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Immediately the question arouse about purchasing a building.
About 70 church members, residing in Kiev and its’ regions,
agreed to make a voluntary contribution towards obtaining
a building where they could hold their meetings. There still
were some complications. In order to purchase a building for
church they had to apply to a government body for permission,
but no one was willing to help Christians open a church in
Kiev. The Government put pressure on those people who wanted
to sell their property to a church which made them withdraw
their offer. This happened a few times. But then the church
was advised by V. Rudenko to purchase a building not as a
church but for private use and to start their meetings. In
1974 a building was purchased at 44 Karjerna Street. After
the reconstruction of the house, the church could have meetings
in their own building.
In 1975 N. Nazarchuk was chosen to be the Chairmen of the
community, his responsibilities were more like of a housekeeper
of the church. The government referred only with two people
in the church – the Pastor and the Chairmen.
In the same year they realised that the building is far too
small for the Church, and a decision was made to build a new
church. But it was not that simple!
The people would come to the building site after work, at
the weekends and during their holidays. The building work
progressed very fast and it was soon finished. God’s grace
was present in the Church; many received forgiveness and joined
the church.
The church grew, but the pressure did not lessen. Brothers
were summoned by the KGB, ordered to pay fines, and disturbed
the church works in every possible way.
The Government issued new regulations; no visitors could preach
in the church, no foreigners could participate in the meeting,
children could attend – but not take part, and everyone who
was baptised in water had to give their details to the Government.
Obviously the brothers couldn’t agree to such regulations
and guests preached, children participated and water baptisms
were often taken at night.
1975 was marked by another event: In Novoberlichy (a borough
in Kiev) another Christian group started to build a church.
It was a group of 15 people under the leadership of L. Parhomenko,
three Mozgovoy brothers, Kirpach, and N.Tsiruk. It became
the second autonomously registered church.
In 1976 a Pastor from Cherkassy moved to Kiev, Hmaruk Saveliy
Naumovich. Since his arrival he was actively involved in the
church and become one of the deacons. He passed away in the
80’s.
In 1976 Ozeruga’s brother, Sergie Ivanovich moved to Kiev
from Zdolbunov. He was one of the choir conductors in Rovno
and he started to organise a choir in Karjena Church. It wasn’t
very easy because no one had experience of this kind of ministry
before, but nevertheless, good results emerged. In 1977 Peter
Mikhailovich Savochka moved to Kiev who had a good voice,
and a man’s singing group was organised. The group and the
choir visited different churches within the USSR.
By the end of the 70’s, beginning of the 80’s the Brothers
Council included:
1. Vladimir. Ozeruga – pastor
2. Nikolay Nazarchuk – chairman
3. Ivan Makovik – deacon
4. Pavel Pavlenko – deacon
5. Saveliy Hmaruk – deacon
6. Ivan Sirodan – deacon
7. Anatoliy Balun
8. Nikolay Zadneprovsky
The Youth Leaders were:
1. Sergey Ozeruga
2. Victor Pavlenko
3. Leonid Mikituke
The youth often visited other churches and had good relationships
with many churches in towns across the USSR.
In the same period the Union of Independent Churches was organised.
The leaders were:
1. F. Voznuk
2. N. Reschikovets
3. V. Ozeruga
4. N. Gustchin.
Even under the strict scrutiny of the Government, the church
was visited by Christians from abroad who bought support and
comfort from the Word of God. A great treasure was given to
the church, communion cups and a beautiful Bible. The photograph
shows one of these events.
(L to R) Two visitors from Sweden, V. Ozeruga, V. Gluhovsky,
N. Nazarchuk.
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