A suspicious fire burned down a Seventh-day Adventist Church in the northwestern city of Novgorod Sept. 25, according to local church officials. The fire also destroyed books, records and archives and yielded enough water damage to render the building unusable. The congregation, which has 98 worshippers, is seeking an alternate location.

According to Stanislav Bazilo, pastor of the church, congregants arrived at the scene at 5 a.m. to find the church in ruins. Earlier, a guard at a neighboring construction site noticed smoke coming from the building and called fire brigades.

“The police discovered that the locks on all the doors were broken,” Bazilo tells ANN. “They even found the crowbar with which the locks were broken.”

No motive for the suspected arson has been given, and police inquiries are continuing. However, Bazilo notes that “next to the site of the church there is a construction site for a service station.”

Bazilo says he will ask city authorities to help in seeking a worship location. The local Baptist leader visited the fire scene as a sign of solidarity with the church. Adventists may ask their Baptist friends to use one of their sanctuaries on a temporary basis.

Novgorod is a historic city in the region, and its late 10th century embrace of Russian Orthodox Christianity led to its establishment as a major Orthodox center. In 2001, statistics showed that 4,500 people worshipped weekly in 85 Adventist congregations in the northwest region of Russia.