Persons in UPTsMP are hoping that in the conversations of Russian President Vladimir Putin with his Ukrainian colleague, Leonid Kuchma, he will raise the question of freedom of conscience in Ukraine, according to a report from "Echo of Moscow," citing the Interfax news agency.
As described in the Kievan metropolia of UPTsMP, a bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox church Kiev Patriarchate (UPTsKP), Deniil Chekaliuk, who is not recognized by Moscow, traveled to Istanbul to visit Patriarch Bartholomew I to conduct negotiations regarding the form of recognition of the bishops of UPTsKP by the Constantinople patriarchate.
"From the point of view of church canons, even if Constantinople recognizes Filaret and his associates, this will not have any juridical force since Filaret has been placed under anathema and is not a priest," persons in UPTsMP stated.
A representative of the metropolia expressed the hope that Vladimir Putin "as president of a great Orthodox state will raise in conversations with Kuchma the question of freedom of conscience and the state of canonical Orthodoxy in Ukraine."
UPTsMP, the most influential religious organization of Ukraine, has
over the course of many centuries been a part of the Russian Orthodox church.
The Kievan patriarchate was created several years ago as a church independent
from Moscow. Immediately after the proclamation of UPTsKP, the Moscow patriarchate
accused it of schism and excommunicated its head, Metropolitan Filaret,
from the church. (tr. by PDS, posted 22 December 2000)
The Vakhitovsk district court of Kazan has ordered the Ministry of Justice of Tatarstan to reregister the society of Jehovah's Witnesses of the city of Nizhnekamsk, according to the news agency "Blagovest-info."
As reported by Jehovah's Witnesses attorney Arly Chemirov, the Nizhnekamsk congregation, which is a member of a centralized organization, was denied reregistration on the basis that the documents its submitted indicated a residence as the juridical address of the religious organization.
The court found the refusal to be without basis since the law does not forbid the use of a residential address as a juridical address. In the words of Arly Chemirov, the congregations have been forced to use residential addresses as juridical addresses because the owners of nonresidential premises, under pressure from the Federal Security Service, have refused to rent to Jehovah's Witnesses and to provide them a juridical address.
In Tatarstan there are three congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses, in
Kazan, Nizhnekamsk, and Zaimsk. As Arly Chemirov noted, none of them as
of now has undergone reregistration. In the fall of 2000 the Supreme Court
of RF ordered the Ministry of Justice of Tatarstan to reregister the Kazan
congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses, although the ministry still has not
fulfilled this decision. (tr. by PDS, posted 22 December 2000)
Two hundred members and supporters of the Salvation Army in Moscow have appealed to the city's mayor to help prevent the shutdown of the charitable Christian organization's activities there at the end of this month.
According to a 1997 religion law, any religious organization that has not been working in Russia since 1982 must re-register by December 31 this year or face either dissolution or a downgrading to a status that will restrict their right to meet in public places, own property or distribute material.
The Salvation Army has successfully re-registered in several other centers, but in Moscow came up against a bureaucratic brick wall. The Moscow City Court recently upheld an earlier ruling blocking registration. "Since we have the word 'army' in our name, they said we are a militarized organization bent on the violent overthrow of the Russian government," said Colonel Kenneth Baillie, who heads the Russian operation.
In a letter to Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, delivered at his office on Wednesday, 200 Muscovites urged him to intervene in the matter, so Russian members and volunteers can "continue their good work among the citizens of Moscow." The letter outlined the work being undertaken by the Salvation Army in the capital, where it both preaches the gospel and cares for people in need, including the elderly, sick, homeless, blind, mentally ill, needy and prisoners.
It acknowledged that the Army's military terminology could easily be misunderstood - members are called "soldiers" and branches "corps" - but assured Luzhkov that the organization had been called "the most peace-loving army in the whole world" and had even been nominated for the Nobel peace prize.
"The Salvation Army uses the biblical metaphor of 'soldiers' of Christ; its weapons are the biblical ones - faith in God, truth, righteousness, salvation, prayer and the Word of God." The Moscow Salvation Army has been trying to secure re-registration for a year. In an earlier court case, allegations were made that the organization was "fascist" and constituted a security threat.
