Bradenton church owner investigated

BRADENTON – A Canadian televangelist with Bradenton connections is under scrutiny for living an “extravagant lifestyle” while his church, whose congregation of working-class minorities faithfully tithe, spends relatively little on charitable work.

The Prayer Palace church in Toronto, whose services are broadcast on Canada’s Miracle Network, raised more than $3 million from its 3,000 members in 2005. But it reported spending just $9,443 on “benevolent and charity” activities that year, the Toronto Star newspaper reported Sunday.

Yet founder Paul Melnichuk and his family, the newspaper reported, lead “lavish lives” in contrast to the mainly working-class families that make up the bulk of the church by driving expensive vehicles and owning several luxurious homes.

Among them is an almost 6,300-square-foot riverfront house in Bradenton’s Point Pleasant neighborhood – the second house the family has owned in Manatee County, public records show. And Melnichuk, through a Florida company, also owns a small church on Seventh Avenue East in Bradenton.

The Star said Melnichuk and other church officials refused to comment for its story. The Bradenton Herald also was unable to reach Melnichuk, who has an unlisted local telephone number, despite repeated attempts.

Shortly after noon Monday in Bradenton, a man at the Melnichuk house who declined to identify himself said Melnichuk was due to arrive from Toronto later that day. But a workman at the house said Melnichuk had been “in and out” that day.

When the reporter returned about four hours later, all the window blinds were drawn, a pull-down hurricane shutter blocked the towering pair of glass front doors and no one answered repeated knocking on a side door leading to a laundry room. The shutter prevented knocking on the front doors or ringing the doorbell.

No one answered when the reporter returned twice Tuesday afternoon despite evidence that someone was inside. A Federal Express package that was wedged in a door during the reporter’s first visit was missing when the reporter returned an hour later. Also, window blinds that were open the first time were closed the second.

Mireille McGail, a seasonal resident from Toronto, said Tuesday she was stunned when she read the Canadian newspaper’s story about her next-door neighbor.

“It was really surprising,” she said. “I don’t hardly see them or talk to them. They pretty much kept to themselves.”

Public records show Melnichuk and his wife, Kathleen, bought the 0.3-acre property on 18th Street Northwest for $549,000 in early 2004 and hired Bamboo Homes of Florida to build the house later that year. The four-bedroom house, which features a riverfront pool and sauna, a dock on the Manatee River and a three-car garage, was completed last year.

The garage is used to keep a Lexus RX 330 SUV and a Mercedes-Benz CLK 320 convertible, with the Mercedes registered in the church’s name, the Star reported. In a 2005 filing with Canadian charity regulators, the church reported $125,000 in “housing allowances” and $175,000 in vehicle and travel expenses for unspecified recipients, the newspaper reported.

“Audits obtained by the Star show they got in trouble by using vehicles for non-charity business, sending money out of country for work deemed not charitable, and paying high salaries to leaders,” the paper reported.

The church qualifies as a tax-exempt charity under Canadian law because it holds several religious services each week.

The Bradenton house is part of a real estate portfolio worth at least $12 million, the Star reported. Melnichuk also owns a country estate outside Toronto. So do his twin sons, Tim and Tom, who also are pastors at the church.

The Point Pleasant house isn’t the first the Melnichuks have owned in Manatee, records show.

Kathleen Melnichuk bought a 3,800-square-foot house on Little Country Road in River Wilderness, a gated subdivision off Old Tampa Road in Parrish, in November 2002. Internal Revenue Service records show Paul Melnichuk later registered Prayer Palace Inc. as a tax-exempt church at a nearby, nonexistent address.

The River Wilderness house was sold in September 2004, but Paul Melnichuk still owns a Bradenton church, records show.

A Florida company he owns, The Prayer Palace Inc., bought the former Bradenton Church of God, 1011 Seventh Ave. E., for $750,000 in March 2005, records show. The facility now is known as Zion Worship Center.

Achilles DeCarolis, one of the church’s two ministers, said Monday its mission is to provide spiritual assistance, food, clothing or anything else to those in need.

“Whoever needs help who comes through those doors, we help them,” he said of the church, which he said has about two dozen members.

He said he’s not privy to the parent church’s finances nor those of the Melnichuks or their twin sons.

“They’re very nice people,” said DeCarolis, who said he has known the Melnichuks “for years.”

“They’re very hardworking. They’ve been hardworking ever since they started.”

It’s at least the second church Melnichuk has opened in Florida. His Florida company owned and operated a church in Largo from 1993 to 1997, according to Pinellas County records.

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