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Orthodox sect-fighter for criminalizing religious activity
ALEXANDER DVORKIN: RUSSIAN CRIMINAL CODE SHOULD CONTAIN ÔCONSCIENCE MANIPULATIONÕ AND ÔPSYCHOLOGICAL VIOLENCEÕ TO FIGHT SECTSInterfax, 20 February 2007
Prof. Alexander Dvorkin, president of the Russian Association of Centers for Religious and Sectarian Studies, has proposed to introduce a number of new notions in the Russian Criminal Code for more effective counteraction to totalitarian cults.
ÔThe Criminal Code should contain such terms as Ôconscience manipulationÕ and Ôpsychological violenceÕ. These terms will make it possible for us to carry out effective work in the struggle with sectsÕ, Dvorkin said at a press conference in Moscow on Tuesday.
It is for the lack of appropriate articles in the Criminal Code, he believes, that Ôthe lawsuit against Grabovoy is glitchingÕ now.
Dvorkin reminded the journalists that there was no definition of the term sect in Russia today. This word is usually used in religious studies and in sociological sense. However, the time for its legal clarification just as for adoption of a particular law on sects Ôhas not come yetÕ, he believes.
ÔIf a law on sects is adopted today we will lose. A proper preparation is needed first to put together a serious legal and probative data for struggle against sectsÕ, the professor stressed.
He said nobody had a precise statistics on the number of sects in Russia today because there was no task-oriented monitoring of their activity.
However, according to DvorkinÕs information, there are over 80 large sects in the country, with their activity embracing over half of the Russian regions. As for the number of minor sects, he says, Ôthey amount to thousandsÕ.
Dvorkin also maintains that from 600 to 800 thousand Russians belong to sects today. Some 300 thousand out of them belong to various neo-Pentecostal sects and 150 thousand to the JehovahÕs Witnesses sect.
In addition to those enumerated, Dvorkin considers among large sects the communities of Mormons, Krishnaites and the so-called Church of the Mother of God. (posted 20 February 2007)
Gleb Yakunin back in news
RUSSIAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST MOOTS PUTIN'S SUCCESSION BY A CLERICBBC Monitoring International Reports, 19 January 2007
In an interview with Russian Ekho Moskvy radio on 7 January, Gleb Yakunin, introduced as a Russian Orthodox priest, voiced the idea that Russian President Vladimir Putin could be succeeded by a figure from within the church. Yakunin made his comments on the radio's "Counterstrike" interview and phone-in slot.
Gleb Yakunin is a human rights activist, former Orthodox Christian priest, Soviet-era dissident (imprisoned) and State Duma MP in the early 1990s (see his Wikipedia page).
He founded his theory on the fact that, over Christmas (Russian Orthodox Christmas is celebrated on 7 January), Putin paid a visit to the New Jerusalem monastery, near Moscow, which is associated with Patriarch Nikon of Russia in the 17th century:
"So, this very Nikon (at the time of the split with the Old Believers) not only pursued church reform and led the church at the time of Tsar Aleksey (Peter the Great's father), but also told Aleksey: What if I were to tell you, in my capacity as clergy, to do away with the Caesar-papacy as carried over from Byzantium, for us, the clergy, to rule both the state and to instruct both you and others?"
Yakunin said: "In the final full year of office, our president went there. Could it be that he prayed to Nikon? The fact is that the Moscow patriarchate itself is gradually becoming of the state and is increasingly reminiscent of the CPSU [Communist Party of the Soviet Union] Central Committee ideology section in Soviet times. It is also, as it were, trying to rule over the state. So the following is quite possible, I think:
"Right now, there is a major crisis to do with successors, heirs, with everyone in a state of anxiety. Now imagine this scenario: Our president, Vladimir Putin, is a believer, to judge from everything. So, he prayed and, perhaps, I can well imagine this, he really would like to implement Nikon's ideas and to find a successor for himself among those younger perhaps than the patriarch, who is aged and elderly and is finding things difficult. Find someone like Metropolitan Kirill, who is very active and has an excellent relationship with state security, the many KGB generals now in power."