Anatoly Pchelintsev, a lawyer with the Law and Religion Institute, said the court decision was "illiterate" and predicted it would eventually be allowed to register. The Salvation Army has won support from other quarters too. The English-language Moscow Times published an editorial saying the organization's commendable work had come up against the "typically ham-handed, xenophobic style that characterizes so much of the Russian bureaucracy." The paper urged the Russian Orthodox Church to intervene, calling on the Patriarch himself to call the appropriate authorities and urge them to reconsider. The quasi-state Orthodox Church is widely seen as the instigator and primary beneficiary of the 1997 law. It concluded: "The poor are under much greater threat from cold, hunger and loneliness than from foreign cults. Winter's cold is here. Christmas is coming. What other reason do we need to do what is right?"
A satirist writing in a different edition of the same paper wrote a letter to President Vladimir Putin, purportedly coming from the head of the FSB intelligence agency. It told of an agent who had spotted suspicious activity - a man wearing a false, cotton-wool beard and red and white coat, ringing a bell and collecting money in a bucket bearing the name of "a hitherto unknown paramilitary force identified by the code name 'Salvation Army.' "
"An investigation involving hundreds of agents has revealed that [the suspect] was a member of a broad conspiracy of urban commandos who dress like officers from Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany," the letter said. Putin was then urged to take decisive action: "It is therefore the unanimous recommendation of the state organs that this band of hymn-singing revolutionaries be denied legal religious status in Russia ... if we do not take action now, bearded men in red suits could end up on every street corner, ringing bells, panhandling, opening soup kitchens and fomenting revolution."
Other organizations at risk
With 10 days to go until the deadline, it remains unclear how many other religious organizations may face the new year without registration. The Keston Institute, a British organization monitoring religious freedom in the former Soviet Union, said this week there were mixed reports from different parts of Russia.
Of those groups which had not yet re-registered, some had disbanded, others were awaiting paperwork from abroad, while some smaller ones had decided to settle for the more restricted status. In Ulyanovsk, 550 miles east of Moscow, for example, justice officials said only 10-15 out of 215 religious organizations had not yet re-registered. In Kursk, south of Moscow, 14 groups had not re-registered while 282 had. In Krasnoyarsk in Siberia, fewer than 20 of 166 organizations had not re-registered and would be liquidated, officials reported. In Tomsk, on the other hand, re-registration was said to be "going badly," with ten organizations - six Catholic and four Muslim - not yet having applied. In Khabarovsk in the Pacific region, about 20 mostly Protestant groups had not re-registered.
Keston was unable to get any information from officials in Moscow, who said in response to queries that the 1997 religion law "does not require the registering organ to divulge information concerning religious organizations which have and have not been reregistered." (posted 22 December 2000)
FROM RUSSIA, WITH ANYTHING BUT LOVE: SALVATION ARMY IN TROUBLE WITH
THE KREMLIN
Wolf Blitzer, Jill Dougherty
CNN NEWS DAY 12:00, 21 December 2000
The Salvation Army has been operating in Moscow for nearly a decade now. However, it's not entirely understood, especially by the government.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Those bell-ringing Salvation Army types are fixtures at malls around the country this time of year. The group has been operating in Moscow for nearly a decade now, but it's not entirely understood, especially by the government.
CNN Moscow bureau chief Jill Dougherty explains.
JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN MOSCOW BUREAU CHIEF: Maria Ivanovna is getting her hair cut at the Salvation Army Community Center in central Moscow. It's free, as are all the services here, but it's not the price that has brought her back to the center for eight years.
"We pray to God on Sunday," she says, "then we have tea. It's really nice here. I like it very much."
But the Moscow Justice Department doesn't like the Salvation Army. It considers it a subversive military organization.
VLADIMIR ZHDANKOV, MOSCOW JUSTICE DEPARTMENT (through translator): They call themselves an army. They call themselves captains, cadets, majors, colonels. Sounds like a military unit to me!
DOUGHERTY: The Salvation Army may think of itself as a church, he says, but they have to prove it. If they can't, they could be shut down. A national deadline for registering religious organizations expires December 31st.
COL. KENNETH BAILLIE, SALVATION ARMY: If this fantasy that somehow we're a military organization, bent on the overthrow of Russia, if that were true, wouldn't it have shown up after eight years of ministry here?
DOUGHERTY: The Salvation Army has been providing meals to the elderly and the homeless here, along with prison visitations and home care for the infirm since 1992.
Today, the senior group is celebrating the 77th birthday of Anastasia Dyaterova (ph). Anastasia comes here four days a week. She says, otherwise, she'd be sitting at home in her robe.
