Evicted church finally finds a new home

Source : Straits Times - 16 Mar 2009

A YEAR after they were abruptly evicted from their place of worship in River Valley, members of the Holy Resurrection Orthodox Christian Church of Singapore have found a new home with the help of the Catholic Archdiocese.

Parish priest Daniel Toyne said he was contacted by Catholic Archbishop Nicholas Chia shortly after The Straits Times reported last month that the church had been holding its services at an Anglo-Chinese School (International) classroom since its eviction last year.

‘The Catholic Church made overtures to help us. For that, we’re grateful,’ said Father Daniel, who set up the Orthodox church here in 2001. The church, which serves about 70 Greeks, Russians and Singaporeans, moved into its new home at the Catholic Archdiocesan Education Centre in Upper Serangoon last week.

The group is known for its worship of holy icons and traditional practices, and is not part of the Catholic Church.

It has signed a one-year lease with the centre, ‘an exception made for us’, said the parish’s honorary secretary Kelvin Lee, ‘as the centre usually rents its offices only hourly or weekly’.
Members of the church were stunned to find themselves locked out of their first-floor shophouse premises in River Valley Road on March 19 last year.
The next day, they returned to find that someone had entered the church and removed its property, including some holy objects, worth $27,000.

The church has filed a lawsuit against its landlord, Cheng Fong Company, claiming a breach of contract.

Cheng Fong’s director Han Ong Guan, a used-car dealer, has denied any involvement with the eviction. The items that were removed from the church remain missing.

But yesterday, gone were the chalkboard and bare walls that marked the church’s temporary shelter for the past year. Nearly every inch of the walls in its new home was decorated with holy icons, or religious paintings.

Member Jimmy Yap, 41, said it was a relief not to ‘live out of boxes’ any more.
‘We used to have to pack up everything after worship as we had the classroom for only two to three hours a week. Now we can start rebuilding a permanent place for ourselves.’

About the case

THE boss of the company which evicted the Holy Resurrection Orthodox Christian Church of Singapore last year was charged in an unrelated case earlier this month with evading taxes on imported cars.

Han Ong Guan, 72, faces 26 charges of allegedly under-declaring the value of 34 Japanese cars.
The director of motor trading firm Cheng Fong Company is named as a defendant in the church’s ongoing civil case against the company.

The church filed the suit last April, a month after its members were evicted from its River Valley home. It claims the landlord had ‘changed the lock on the front door’, ‘wrongfully entered’ the church and removed its property before the lease ended. Han, the church’s landlord at the time, has denied any knowledge of the eviction.

The case is scheduled to be heard in the Subordinate Courts in May.