A suspicious fire on April 28 caused heavy damage to the Number 1 Seventh-day Adventist Church in the city of Tanganrog, Rostov, Russia, church officials confirmed.

According to Pastor Michael Oleinik, he discovered the fire on that Friday morning: "Approaching the building, I felt a smell of burning. I hastened to open a door, and there was a thick fog of caustic smoke."

Oleinik entered through the building, and upon going upstairs discovered the slow-burning, but dangerous, fire.

Apparently, Oleinik said, "the [arsonist] broke a window in a basement of [the] church building and entered. In a hall where we usually hold our services, he gathered benches and poured a gas mixture over it and set fire."

"The fire could [have] caused enormous damage, but by a miracle the fire died out and fortunately didn't inflame," he continued. "Some benches and the parquet floor are burned out. The fire damaged nothing else. But the walls and a ceiling of [the] church building are under a rich layer of soot."

Church members have devoted several days of volunteer labor to cleaning and restoring the church, Oleinik said.

There was perhaps a warning about the arson. About 10 days earlier, Oleinik said, "an unknown malefactor broke the windows" of the church. Media reports indicated that police had dismissed the attack as "hooliganism." [Editor: Vlad Arhipov for ANN/APD]