"Here I can dress up," she says. "It's a lot more fun."
Laws, registration, legal battles, the women here say that's not the point. The Salvation Army, they say, is an important part of their lives, and they want it to remain open.
The Salvation Army has been fighting the possible shut down in court for 17 months. They've spent $20,000 in legal fees so far.
Antonina Loskutova says she doesn't understand shy anyone would want to close the center. "It's a very noble thing they're doing here," she says. (posted 22 December 2000)
According to a broadcast on "Echo of Moscow," citing the Interfax news agency, plenipotentiary for human rights Oleg Mironov advocated extending the deadline for reregistration of religious organization to 31 December 2003. Mironov also called on president Vladimir Putin to send to the State Duma a draft law for introducing appropriate changes in the law "On freedom of conscience and religious associations." This was stated in a letter the ombudsman sent the president. The letter also emphasized that this question cannot be put off inasmuch as the law provided for completion of the reregistration of religious organizations by 31 December of this year. "If a religious organization has not undergone such reregistration, it is subject to liquidation by judicial procedures. Meanwhile by the present time, according to data of the Ministry of Justice, no more than 56 percent of religious organizations have gone through reregistration," according to the broadcast.
Oleg Mironov is convinced that "implementatin of the current law could cause serious harm to the international interests of Russia and it already has provoked a wave of negative outcries abroad." The ombudsman expressed the hope that by the end of the year the president will send to the State Duma a draft law for introducing amendments into the law "On freedom of conscience and religious associations." (tr. by PDS, posted 21 December 2000)
RELIGIOUS DEADLINE
The Moscow Times, 21 December 2000
Human rights ombudsman Oleg Mironov on Wednesday urged President Vladimir Putin to extend the Dec. 31 deadline for the registration of religious organizations to Dec. 31, 2003.
Mironov was quoted by Interfax as saying that Putin should introduce amendments to the 1997 law that requires religious organizations to re-register by the end of this year.
Only 56 percent of about 17,500 organizations registered under a 1991 law on religion had been re-registered by July under a stricter 1997 law, said Alexander Kudryavtsev, a presidential administration official in charge of relations with religious organizations, in a recent interview. More recent figures are not available, he said. (posted 21 December 2000)
OMBUDSMEN OLEG MIRONOV MEETS WITH BAPTISTS
NTV, 21 December
2000
A meeting was held between the plenipotentiary for human rights of the Russian federation, Oleg Mironov, and the president of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (EKhB), Peter Konovalchik, according to the "Blagovest-info" news agency.
The meeting occurred in the building of the Spiritual Center of the EKhB union, located on Warsaw Blvd. Oleg Mironov became acquainted with the services of the union housed in the building and met and conversed with students of the Moscow Theological Seminary.
In the meeting with Konovalchik the ombudsman noted that the purpose of his visit was to continue becoming acquainted with the largest Russian religious organizations and their problems in the area of human rights. Earlier he met with Patriarch Alexis and Jewish and Muslim leaders.
Oleg Mironov informed Peter Konovalchik that in his apparatus there has been created a special department which will review violation of the rights and religious liberties of believers. Of the more than 2,000 complaints that reach the ombudsman monthly, a great quantity are connected with violations of freedom of conscience. Considering the importance of this question, Oleg Mironov proposed to the heads of religious organizations that they give thought to establishing an office of public plenipotentiary for religious rights and freedoms.
The plenipotentiary on human rights in RF reported to the head of the Russian EKhB union that he had recommended to President Vladimir Putin to introduce amendments in the existing federal law "On freedom of conscience and religious associations." The issue is the need to extend the deadline for reregistration of religious organization another two years and to introduce into the law a provision forbidding discrimination against citizens on the basis of their religious affiliation.
According to the law, the plenipotentiary for human rights in RF does not have the power of legislative initiative, but Oleg Mironov hopes for a positive response from the president.
Oleg Mironov considers that the formation of a culture of international and interconfessional relations is now one of the chief tasks facing Russian society. Representatives of various religions should, in his opinion, display mutual tolerance. For its part, the state should guarantee the equality of all religious before the law, according to Oleg Mironov.
In his turn, the leader of the Russian Baptists, Peter Konovalchik, noted that Russia never in its history has had "such a favorable period for the existence of religious organizations." In his opinion, despite separate shortcomings in the existing law "On freedom of conscience and religious association" the situation regarding rights and freedoms of believers remains good, on the whole. Evangelical Christians-Baptists have the possibility of openly spreading their views and participating in various aspects of the life of society. Peter Konovalchik cited examples of effective social service by the church and work in prisons and with drug addicts and alcoholics.
