Despite a threatened protest Thursday at the church's grounds by members of a nationalist group, church leaders are confident that the paper transfer from the Melodiya record company to the Anglican Church in Moscow will take place by the end of the month, perhaps before next Wednesday's visit to the church by Queen Elizabeth II.
"We are hoping to have the paperwork through by the Queen's visit," said church treasurer Nicolette Kirk.
A resolution approved last month by Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin orders paperwork for the transfer to be completed by Oct. 26 and have the recording studio vacate the buildings on Ulitsa Stankevicha by the end of next year.
Having waited almost 75 years to get the building back from the government, church officials seem content to wait another year.
Maintaining that the church will be used as a business, leaders of the tiny rightist party Vozrozhdeniye said Monday they plan to picket the building. The congregation's leader, The Reverend Canon Chad Coussmaker said the group's claims were untrue.
The church and an adjacent vicarage have been government property since 1920, when the Soviets seized the two structures. Although Anglican worship services resumed in the summer of 1991, the church itself remains an active recording studio with microphone booms, acoustic panels and a sound engineer's room looking into the nave.
Once Melodiya leaves, Coussmaker said he would like to expand activities at the church to include Bible study, choir rehearsals and committee meetings.
"But I would also hope that there would be facilities for one or more British or American relief agencies to work from the church," he said.
In addition to help received from the British Embassy, both Coussmaker and Kirk credited the influence of Patriarch Alexei II for the government's willingness to carry out the transfer.
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