Photo: cleaning of the territory in the city of Orel, April 2017.
Dennis Christensen, who is languishing in a pre-trial detention center, and his fellow believers received gratitude from local authorities
Oryol RegionThe authorities of the city of Oryol awarded local Jehovah's Witnesses for their active participation in cleaning the city from garbage. Believers were pleased to receive gratitude from the city administration and a gift (book) with the signature: "In gratitude for a good deed - garbage collection for the benefit of people and nature."
Jehovah's Witnesses, wherever they live, seek to benefit their neighbors not only by spreading Bible knowledge, but also by participating in various types of socially useful activities. The same is the civic position of Dennis Christensen, one of Jehovah's Witnesses in Oryol who took an active part in the cleanup. Standing knee-deep in the cold water of the Orlik River, he pulled garbage out of the river with a net. All work was carried out free of charge.
In view of this, it is especially paradoxical that Christensen has been languishing in a city pre-trial detention center for almost three weeks on falsified charges of organizing an extremist community. Believers are perplexed, because, according to the city authorities, it is this community that benefits the city. Garbage collection turned out to be the last good deed of Dennis, which he managed to do while free.
It is noteworthy that the representative of the Oryol administration sympathized with Jehovah's Witnesses in connection with religious persecution in the country and wished them not to lose their fortitude.