The president of the Russian EKhB union advocated the adoption of laws on alternative service and exempting clergy from service in the army during peace time. In his opinion, the church needs to be exempt from paying for land on which the worship buildings stand. The state also should create favorable conditions for those who are trying to give aid to the lower income and poverty stricken strata of the population, Konovalchik declared. (tr. by PDS, posted 21 December 2000)
"WHAT are we supposed to believe in?" asks Natasha, a student teacher in Tver, a run-down provincial town between Moscow and St Petersburg. "In the past our young people had the party, and its youth movements--the Pioneers, the Komsomol. It was all rubbish, maybe, but at least it was there." Natasha and her friends at a student cafe are all training to teach young people. Like 94% of Russians aged 18-29, she does not go to church. She has been once or twice out of curiosity, "but didn't understand it much". Her own parents are not religious.
Russian young people live in a moral and spiritual vacuum. A decade after the collapse of communism, there is little to fill it. Schools are mostly tatty, depressing and too short of cash to do more than try to preserve basic educational standards. The youth clubs, summer camps and other activities of the Soviet era have collapsed for lack of money. Sports facilities are expensive. Sergei, a muscular 22-year-old in Irkutsk, in Siberia, spends every morning in the summer months playing football with his friends on a patch of waste ground. The rest of the time he looks for passengers to ferry around town in his decrepit Toyota; the slender profits pay for occasional trips to a sports centre during the winter. He has never been to church.
Young Russians can meet the boredom and poverty of their lives with drugs, alcohol, promiscuous sex and crime, and all too often do so. But this also presents an opportunity for anyone offering something more wholesome. The scout movement, for example, has blossomed since the collapse of communism: there are tens of thousands of members of scout and guide troops, with a wide range of affiliations. Western and other charities that work with young people are usually overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and gratitude of the response. But there is one notable absentee: the Orthodox church.
Russia's national church is by far the best-placed could-be charitable organisation in the country. Its coffers are bursting with cash from business activities (such as licensing Russia's best-selling brand of mineral water, Holy Spring). It has buildings in most parts at least of European Russia. Its priests and church workers can, if they want, get into schools, orphanages, barracks and prisons that are all but closed to less privileged denominations. It enjoyed a strong resurgence of interest around 1990, as the Soviet persecution of religious activity slackened and then ended. Since 1988, the number of Orthodox parishes has nearly trebled to 19,000; the number of seminaries has increased ninefold to 26; the number of monasteries has increased 25-fold to nearly 500. But interest among the young in general later fell back, in some cases because they realised that the church offered hard, ascetical discipline rather than faddish, feel-good mysticism. The church in turn does not seem much interested in them.
Some Orthodox parishes do carry out impressive youth work. Pantaleimon, an ecumenically minded Orthodox priest in Russia's westernmost province, Kaliningrad, has church offices bustling with young people involved in discussion groups and social events. In Tatarstan, a dedicated Orthodox nun, Marie, has set up a charity to work with young people at risk (from broken homes, or in trouble with the law, notably). It runs a scout troop, a church choir and Sunday school. One of the biggest youth groups in Russia is at the parish of St Cosmas and Damian, in central Moscow. Its activities include Bible study, camps and work with young prisoners.
Yet such successes are inevitably small-scale. Even print runs for religious books aimed at young people rarely exceed 5,000. The problems of disoriented youth, in contrast, are huge, both in the numbers involved and in their complexity. They are hard for even an idealistic youth group to tackle. The Hosanna Christian youth club at the St Cosmas and Damian parish, for example, has been helping a young prisoner with letters, books and visits. He is about to be released. He will be penniless and homeless--and unskilled and with a criminal record. What hope has he of a job? Even if the group were able to support him in Moscow, he lacks the papers to live there legally. "We don't know how to help these boys in practical terms," says an organiser. "We can bring Christ to them, but we feel very, very weak."
One problem is that much of the church is still rooted in the Soviet past. Many senior church figures of those days were active KGB informers. Keston Institute, a western research outfit that specialises in religion in ex-communist countries, has unearthed documents suggesting that the current patriarch himself was a collaborator--an accusation that the church vehemently denies. Since the collapse of communism, the Orthodox church has remained close to the state, energetically developing business sidelines. It tends to ignore the challenges facing religious denominations in a modern, secular society.
