Church tradition debate sparks suit

By Carol Sowers -- The Arizona Republic -- Sept. 17, 2002

GLENDALE - Descendants of Jumping Molokans, Russians who emigrated to Glendale in 1911, are suing their own relatives and others for locking them out of their church and refusing to follow traditions such as leaping and conducting services in their native language.

"Some of the Tolmachoff clan has rejected their own heritage, and we find that very, very, strange, because they don't know their own heritage," said Andy Conovaloff, board secretary of the Church of the Spiritual Molokans, which filed the lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court.

But Reed King, the Phoenix lawyer representing the defendants, say they were reclaiming the church that had been wrestled away from them.

Many of the 12 defendants are elderly and felt intimidated by the plaintiffs, King said. Several defendants, including a man who had recently suffered a stroke, claim they were attacked by some of the five plaintiffs Sept. 12, 2001.

Many members of the Tolmachoff family, who still live and farm in the West Valley, are descendants of the first Molokans who emigrated to America and later Glendale to avoid religious persecution and the Russian draft.

The Molokan Jumpers incorporated a church in 1936, but its congregation has dwindled to 30 to 40.

According to the lawsuit, the trouble started Aug. 5, 2001, when defendant David J. Tolmachoff interrupted services, announcing that he and other members of his family were its new directors. Then, the suit says, the defendants yelled, cursed and threw around articles of "religious significance."

The family feud heated up in January when the defendants locked the plaintiffs out of the church at 75th and Griffin avenues, the suit says. The defendants are also accused of removing $911 in church funds and filing false papers with the Arizona Corporation Commission, saying they were the new directors.