"This may be viewed as a threatening act to show that Christians should not feel comfortable in this area."
Additional details are being reported from Tajikistan regarding the December 31, 2000, bomb explosion against two Christian churches in the capital city of Dushanbe.
“We’d like to believe that this was a lonely splash of terrorism against Christian presence in the city,” said Pastor Alexander Shvarts, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Southern Union regional territory with headquarters in Almaty, Kazakhstan. “This may be viewed as a threatening act to show that Christians should not feel comfortable in this area.”
As reported earlier [ANN, January 3, 2001], two bombs exploded in Dushanbe on the last day of 2000. One of the bombs destroyed two buildings annexed to the Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas and blew out windows in the Sunday school and baptistry of the church. Another bomb, it was initially reported, blew windows out of the Seventh-day Adventist church. The explosions occurred minutes apart.
Shvarts stated that the second bomb, which exploded at the Adventist church at 7:30 in the evening, was more destructive than first reported, destroying the gates, fence, and partly damaging the wall and windows both in the church building itself and in the pastor’s house across the street.
There were no injuries reported, and presently there are no suspects or information as to anyone claiming responsibility for the bombings.
The damaged church is one of two Adventist churches in Dushanbe. There are 400 church members in the two congregations there. In Tajikistan, one of five countries comprising the church’s Southern Union in that area, there are 570 adult church members among the 6.1 million population.
Last year churches were destroyed and Christians arrested or threatened in the nearby country of Turkmenistan. [See ANN reports on November 28, 2000, and October 31, 2000.] Among the destroyed churches in Ashgabat was the only Seventh-day Adventist house of worship in the country.