The church's hierarchy has little experience of, or enthusiasm for, promoting its message in the harsh and unfamiliar environment of modern Russia. Whatever private successes it may have, it is more often in the news for reasons of obscurantism and protectionism--protesting against the activities of foreign missionaries, for instance. The calibre of men going into the priesthood looks low, and theological education haphazard and old-fashioned.
Authoritarian bigotry, rather than open-minded sympathy, is what a curious young person is all too likely to encounter on a first meeting. "Orthodox priests don't like democracy; they don't like modern culture; they don't like relations to the world of young people; they don't want dialogue," says Sergei Filatov, a sociologist specialising in church affairs. One practical example is that the Orthodox church has hampered efforts to educate young people about the dangers of AIDS: an advertising campaign in the Moscow metro, organised by Medecins Sans Frontieres, an international health charity, was cancelled after the Moscow patriarchate protested. Any other message than sexual abstinence, said the church authorities, would encourage immorality.
Tradition and traditionalism
Another example is the lack of an authorised translation of the Bible into modern Russian. The only officially approved edition is a very lightly updated version of the one in use before the revolution. Part of this problem is a practical one: communism left Russia with no large body of scholars competent in translating Hebrew and New Testament Greek. But there is also a reluctance to consider even a partial translation; of the four Gospels, say. In a church whose liturgy is still in Old Church Slavonic, as incomprehensible to most Russians as the "Canterbury Tales" would be to the average 21st-century English-speaker, making Bible study easier for the ordinary Christian seems not to be much of a priority.
Some Russians find this very appealing. One legacy of the Soviet obsession with modernity has been to create its contrary, a sentimental regard for tradition. One strand in modern Orthodoxy is a fogeyish conservatism, often coupled with patriotism and nostalgia for tsarist-era style, manners and attitudes. Some of the church's more active youth groups encourage this strongly, with some success. One such is led by Archimandrite Tikhon, a prickly, youthful man who believes that the West is plotting to subvert Russia's spiritual values; a fine old 19th-century notion, to go no further back. But the risk--as with ultra-traditionalist religious orientations in the rest of Europe--is that the tastes of a minority may be a turn-off for the majority.
So far, it is the more conservative, state-oriented, part of the church that has been getting the upper hand. Attitudes on social questions seem to be hardening, as on those of relations with other branches of Christianity: a visit by the pope to Russia's Roman Catholics, for example, looks out of the question. A more open-minded Orthodox leadership might reflect on John Paul II's popularity with young people in other ex-communist countries, and seek to gain from the interest that a visit would surely arouse even in its own potential flock.
If its close identification with the state continues to dominate, perhaps even to grow stronger, the result may well be that Russia's Orthodox church, at least outwardly, will become still more like the Church of England--a decorative feature of public life, especially on state occasions, rather than an integral part of everyday spirituality. There are signs that, after its resurgence a decade ago, it is in decline. A survey by Keston Institute suggests that Catholics, Protestants and non-Christian denominations now outnumber the Orthodox church in Russia east of the Ural mountains. The appeal of Orthodox monasteries, after their astonishing expansion over the past decade, may now be tailing off. Some are shrinking, others have become nunneries instead; women make up the majority of most congregations.
Ideas from abroad
This last point, be it said, is nothing special to Russia. Nor is the lack of interest among young people: Mr Filatov notes that the proportion, 6%, of young people who claim to go to church as often as once a month, though small, is about the same as in most European countries--not bad going, after 70 years, until a decade ago, of official atheism--and rather larger than among middle-aged Russians. But though most of that 6% are practising Orthodox, the growth is among members of other confessions: in energetic Protestant churches, ranging from traditional Methodist, Lutheran and Baptist denominations to more exotic, mostly American, imports that emphasise speaking in tongues, faith healing and the like. As in the rest of the world, the more intense the demands placed on such churches' members, the greater the rate of burn-out. But some of their techniques, such as the use of attractively designed teaching material for new members, could equally well be used by the Orthodox.
A second lesson, if rather the converse of that one, might come from the way the Roman Catholic church has established itself as an intellectual force. A highly educated Polish priest in Irkutsk, for example, has gained a large following among the local intelligentsia because of his interest in philosophy and other high-brow subjects. This echoes the role played in Poland under communism by Catholic intellectuals, who maintained a more or less independent academic life that both undermined communism and helped to foster democracy after it had fallen.
