RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS

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Traditional religions against sects in Far East

Such a quantity of clergymen has never been seen by the walls of the residence of the presidential plenipotentiary for the Far Eastern Federal District. Orthodox bishops of the far eastern dioceses, heads of Jewish and Muslim communities, and even the Dandar-lama from Yakutsk gathered together for the first time at the same table with representatives of the federal government agencies in order to work out together ways to combat religious extremism.

"At first I thought that this problem was more acute for the southern regions of Russia where the Wahhabis are active. However with more study of the subject it became clear that in the Far East there exist the preconditions for religious extremism to arise," the deputy to the presidential plenipotentiary, Alexander Drozdov, acknowledged as he opened the conference.

Indeed. The first missionary "swallows" who began flying to the Far East with the fall of the "iron curtain" have already displayed what they are capable of. One recalls the case when a group of followers of the teaching of "Aum Shinrikyo" from Vladivostok was arrested for planning a number of terrorist acts in Japan. Adepts of the sect wanted thereby to force Japanese authorities to release their teacher Asaharu from prison, who had been arrested after a terrorist act was committed in the Tokyo metro. Law enforcement agents confronted the manifestation of religious extremism in the Yakutsk city of Aldan, where members of the "Pentecostal" society seized the city administration building. It required law enforcement officers to liberate the mayor. In conducting further investigation it was discovered that four religious activists were implicated in the murder of a child. In the Sakhalin city of Alexandrovsk teachers and members of the "Jehovah's Witnesses" sect used force in teaching their doctrines to students while denying good marks to "the unruly ones."

This same Sakhalin was "defamed" by the interference of Catholic clergy in the territorial dispute between Russia and Japan, which took on the form of an international scandal. On the other hand, in Amur province local authorities barely managed to prevent a mass action against Catholics to which activists of one of the parties had incited the public.

Specialists are greatly concerned with the growth in a number of territories of the Far East district of adherents of the Chinese extremist sect "Falun Gong," which is notorious for the mass self-immolations of its adepts. Regular news emerges about the activity of satanists in the Far East, although their ranks are relatively small, but there already have occurred incidents of vandalism in cemeteries and animal sacrifices.

The situation is made worse by the extremely vigorous use by leaders of the new religious movements in the last decades of many psychological techniques that permit them to "work over" an individual, especially protestant movements, which, incidentally, occupy the leading positions in the Far East in terms of the number of their active members (which significantly outnumber all "traditional" religions) and continue to conduct an active struggle for ever new followers. The speakers noted that as some "services" in such religious organizations there occur the use of mass hypnosis and neurolinguistic programming of the individual. Specialists do not rule out even the use of gases for helping believers achieve a feeling of euphoria. The danger of such "techniques" is that the worked over member of the society will go to any lengths to fulfill the demands upon him, even if it means he must die.

There already have been in the world sufficient examples of mass suicides on a religious basis and the activity of religious kamikazi fanatics. In this regard, events of the past year in USA are especially significant. Events in the north Caucasus also clearly reveal the inseparable link between religious fanaticism and terrorism. This is why combating religious extremism is specified as one of the main tasks of the new federal law "On combating extremist activity," which was adopted in July of this year.

Conference participants emphasized especially that combating the activity of religious extremist organizations does not mean fighting against either those who believe differently or, say, foreign churches. Freedom of religious confession is a constitutional norm and in this sense it is necessary to combat only those cults that represent a danger to the individual as well as to the state system.

But if the "target" of the struggle today is more or less clear, the practical mechanisms for it still have to be worked out. Because the actions of law enforcement agencies in this regard do not now have a consistent character. There is no united strategy and cooperation with the agencies of local administration. Thus as a start the conference participants agreed to "the necessity of uniting all right thinking forces," since it is better to prevent religiously extremist processes than to deal with their consequences afterward. (tr. by PDS, posted 2 October 2002)

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Division among Muslims addressed

Supreme Russian Mufti Talgat Tajuddin made an official visit in Salekhard (Yamalo-Nenetskii Autonomous Region [far north central Siberia]). He met with the governor of the region, Yury Neelov, and Archbishop Dimitry of Tobolsk and Tiumen, and he spent time at the founding congress of the regional ecclesiastical board of Muslims.

Talgat Tajuddin's arrival in the region was the result of two years of preparatory work by religious and civil leaders of Yamal. In the summer of this year, when he visited Ufa, Governor Yury Neelov agreed to the exact date of the visit by the supreme mufti of TsDUM, 27 September.

