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On the night of 9-10 May the building of a synagogue in the suburbs of Moscow burned down. The local rabbi is convinced that he is dealing here with intentional arson "on the basis of religious intolerance." But experts advise that one not make hasty conclusions but await the results of the investigation. Nevertheless one should not forget that Russia occupies one of the top places in the world in number of antisemitic acts.
On 9 May Vladimir Putin had barely declared that "antisemitism represents a special evil because Russia is a multinational and multiconfessional country," when that very night in the rural settlement of Malakhovka the synagogue burned down. The fire started, according to witnesses, close to morning. The fire department was called and they quickly got the fire under control. But the old wooden building burned to the ground and it cannot be restored. When the local Rabbi Moshe Tamarin arrived at the fire scene he stated that three days before the fire unknown persons tried to rob the synagogue. It was this fact that forced the rabbi to suggest that this is a case of intentional arson. At that time audio and video equipment was stolen. Following a warm trail the police managed to find the thief, a local resident and unemployed drug addict. Some of the stolen goods were found in his apartment.
The
synagogue in Malakhovka has an extremely stormy history and this it not
the first time it has caught fire. The log building in the old suburban
settlement was built back in 1932 by the local Jewish community. In those
years the building of any houses of worship or religious buildings, to
say nothing of a synagogue, was, to put it mildly, not encouraged by soviet
authorities. Thus the facade of the synagogue was made to look like an
ordinary outbuilding and services were conducted secretly. But by 1936
it was nationalized and the tenant of the parcel of land was convicted
of counterrevolutionary activity and shot. But services continued even
in the requisitioned building. In 1959 the synagogue caught fire the first
time. But at the time neighbors noticed the flame and extinguished it by
their own efforts. It is interesting that it was just on the first of March
of this year that the synagogue building in Malakhovka was turned over
by local authorities to the local Jewish community for use free of charge.
Rabbi Moshe Tamarin's version about arson was supported also by the Federation of Jewish Organizations of Russia. This was reported yesterday by the press secretary of the organization, Borukh Gorin. "Of the Jewish objects of Moscow and the province, this was one of the least protected spots. The synagogue is located in a rural settlement and, since summer vacationers had not yet arrived at their dachas it was much easier to commit arson in such a place than in another spot in Moscow and the province," he said yesterday. Then the chief rabbi of Russia, Berl Lazar, went to the fire site.
Meanwhile, not everybody has unequivocally supported the arson account. Thus, the former president of the Russian Jewish Congress and current president of the Institute for the Study of Israel and the Near East, Evgeny Satanovsky, advises not to draw hasty conclusions but wait for results of the investigation. "Old wooden buildings burn for a variety of reasons; it could be the fire was set or wiring might not be in proper condition," he declared yesterday on air at radio station "Echo of Moscow."
We recall that in April of this year, before the visit of Vladimir Putin to Israel, the minister of affairs of Jerusalem and the diaspora of the government of Israel, Natan Sharansky, stated that in sum in 2004 Russia was among a trio of countries where the number of antisemitic outbreaks increased. Besides Russia, this group included Great Britain and Ukraine.
The director of the Moscow Bureau on Human Rights, Alexander Brod, does not rule out the idea of arson in the case of the synagogue in Malakhovka. Although he said that it is possible the fire was connected with the wiring; the building was dilapidated. "Desecration of synagogues is a common phenomenon for Russia," the rights defender stated. "This has happened sufficiently regularly in quite diverse regions. In Moscow there have been attempts to halt construction; in St. Petersburg, Kostroma, and Nizhny Novgorod synagogues are continuously being desecrated and swastikas have been drawn on the synagogue in Krasnoiarsk and synagogues in Tiumen have been desecrated. We have information that on 9 May in Moscow, some people drove around the Jewish Cultural Center on motorcycles and shouted antisemitic slogans. But I think that it is necessary to make conclusions after an objective conclusion by law enforcement agencies."
Chronicle of antisemitism:
January 2004: Unknown persons exploded a grenade in the yard of the synagogue in Derbent, Dagestan republic. No one was hurt.
March 2004: There was an explosion in the building of the Mekor Khaim Educational Center in Moscow. There were no injuries.
March 2004: In Moscow the president of the World Congress of Mountain Jews, Zaur Bilalov, was shot.
April 2004: Skinheads conducted a pogrom in the Jewish Cultural Center in Ulianovsk.
April 2004: Unknown persons set fire to the synagogue in Cheliabinsk.