In western Ukraine, the Uniate Church (which uses Orthodox liturgy, but obeys Rome) has played an important role in restoring academic life. The Uniate seminary in Lviv, the regional capital, educates hundreds of students to a high standard both in theology and in more secular subjects such as philology and sociology. Many go on to jobs outside the church.
There are similar initiatives in Russia--indeed Moscow boasts a clutch of Orthodox self-styled universities, though none can yet award accredited degrees. Most of them are tiny; some eccentric. Some of their students are impressive: thoughtful, intelligent young people with a moving interest in great moral questions. Others distinctly are not. "The main reason parents send their children to us is because they do not want them to study alongside brigands," says Edward Afanasyev, dean of the economics faculty at one of these institutions.
A change of attitudes
The Orthodox church may not want to follow outside examples, and become more outward-looking, more open to new ideas, and so, one can argue, more attractive to young Russians (and, for that matter, adults) looking for meaning in their lives. But if it does want to, that will require a huge shift.
Unlike churches in the rest of Europe, the Orthodox church (like much of Russian society) was largely untouched by the great intellectual currents of the late millennium: the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment. In one way, that has been a source of strength--the Orthodox church has preserved both mystery and a sense of history, which the watered-down religion of West European countries often loses. But it is also a weakness. A century ago, the Russian church seemed to be on the verge of catching up with history. The Soviet revolution stopped that dead, encouraging instead a dogged defensiveness among those who did not just give up, and creating a timid official church based on little more than folk religion and its own privileges. That historical burden still weighs heavily: whether or not the Russian church wants or ought to open itself to new ideas, most of its leading figures have spent their lives doing just the opposite. (Copyright 2000 The Economist Newspaper Ltd., posted 21 December 2000)
A RUSSIAN RESURRECTION
by Scott Peterson Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Christian Science Monitor, 21 December 2000
Since the Soviet collapse, the Orthodox Church has been restored and transformed.
When it came to finding suitable cells for the "enemies of the people" in Josef Stalin's day, the Russian Orthodox monastery of St. Catherine's was ideal. In the early 1930s, monks were given 24 hours to leave, and operatives of the future KGB transformed the place of worship into a secret complex of torture and execution chambers.
Few places in Russia today better exemplify the extraordinary path of the church, from the depths of 70 years of enforced Soviet atheism - during which an estimated 200,000 clergy were systematically murdered, according to a presidential commission - to the feverish rebuilding of the past decade.
Russia's new president Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent once steeped in atheistic ideology, has filled many top government posts with KGB cronies. But St. Catherine's today is an example of how those days of persecution - at least of the Orthodox - have passed. Scaffolding and the smell of fresh paint swath the 350-year-old onion-domed church complex here, bringing a sense of renewed mission, as gilt Orthodox crosses poke above the forest south of Moscow. But on ground level, evidence of a dark past is hard to ignore. The thick walls and small doors of monastic life made the work of Stalin's agents easy: Walls were reinforced with nondrillable concrete; all corners were rounded so victims could not commit suicide by throwing themselves at them.
The famous one-time dissident Alexander Solzhenitzen, writing in "The Gulag Archipelago," noted that parish-cum-prisons were "ideal for isolation," and that St. Catherine's was "the worst."
"Our church has gone through its own Golgotha [the Biblical mount where Jesus was crucified], and it strengthened in those years of persecution," says Maxim Demakov, stepping over a line of pipes in the church courtyard. Dump trucks, stacks of wood planks - even a half-carved new cross - make this an active construction site.
"The church is building its foundation upon the prayers of those who were tortured," says Mr. Demakov, clad in black Orthodox robes, his ears turning red in the late autumn chill. "People aspire for the church, and the church speaks to people. But we can't shut our eyes to the problems. There are questions that need solving." Among issues that church leaders are grappling with: making the church relevant to Russians in a modern era.
Today, the jewel in the crown is the gleaming, newly refurbished Christ the Savior cathedral - blown up in 1931 on Stalin's orders - which looks out over the Moscow River in unabashed splendor, not far from the Kremlin. Russian leaders such as President Vladimir Putin - a former KGB agent once steeped in atheistic ideology - pay homage to church leaders.
