexander Kuznetsov. In Grozny, he said, there are about 300 worshippers mainly of advanced age and "they will never cope with the task by their own efforts".


	"For the first time after a long break a visiting priest began aspersing the congregation, thus raising the churchgoers' hope that normal life was returning to their homes," Kuznetsov said.


	Obviously, the stabilisation process in Chechnya will not be so rapid as one would like it to be, he remarked. When the Cossack delegation was there, a Chechen fanatic shattered the newly glazed church windows with a burst from his automatic rifle. So, the worshippers and the clergyman need protection, Kuznetsov believes.