October 2004: Skinheads, armed with steel bars, conducted an attack on the synagogue in Penza.
January 2005: Two rabbis, Alexander Lakshin and Ruven Kuravsky, were beaten in Moscow in the Marinaia Rosha district.
January 2005: Twenty deputies of the State Duma, members of the "Rodina" fraction and the communist party of the Russian federation, sent a letter to the prosecutor general of the Russian federation demanding prohibition of the activities of a number of Jewish organizations in Russia. Despite public indignation, the prosecutor general did not find in the letter any infractions falling under article 292 of the Criminal Code of RF (incitement of national, racial, or religious enmity). (tr. by PDS, posted 11 May 2005)
posted on Portal-credo.ru website, 11 May 2005
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A synagogue in the settlement of Malakhovka ourside of Moscow, which was built in 1932, burned down on Tuesday morning.
As reported to Interfax by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, after being alerted by neighbors the rabbi went to the synagogue, which by that time was already engulfed in flames. Fire fighters arrived in fifteen minutes, but they were unable to save the old wooden building; everything was burned up.
The synagogue's Rabbi Moshe Tamarin thinks that the cause of the fire was arson based upon ethnic and religious intolerance.
It was noted at the Federation of Jewish Communities that calamities have dogged the Malakhovka synagogue over the course of a week. Friday night the synagogue was burglarized and three days later the fire occurred.
The synagogue in Malakhovka was built in 1932 under the guise of a log shed for agricultural purposes. Money for construction of the temple was collected by Jews of Malakhovka and Tomilino.
The appearance of a house of worship did not escape the attention of responsible authorities. In 1936 the structure was nationalized. On 5 April 1936 the person on whose parcel of land it was located was shot, accused of counterrevolutionary activity.
However, prayers and services did not cease in the nationalized synagogue. In 1959 the building caught fire at night, but the fire was extinguished by Russian neighbors living nearby. In the years of soviet rule the Malakhovka synagogue served as a refuge for activists of the Jewish community who were hiding from persecution for their faith.
Quite recently, on 1 March of this year, the synagogue building was turned over to the Jewish community for use without charge. (tr. by PDS, posted 10 May 2005)
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Plenipotentiary for human rights is heading a campaign against religious minorities.
On the night of Saturday to Sunday of Easter (30 April-1 May 2005), at four o'clock in the morning unknown persons threw a bottle with flammable liquid through the door of the "Blagovestie" Evangelical Christian-Baptist church of Cheliabinsk. The brothers who were on custodial duty in the church did not immediately discover the fire. At first, smoke spread throughout the church and then the fire alarm system was activated. The flame was quickly put out by the efforts of the brothers using a fire extinguisher.
In the morning people coming to the church met a horrible sight. Crossing the burned threshold of the church, people were horrified. But this did not spoil the believers' mood. The hall of the church was overflowing with people for the Easter services, who prayed for the people who committed this act, for the salvation of their souls as well as that through this God would be glorified. Police officers were called with regard to the incident of arson, who filled out papers. Workers of the prosecutor's office also arrived.
The incident of arson cannot but be linked with the activity of the local administration. On Thursday, 28 April, the local television channel "Eastern Express" showed a report on the news program about a press conference that had been held, devoted to the activity of "totalitarian sects." The event was organized by none other than the chair of the Commission on Human Rights, Ekaterina Gorinaia, in response to an upcoming Christian event.
The report contained examples of the way sectarians win over converts, and incidents of arson and suicide were mentioned which supposedly had been instigated by leaders of sects, and all of this was shown against a background of persons at worship services in the "Blagovestie" church. Subsequently it was explained that the reporters, who could not find appropriate images for the montage simply used archival videos of the "Blagovestie" church. Previously Cheliabinsk television reporters had often provided good reporting about the "Blagovestie" church and the church had good relations with them, so this incident was quite unexpected by everybody and had negative consequences.
The incident had not only an impact on the general atmosphere in the city but also on individual Christian souls. Here is a typical example. Irina, who sings in the choir, had difficult relations with her parents because they were leery of the church. On the fateful evening the whole family watched the local news together. One can imagine the parents' reaction when they saw their daughter among the people pictured along with the tales about the "horrible sectarians." After this her parents took Ira away from the city so that she could not attend church on Easter weekend.
The reason the anti-Christian material was broadcast on provincial television was that several evangelical churches of the city had joined together in order to conduct an event in the central park of the city for the Easter weekend. The city authorities were informed and permission was received from the chief of the central district.