And on paper at least, the results of rebuilding appear impressive: The 40 parishes in Moscow that existed in the 1980s have blossomed into more than 300, church officials say. The 18 monasteries that survived across the Soviet Union are now more than 500. But while polls once showed that 55 to 65 percent of Russians consider themselves Orthodox, just 5 percent - some estimate only 1 or 2 percent - are regular churchgoers.
"People have come back, discovered that they have religious roots, and that they were deprived of this history for 70 years," says Hegumen Hilarion Alfeyev, head of external relations for the Moscow patriarchate. "But most are nominal believers. They know how to light candles and give donations, but they don't know the essence of the church."
The millions of baptisms carried out in the aftermath of the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union haven't translated into deeper spirituality, church officials say. And they say it's partly their fault. "The last 10 years have been marked by a revival of the church and its buildings, but not much was done to develop a new strategy of how the church should adapt itself to modern society," says Mr. Alfeyev.
A "first step" in addressing that, he says, came during a Bishop's Council in August. While hundreds of new martyrs were canonized - including Russia's controversial last Czar, Nicholas II - the bishops also, for the first time in church history, approved a 200-page "social doctrine" that speaks on everything from bioethics and abortion to globalization.
"It's a sign of renovation of the church, that it is not an antique from the 17th century, but an institution living in society that understands its problems and can comment," says Maxim Kozlov, dean of Moscow State University's St. Tatyana Chapel, and assistant professor at the Moscow Theological Academy.
Still, the transition from church-under-attack during the Soviet era - when the class "Basics of Atheism" was required for all students, and priests and believers alike hid their crosses - to a role as a central, moral pillar in society has not been easy. "People expected that the church would be a more miraculous phenomenon in their life, that when the church doors opened, something wonderful that they did not know before would happen," says Mr. Kozlov.
With many yearning for spiritual nourishment but disappointed with Orthodox religion, Russians have been turning to other faiths. In an effort to win back believers, the church is trying new methods of outreach, including television and the Internet. It has even restored the tradition of a roaming, proselytizing church train. Church boats and barges are also plying rivers. One aim is to "establish every parish as an open and warm society - not a closed society of professional Christians."
After centuries of often serving as a state church - Peter the Great even had a ministry devoted to the church - the doctrine enables the church to take a moral stand against any government, and even calls for civil disobedience. The doctrine enshrines a basic historical conservatism in the church, which holds that Russian Orthodoxy is the last bastion of "true faith" in an otherwise un-Christian world: "The very concept of tolerance in matters of faith," the doctrine declares, "is unacceptable." The church, in fact, has been behind a law that restricts, and is likely to ban, many of the 17,000 non-Orthodox religious groupings in Russia, except for those deemed "traditional," like islam, Judaism and Buddhism.
According to a law signed by Mr. Putin, those groups not registered by the end of this year - in a difficult process that has so far left several thousand unregistered - will be "liquidated." Critics charge that the church can't overcome its history of overt Russian nationalism, and find fault with the new social doctrine. "This doctrine will not make a difference, because it is more liberal than many priests, and they will simply ignore it," says Yakov Krotov, a former church historian and columnist for Itogi magazine.
But basic Christian precepts such as the commandment "Thou shalt not kill," he contends, are compromised in the doctrine, which sanctions "justified use of force" and killing "as an extreme measure," when there is "a victory over the evil in one's soul." While that may help justify Russia's ongoing, brutal war against separatist Muslim rebels in Chechnya, Mr. Krotov says, it is also a sign that the church has yet to find its post-Soviet moral bearing. Decades of persecution "has not made the church better. Communism was simply a tragedy that you can't come out of smiling and better. You are always worse off. We need more time."
The Soviet legacy decimated the church. There were 300 bishops before the 1917 revolution, but by the end of the 1930s - when St. Catherine's monastery was one of the most notorious prisons - only four remained. Forty-eight thousand churches in Russia were cut down to 7,000 by 1969. The turnaround began in 1988, during Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika, when the church was allowed to celebrate its 1,000-year anniversary. The popular response was overwhelming.
But today, in many ways, the church is in uncharted waters. "This is the first time in 2,000 years the church is adapting to a new environment, because the 20th century was missed, in terms of renewal," says Andrei Zolotov, a senior writer for the English-language Moscow Times who follows church issues. While "in many ways, the church is still arguing the debates of the Middle Ages," he says, the challenge is to adapt "without losing itself in the new environment." (Copyright 2000. The Christian Science Publishing Society, posted 21 December 2000)
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