At the present, 14 religious organizations professing Islam are registered in the Ministry of Justice of RF for Yamalo-Nenetskii Autonomous Region [YaNAO]. Of them, eight are canonically subordinate to the Central Ecclesiastical Board of Muslims (TsDUM) with its center in Ufa. The others are under the Ecclesiastical Board of Muslims of the Asiatic Part of Russia (DUMAChR) with its juridical center in Tobolsk, which has long been considered a bulwark of Orthodoxy in Siberia. On the territory of the autonomous region a mosque is open in Salekhard, a mosque is being constructed in Noiabrsk, and construction of a mosque is being planned for Nadym.

The schism among Yamal Muslims occurred in 1997, when the Ecclesiastical Board of Muslims of the Asiatic Part of Russia was created. This happened after a meeting in Novoe Urengo that was organized by Nafigulla Ashirov and Vadim Niiazov. Their names are connected with such organizations as the World Islamic League and the Islamic Development Bank, which represents the interests of foreign Islamic organizations in Muslim regions of Russia. The next step of this organization was the division of the territory of Yamalo-Nenetskii AO into two administrative districts, the Tazo-Purovsk region and the western part of the autonomous region, without the consent of TsDUM. The result was a schism among believers. The majority of them came to Yamal from Baskiria and Tataria in the period of development of the natural gas deposits or they were born in the district in Bashkir and Tatar families.

They naturally were traditionally drawn to the orthodox religious center in Ufa which has a two-hundred-year history. As Imam Nurislam Kazrat of Noiabrsk told a K-D reporter, the activity of DUMAChR increases, as a rule, during election campaigns in the region and it has exclusively social and political goals.

In 2000 the Muslim religious organizations of Yamalo-Nenetsk that belong to TsDUM took the initiative for the creation of a united ecclesiastical board of Muslims for Yamal, which would be subordinate to TsDUM. The presidential plenipotentiary of this district in Yamalo-Nenetsk, Anur Zagidullin, noted in an interview with the "Sever-Press" agency that this idea is important at the present since up to now there has been dissension among Muslim organizations of the region.

Yesterday at Yamal a regional ecclesiastical board of Muslims was created. Delegates from the majority of cities and regions of the autonomous region came to the congress. Also participating were the muftis of the regional boards of Sverdlovsk and Perm provinces and the republics of Chuvashiia and Tatarstan. After agreement on the charter, Talgat Tajuddin presented the new mufti of the Yamalo-Nenetsky AO. He is Farid Salman, who previously had directed the department for public relations of TsDUM and then was the supreme mufti of Tataria. Mufti Salman is considered in local Muslim circles to be a rather authoritative leader who is capable of uniting Yamal believers.

After the congress Talgat Tajuddin took two other diplomatic steps. He met with representatives of the civil authorities of the region and hierarchs of the Orthodox church. Talgat Tajuddin and Governor Yury Neelov signed an agreement for cooperation between the administration of the Yamalo-Nenetsk AO and the central Ecclesiastical Board of Muslims of Russia. Afchbishop Dimitry of Tobolsk and Tiumen, who attended the signing ceremony, noted that RPTs welcomes the signing of such an agreement, which will aid the spiritual and moral development of residents of Yamal. (tr. by PDS, posted 30 September 2002)

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Christian party denied registration

(tr. by PDS, posted 28 September 2002)
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Benefit of faith in supernatural

A study by the "KOMKON" company has shown that a third of Russians believe in miracles. And, according to scholars, this is a thoroughly positive sign. Scepticism toward miracles is out of place in a civilized society. After all, faith in miracles shows that people do not totally deny the supernatural and incomprehensible. On the contrary, they see in miracles another object for study.

The leading scientific associate of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Kandidat of Philosophical Sciences Mikhail Chernysh, says that faith in the supernatural does not depend on level of education. He drew that conclusion after a study conducted in the institute two years ago during which 2500 respondents were surveyed.

"But simply to say that 30% believe in miracles is not to say anything," Mikhail Chernysh says. "What is interesting is something else: in just what kind of miracles does a person believe? Someone believes in UFOs and another in telepathy. Everybody's faith is different and it is impossible to reduce them to a common denominator."