But apparently the city administration has its own understanding of the law on freedom of speech. In practice, it has engaged in incitement of inter-religious strife under the guise of fighting "for human rights Cheliabinsk-style." (tr. by PDS, posted 9 May 2005)
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The chief rabbi of Russia, Berl Lazar, spoke out against the "rehabilitation of nazism" and "heroizing of fascist criminals" in the Baltic states and Ukraine. This was mentioned in his official declaration to the governments of the states of these regions, which arrived at the offices of Portal.
"The fact that the authorities of a number of former republics of USSR and political leaders of these states think it permissible to support openly parades of veterans of the SS and to erect monuments to nazis or to revive explicitly fascist organizations, as well as to welcome the activities of contemporary extremist and terrorist groups whose ideas and methods are so very inhumane and present to the world no less a threat than did nazism in its time," the appeal says.
"It is possible to discuss at length the negative consequences of victory for the countries of the Baltic region, but it is impossible to deny that the actions of SS troops and their accomplices in the territories seized by the nazis were crimes." In emphasizing this the rabbi recalls that "the sixty-first session of the UN Commission on Human Rights adopted a resolution directed against the rebirth of fascism and its glorification and almost all European countries spoke out in favor of its adoption. (tr. by PDS, posted 7 May 2005)
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It was on Pascha that it became clear what form of Orthodoxy will survive in Russian society.
It is probably hard to find nowadays an Orthodox clergyman who would not complain about the "popular cemetery Easter." It long ago became habitual among the servants of the altar to wearily express dissatisfaction that a great multitude of citizens, disdaining church services, flock on the days of the Easter season to cemeteries, where amongst the graves that are by no means always adorned with an Orthodox cross they indulge themselves in moderate (and not so moderate) libations and relish some Easter eggs. The most zealous priests even call such folk "grave worshippers."
As competent offices of the State Department of Internal Affairs report (and for Easter there were 20,000 police officers in Moscow), approximately 680,000 persons visited cemeteries in the city--500,000 on Easter Sunday and another 180,000 on the Saturday before. This is more than a year ago when "only" 640,000 visited the cemeteries.
These figures bear witness that the number of our fellow citizens who are concerned about the linkage of the ages and their relations with deceased ancestors is growing. And if one views the process most abstractly, then one can see a positive aspect to it. If we will assess the processes that are occurring in the spiritual life of the population of contemporary Russia, not from the point of view of dogmatic Orthodoxy, but from the point of view of the sociological realities, then we will have to recognize that this is the national religion and its chief component, "love for ancestral graves," is the "Orthodoxy" that is now being reborn throughout all of Russia. The Orthodoxy for the nation is simply the "religion of our ancestors."
According to data of the same department, 359,000 persons attended Pascha services in Moscow. These are just those who came to gaze at the procession of the cross; only 80,000 persons in all stayed for worship at the evening services. If we compare this with the size of the population of Moscow, the proportion is not especially impressive. However, the number of people who are prepared to last through the long evening services and prepare themselves carefully for the sacrament and listen attentively to the teachings of the holy fathers that are read at the Pascha service has never been substantial. By way of comparison, we recall that in 2000, no more than 120,000 persons attended church for worship (and not just to spectate), and in 1992-1994, it was 180,000. In 2002 the Ministry of Internal Affairs predicted that approximately 15 million people throughout the country would participate in all Easter events, including Passion Sunday, Pascha, Bright Week, and Radonitsa (Commemoration of the Dead); that is barely more than ten percent of the population. Data for other regions confirm the same picture; for the chief Orthodox feast day, at least according to information from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and provincial administrations, between one half and two percent of the population attend church. This would be a more or less realistic figure of the number of citizens who are receptive to something more than "popular Orthodoxy."
Back at the end of 2003 Patriarch Alexis lamented in his address to the Moscow diocesan meeting: "Churches are empty. And they are not empty just because the number of churches has multiplied. It is a natural process and will continue." This is something especially to regret. Ever fewer people are ready to go to church because it is an activity that is too far removed from the daily lives that people live, and the social mechanisms that lead them to see in church activity a way of being liberated from dreary existence are still not working. Or they have ceased working.
At the same time "popular Orthodoxy," with its cult of the dead, traditional foods, ritual drinking, and the like, has always intermingled with church Orthodoxy. This is why it is extremely difficult to arrive at objective statistics of how many people celebrate Pascha. On one hand, a great number of people celebrate it, but on the other hand the majority of these people are more likely attracted to "popular Orthodoxy," and not to the Orthodoxy of church dogma. It is this "popular Orthodoxy" that is now being socially called for, and the church's success in evangelism will depend on the extent to which it is able successfully to incorporate this "popular Orthodoxy" into its activities.
