By Aaron Miller-
A Canadian pastor is facing his final trial after three years of repeated fines, arrests and imprisonment for keeping his church open during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Artur Pawlowski,(pictured) pastor of the Cave of Adullam congregation in Calgary, is accused of causing $400 million worth of damages for officiating a church service during the trucker blockade at the U.S.-Canada border last year.
Pawloski potentially faces ten and a half years in prison for what he termed in a press release as “terrorism charges, for allegedly causing harm to Canada’s economy and for speaking to and for providing a sermon to Albertans whom came together to oppose the heavy handedness of their elected representatives.”
He stood alone as a pastor in insisting on opening its church throughout the pandemic, defying social distancing and other government laws during lockdown. He is hailed by his congregation as a persecuted follower of the gospel in refusing to obey the law.
The first Canadian clergyman to be ticketed for alleged COVID violations, Pawlowski claims the charges against him are an attempt to criminalize his speech.
He told The Eye Of Media.Com that the Canadian government was boardering on dictatorship and the kind of tyranny seen in communist governments.
”Nobody should be able to shut down the church of God, he said. The whole covid rules were a sham and politically motivated, God protects those who believe in his word, he said.
Quoting a biblical scripture from Psalms 91, he said: ”he that abideth in secret place of the most high, shall abide in the shadow of the almighty. I will say o the lord, he is my refuge and my fortress, my God in him will I trust. He will deliver me from the snare of the fowler and from the noisome pestilence. Thats what the word says. Even if there a pandemic as serious as was claimed, it does not given governments the right to shit down the Church Of God. Not the ones walking in righteousness anyway”
Palawski’s defiance based on faith has bene criticised by some in his community.
Local businessman Andy Morris, 34 said: ””Its incredible the different types of people we have in this world. It would be a boring world if we were all the same. But when you have a man willing to defy government rules during a pandemic period, you have to wonder if he is saying that his God is setting him up for trouble. I mean he has to pay a big fine now, is that what he is teaching his congregation to do?”
Another local, Candy Marvis, an Engkish teacher 29 said: ”if his is doing this and defying the authurities in the name of God, claiming he can be saved from serious viruses, maybe he will call on his God to save him from his fines and jail sentence, It is just pathetic how some people think”.
Sydney Atkinson said: ”more power to the pastor, he is following his convictions. People should not have to follow bullish and selfish rules, established for their own self gain. We know a lot of the hospitals were exaggerating the numbers on their covid records. It was a scandal of epic proportions. It was all a money orientated plan, well co-ordinated by those in power. Pastor Palawski is like tennis player, Novak Djokavic, sticking to his convictions. We need more people like that”.
He also slammed Alberta’s new premier, Danielle Smith, who he said discussed his potential amnesty last fall but has since “backpedaled.”
Alberta Premier, Danielle Smith, previously pressured the attorney general and his office to intervene in COVID-related court cases.
Smith had recently been exploring legal options to grant amnesty for pandemic charges., but has taken legal advice to avoid such interventions.
Pawlowski compared the persecution he is going through to North Korea and the Soviet Union. He said people can tell from his accent he has been through this experience before.
If people do not stand up and rise up, he said “we are going to see a repetition of history, and I’m telling you that movie does not end well.”
He has accused the Canadian government of tyranny and said the Canadian government was stifling freedom of religion and veering in the direction of a communism and trying to ask him to become a CNN reporter.
Pawlowski, who also heads a charity to feed Calgary’s homeless, faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted on the charges stemming from his participation in the trucker convoy in Coutts, Alberta said the whole covid rules is a sham and he will not bow before the law and he was being imprsioned within his province.
He is charged with mischief over $5,000, contravention of the Critical Infrastructure Defense Act and failure to comply with his release condition to keep the peace and be of good behavior.
He defiantly said: ‘I will not obey’
Pawlowski first drew international attention in April 2021 when he threw armed police and a health official out of his church as they attempted to inspect it for public health compliance during an Easter service.
He appeared in a viral video chasing authorities out while likening them to the Nazi Gestapo. When officials returned a week later with a court order that empowered them “to do anything necessary” to enter his church and arrest him, Pawlowski recorded himself throwing them out again and warned his viewers that Canada increasingly resembles the communist regime his family endured in Poland.
Pawlowski likened his ordeals to “a refining fire” that he said has widened the reach of his ministry and invigorated his faith.
“I noticed, even in my own preaching, that everything we went through — and are still going through — only gave us a stronger faith and zeal and confirmation that everything that we read in the Bible is actually the truth,” he said.
Pawlowski said many of the Canadians involved with his ministry continue to suffer the lingering consequences of their government’s pandemic response, which he claims has damaged the Canadian economy and forced many he personally knows to take vaccines.