According to data from the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, approximately ten percent of the Russian population believes unconditionally in telepathy, extraterrestrial civilizations, and magic. Around 17% believe in the existence of heaven, hell, and demonic forces. Higher figures apply to faith in fate (28%), omens (37%), and folk medicine (62%). And people under thirty and over sixty believe in miracles more strongly. The beautiful half of humanity believes in miracles at almost twice the rate of the faith of men. It is interesting that belief in an international conspiracy against Russia is considered superstition by the sociologists, in light of its indemonstrability. And here, among men 16% believe in it and 12% among women.

Academician of the Russian Academy of Education Igor Bestuzhev-Lada maintains that faith in miracles is a natural need of society. "The dominance of science in the public consciousness is insufficient for the resolution of social problems. A person has sense organs. Humanity does not have sense organs; they deal with forms of public consciousness. One of these forms is faith," Igor Bestuzhev-Lada explains. In his opinion faith exists on the same level as justice, morality, and art. With regard to faith it is possible to take three positions: as a plus, as a minus, or to take the position of an animal that cannot pose such questions at all.

If we continue this topic we come immediately into contact with religion. Incidentally, according to results of a "KOMKONR-TGI" study in 2002, only 23% of Russian think that religion plays an important part in their lives and 63% state that they maintain their own conceptions of morality and ethics.

In Bestuzhev-Lada's opinion, the decline of patriarchal ideology and then the locomotive of the communist ideology produced what can be called a process of deideologization. That is, the nation found itself "in the wilderness." "When a person who calls himself Orthodox suddenly starts talking about karma, this is absolutely the same thing as if Zhirinovsky were to begin speaking the same words as Ziuganov," Igor Bestuzhev-Lada says.

If one sets aside the religious theme and returns to miracles, it can be said that faith in them may become a supplementary stimulus for the development of science. In Bestuzhev-Lada's opinion, miracles should not be denied but they should be studied. With regard to extrasensory perception, UFOs, and similar phenomena one should advance hypotheses and then try to test them by experiment.

The chief editor of the "Anomalies" newspaper, Tatiana Syrchenko, became engaged in the study of miracles twelve years ago. An engineer by education, she, for example, finds the explanation of various lights in the sky (which people take for UFOs or supernatural signs). As a rule, the causes of the appearance of these phenomena are a breakdown of the earth's crust or sun spots. She views telepathy and poltergeist with the same optimism. "Sometimes science proves that an idea born in the head is transformed in the brain into a kind of electronic signal that can be projected into the distance," she says. In Tatiana Syrchenko's opinion, the number of people in foreign countries who believe in miracles is much higher. "This is to some degree a sign of democracy. A person can freely believe in whatever is believable," she says. Such an inclination towards miracles is not surprising and advertising specialists began exploiting it long ago. Moreover modern technology permits depicting a miracle on the screen with great ease. For example, heavenly bliss of "Chudo-Yogurt" and the cleaning powder "Tide" whitens better than boiling. Isn't that really a miracle?

Ideologists of postmodernism predict a growth of the need for miracles. According to this theory, in modern life when all processes are speeded up, space has become more homogeneous and the emotional life has been more impoverished. In the light of such transformations, the need for the supernatural will only grow. However if people also maintain common sense, there will be nothing bad in this. As Academician Igor Bestuzhev-Lada said: "Let's believe; let's study; let's love the beautiful; and let's develop harmoniously." (tr. by PDS, posted 27 September 2002)

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Catholic leader denies proselytism

The general secretary of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of Russia, Fr Igor Kovalevsky, told the "Vremia novostei" newspaper that priests will be advised not to irritate the authorities and the Orthodox church.

--Fr Igor, does your church intend to announce any changes in church policy after the conference of Catholic bishops of Russia?

--We will discuss the situation that has arisen. But I do not think that a radical change will occur. One of the chief tasks for us now is to increase the number of Russian clergy. We will advise our priests to be more sensitive and not to irritate the Orthodox church and government workers.

--Will you renounce proselytism?

--There is a common understanding of proselytism and there is a canonical one. Were it not for the proselytism of the early Christian missionaries, we in Russia would be praying to Perun up to the present. There is Christ's command for evangelism: Go, teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit.  In the strict canonical sense of the word, proselytism means converting people from one Christian confession to another by deceptive means. We do not engage in such activity.

--What does deceptive means mean?

--Well, let's say, for humanitarian aid. This is how some representatives of RPTs represent our activity and even some representatives of the government in the provinces. But we do not engage in this, although we respect the right of all people to embrace Catholicism if they have such a desire.