The question about the salvation and restoration of humanity by Christ, which constitutes the main message of Pascha for those who are "profoundly churched" Orthodox Christians , is simply impossible to comprehend because it deals with doctrines that are sublime and hard to understand and difficult to explain without employing special concepts and preliminary training. This is why popular Orthodoxy has been and remains the only possible kind of Orthodoxy for the enormous mass of people.
At present one cannot see the peculiar preconditions for the assimilation by the mass of people of a different understanding of Orthodoxy that approximates a church, dogmatic understanding. One should not expect them to form in the near future. Although as they say, falsehood, truth, and statistics are three different things, and the "cemetery church folk" give irrefutable evidence of some kind of variation in Orthodoxy in the future. (tr. by PDS, posted 5 May 2005)
UKRAINE: NEW LEADERS PINNING HOPES ON CONSTANTINOPLE PATRIARCHATE
by Alexei Makarkin deputy director of the Center for Political technologies
RIA Novosti,
26 April 2005
Opinion & analysis Nowosti
The Christian Orthodox community in Ukraine is split among a number of openly competing churches: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP); the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarchate (UOC-KP), under the leadership of the former Metropolitan Filaret, who the Russian Orthodox Church anathematized; and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which was kept alive by supporters of Ukrainian independence in the 1940s.
In the latest development in the long-standing confrontation between these churches, the Constantinople Patriarchate has expressed its desire to act as arbiter in the Ukrainian interchurch dispute. The Moscow Patriarchate is unsurprisingly opposed to this, as it believes that Ukraine falls under its own jurisdiction.
Ukrainian Orthodox believers opposed to the influence of the Moscow Patriarchate had previously appealed to the Constantinople Patriarchate, but Istanbul had been very wary of getting involved, as it had thought that the UOC-MP was the only church with canonical standing in Ukraine.
The situation changed after Viktor Yushchenko won the presidential election. The new president supports the idea that there should be just one church in Ukraine, a unified national church, which by its very nature could not come under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. This explains why Ukrainian supporters of the Constantinople Patriarchate have stepped up their efforts. Archbishop Vsevolod (Maidanovsky), one of the leading hierarchs of the Constantinople Patriarchate, visited Ukraine last March and informed President Yushchenko that when Patriarch Dionysius of Constantinople transferred the Kyivan Metropolitanate to the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Moscow in 1686 he had been acting on his own authority, without the consent of the Holy Synod. Therefore, Constantinople does not recognize the autocephaly of the Russian Orthodox Church beyond the borders of Moscow's rule; that is, it does not recognize its jurisdiction in Ukraine.
Constantinople clearly wants revenge for the numerous setbacks that it has suffered over the years. For several centuries the territory controlled by the Constantinople Patriarchate, the "first in honor" of the Orthodox sees (that is traditionally the most revered), kept shrinking. Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria seceded in the 19th century, and even Greece left to establish its own Orthodox Church of Hellas (although the Constantinople Patriarchate had historically been Greek).
In the last 100 years, Constantinople has increased its missionary activities in the US, but even there the "first in honor" Patriarchate does not have a monopoly: the Russian Orthodox Church granted autocephaly to the Orthodox Church in America, which was established on the basis of Russian dioceses set up in the "New World."
Then there was the issue of Estonia. Moscow and Constantinople clashed head on over this small country in the 1990s, and now there are two competing churches in Estonia.
Constantinople now has a chance to oust the Moscow Patriarchate from Ukraine by offering its patronage to the creation of a unified Ukrainian church, which would give it canonical legitimacy (hence the reference to the events of 1686). And we have seen moves being made towards this. However, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople remains conspicuously silent about Archbishop Vsevolod's pronouncement, even though it concerns a crucial issue in interchurch relations. Constantinople appears to be testing the waters before making any decisions of principle. And there are good reasons for this.
Firstly, Ukraine is not Estonia. If Constantinople directly interferes in Ukrainian Orthodox affairs, the two Churches could fall out for a long time. During the dispute over Estonia, Moscow suspended ecclesiastical contacts with Constantinople for several months. But now a rift could have much wider consequences. With Greek Orthodoxy in crisis (due to the corruption scandals in the Jerusalem and Hellenic Orthodox Churches), further interchurch conflict could seriously damage the international standing of Orthodox Christianity. Moreover, if this were to happen, Constantinople would be "the guilty party."
Secondly, it is not known how stable the new Ukrainian government will prove to be. Already there are dissentions in the ranks. President Yushchenko may manage to "regulate" the situation, but what if he cannot? The ancient Constantinople Church cannot allow itself to become bogged down in an unstable political situation.
Last but not least, Constantinople will struggle to find partners within Ukraine. The UOC-MP will not entertain a partnership, and given that this Church unites the overwhelming majority of Ukrainian Orthodox parishes, more than 10,000 of them, this poses something of a challenge to the Constantinople Patriarchate. (posted 7 May 2005)
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The primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox church of the Kievan patriarchate (UPTsKP), Filaret Denisenko, thinks that the political transformations in the country should facilitate the establishment of a local Ukrainian Orthodox church, Interfax reports.
"The 'Orange Revolution' should facilitate such an establishment in Ukraine of a local church and its recognition. As a local church, the Ukrainian church already exists. It is the Kievan patriarchate. It is an autocephalous church because it does not depend upon the Moscow patriarchate. Hitherto a substantial portion of Ukrainian society has depended upon the Moscow patriarchate. Through this church the Moscow patriarch exercises influence, and we have seen this influence during the 'Orange Revolution,'" the head of UPTsKP said in an interview with the "Era-FM" radio station. According to his information, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko supports the creation of a local church in Ukraine.
"This is not a political reprisal. Each head of state should be concerned about the integrity of his state and the consolidation of society. But how can it be consolidated if the Moscow patriarchate and the Kievan patriarchate oppose one another? This happened during the presidential elections. Consolidation is possible through the creation of a united church," Filaret emphasized.
At the same time he noted that the church cannot be created by orders from the president, because this would be interference by the state in the affairs of the church. In Filaret's opinion, a local Ukrainian Orthodox church can be created by the clergy and believers, and its autocephaly should be confirmed by the Ecumenical Patriarch.
"A local church will be created by the Orthodox people themselves, by the hierarchs and believers. They will decide whether to be or not," Filaret said.
The head of UPTsKP thinks that the basis for this is a declaration by the Ecumenical Patriarch about the recognition of the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox church within the boundaries of 1686, that is, without Ukraine. "This was done so that the Ecumenical Patriarch could issue a tomas (church document) regarding autocephaly," Filaret noted.
On 5 March 2005 Yushchenko expressed confidence at the founding congress of the "Our Ukraine National Union" that a united Orthodox church will be created in Ukraine. On 25 March the Religious Information Service of Ukraine reported that Archbishop of Skopel Vsevolod Maidansky delivered to the Ukrainian side a letter from the Ecumenical Patriarch which said that the Kievan metropolia is not within the canonical territory of the Moscow patriarchate.
Meanwhile, representatives of the Moscow patriarchate cast doubt on the information in Archbishop Vsevolod's statements. (tr. by PDS, posted 5 May 2005)
PATRIARCH ALEXIS THINKS THE PROCESS OF CREATION OF A UNITED UKRAINIAN
ORTHODOX CHURCH SHOULD NOT BE FORCED
Mir religii,
4 May 2005
Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow and all-Rus called for a tactful resolution of church problems in Ukraine. "The church situation in Ukraine today is extremely complex and extremely painful, and any incautious step could turn out very costly," Alexis II stressed. The text of his interview was published on the official web server of the Moscow patriarchate, ITAR-TASS reports.
Alexis expressed concern over the idea of "forcing the process" of the creation of a united Ukrainian Orthodox church which, in the patriarch's opinion, is "canonically impossible" because of the existing schismatic groupings. The patriarch thinks that any resolution "would inevitably turn out to be accompanied by a flood of nationalist passions and by a violation not only of ecclesiastical, but also of political peace in the country."
The patriarch also suggests that "the Russian state should deal with the national self-consciousness of Ukrainians with great tact." At the same time, the patriarch stressed, "Russia would have to multiply many times its concern about the preservation of our common spiritual and cultural heritage in Ukraine," and "facilitate the maintenance of the values that unite our nations."
As noted in ITAR-TASS's commentary, since the beginning of the 1990s there has been in Ukraine, besides the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox church, two schismatic groups, the so-called "Kievan patriarchate," headed by Filaret Denisenko, and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox church. Both of these groupings have not received recognition by a single canonical church in the world. (tr. by PDS, posted 5 May 2005)
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