--But the Russian church thinks that proselytism is conversion to Catholicism of those who under more propitious circumstances would be converted to Orthodoxy.

--I see the activity of the Christian church to be drawing people to itself by example and spiritual authority. Not by administrative methods. And certainly not by such methods of influencing governmental authority to get this authority to restrict the rights of other confessions. Those who accuse us of proselytism and fear us as a competitive business in the religious realm simply have too little confidence in the powers of their own confessions.

--But your charitable projects have facilitated well the growth of your authority. . .

--The authority of any confession is increased by charitable activity. After all it is based on the virtue of mercy and it is natural that in any normal culture such actions will be rewarded. But we stress that our charitable projects are not connected with missionary activity. We will help all people without exception, regardless of their religious confession. And we do not require that they convert to Catholicism in exchange. (tr. by PDS, posted 27 September 2002)

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Controversy over Orthodox in media

Today at the "St. Daniel's" hotel complex of the Moscow patriarchate the work of the "Radonezh" International Festival of Orthodox Movie, Television, and Radio Programs begins its work. Around 100 governmental and nongovernmental television and radio companies will participate.

The first Orthodox television and radio festival took place in Moscow in 1995. It had a goal of uniting the energies of Orthodox journalists throughout the country and it was titled the "Orthodoxy on Television and Radio Broadcasting" festival seminar. After this another six festivals were held.  The cochairmanship for the first through sixth festivals was shared by the "Radonezh" Orthodox brotherhood and the Institute for Continuing Education of Television and Radio Broadcasting Workers. After conducting six festivals jointly, at the seventh, which was held last year, the ranks of the cochairs split. As a result, the "Radonezh" society was removed from the organizing committee and the seventh festival seminar was held without the Orthodox brotherhood.

The "Radonezh" society suspected that the institute was fulfilling a governmental instruction for the removal of the church from public life and the news media, quietly replacing spirituality with the ethnography of church life, and it decided to organize its own "Radonezh" festival this year.

Disputing the position of "Radonezh's" leader that the institute is trying to remove the church from the festival, the rector of the institute, Vileonar Egovor, insists that the publishing council of the Russian Orthodox church and the chancellor of the Moscow patriarchate participated in last year's seventh festival and will participate in the eighth, which is planned for the end of January.

But the "Radonezh" society, breaking from its former partners, will now conduct a festival independently, finding support from the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow patriarchate, the National Association of Television Announcers, and the "Moskoviia" State Television and Radio Company. The "Radonezh" festival will last five days and participants will include television announcer Ninel Shakhova, priest Fr Ioann Okhlobystin, television announcer Mikhail Leontiev, Deacon Andrei Kuraev, and the director of the "Russkii dom" program Alexander Krutov. The festival will conclude on Friday in the Patriarchal Chambers of the Moscow Kremlin. (tr. by PDS, posted 23 September 2002)

DISPUTE OVER WHICH FESTIVAL IS MORE ORTHODOX
Kommersant-Daily, 23 September 2002

Here is what the rector of the Institute for Continuing Education of Television and Radio Workers, Vilen Egorov, says:  "The state does not even know that the institute is conducting festivals. For some reason Evgeny Nikiforov is ashamed that he wanted to conduct last year's festival under the 'Radonezh' name, but the patriarch did not give his blessing for that. Therefore last year's festival was held without 'Radonezh.' We do not have any complaints against Nikiforov. But when he wrote that his festival is a continuation of ours, then we sent to our state television companies letters saying that these are two different things. And the current 'Radonezh' festival does not have the patriarch's blessing."

But according the Mr. Nikiforov, this is a lie and is running down "Radonezh's" reputation, and "Radonezh" has filed suit in court regarding this. In addition, according to the director of "Radonezh," the assistant rector of the institute personally phoned the chairman of the jury of the festival, Archbishop Tikhon of Novosibirsk and Berdsk, and tried to convince him to quit work on the festival.  But despite the convincing, the bishop nevertheless headed the jury. However, if the split between "Radonezh" and the institute had not happened, then in Mr. Nikiforov's opinion it still would have been necessary to develop a different mutual relationship. "It must be said directly that the stagnant character and the soviet mentality of the institute's workers do not suit us. It is clear that these people are not real journalists. They do not know the contemporary style, the contemporary television language, and they thereby discredit the professional aspect of our activity. (tr. by PDS, posted 23 September 2002)

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