"And he could well do it, as an excellent economist and so on. The church has no right to get involved in politics, but if he were to leave the church and become, say, prime minister first, he could then be president," Yakunin thought.
"What is more, it occurs to me, notice that everyone in the Kremlin, in the government, all the high officials, they are all Orthodox Christians, so they, it seems to me, would accept this scenario, which would at last be a beautiful union as the state and the church unite, as used to be the case before the revolution," Yakunin summed up.
Kirill is Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad and the Moscow Patriarchate's director of foreign affairs. He was last in the news in November last year, when he received a state award for the promotion of friendship between the peoples (a report by Russian state television Rossiya TV on 21 November), for which he was honoured on his 60th birthday. (from Ekho Moskvy radio, 7 January 2007, posted 19 February 2007)
Russians "sects" under attack
AUTHORITIES BACK ORTHODOX CHURCH CONFRONTED WITH 'NEW' RELIGIONSby Lyudmila Alexandrova, Itar-Tass writer
23 January 2007
The Russian authorities have thrown their weight behind the Russian Orthodox Church in its resistance to unconventional religions calling themselves 'new', which are often referred to as sects. Some analysts suspect that a certain degree of jealousy may be involved, though.
Moscow's Prosecutor Yuri Syomin has vowed to clean the city of sect members. The prosecutors' offices have warned they would take "very harsh measures to end the operation of destructive sects,'' the Novyie Izvestia daily quotes him as saying. The decision follows requests from the Moscow Patriarchate.
Lawsuits have been piling up in courts over the sects' activities and the media these days carry ever more frequent reports about the victims of 'totalitarian cults' and the moral and material damage those people sustained.
Practically all dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church have now created special departments for addressing problems of psychological and moral violence and for offering rehabilitation services to the victims of untraditional religions.
"The Russian Orthodox Church is sincere in its belief that Russia's confessional unity must enjoy top priority,'' says Pavel Kostylev, a senior researcher at the Moscow State University's religious studies department. "There will be some place for Islam, some place for Judaism and some place for Buddhism, but a majority will profess Orthodoxy. This approach will provide the legal basis for prosecuting out-of-step cults.''
Religious organizations that cripple people's souls and minds are a reality, but some analysts believe some sort of jealousy may be involved, as the followers of unconventional cults often prove far more skillful in using modern realities to their advantage.
Even their opponents agree this is true to a certain extent.
Moscow Theological University professor, Deacon Andrei Kurayev says "sect members are smart people in search for the new, they are extraordinary personalities, reluctant to stick to the common lifestyle of those around them they fund dull.''
A free piano music concert Moscow's Mormons - members of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints - arranged for the other day was a graphic example.
Every single person who was entering the concert hall was greeted by activists - young Americans flashing broad American smiles - all fluent in Russian.
Another religious association - the Society for Krishna Consciousness - addresses itself to those fond of everything oriental and exotic. The Krishnaites' temple is located in central Moscow, a free car park and a shop selling soybean products and aromatic burning sticks nearby. Some 30 men and women gather for the evening prayer every day. Hindus resident in Moscow account for about a quarter of those present. The others are Muscovites aged 25-35.
The authorities' attitude to religions sects is cool. In the village of Lotoshino, the Moscow Region, the local authorities last summer denied the Baptists permission to hold a festival of Christian music, family and children's and youth programs called Hope for All. Local Orthodox clergy and activists campaigned against the Baptists.
Nizhni Novgorod, Yekaterinburg, Lipetsk, Yakutsk: The list of Russian cities where the struggle against sects is on keeps growing. The untraditional religious groups seek support outside Russia.
Last December the Strasbourg Court sustained a complaint from Jehovah's Witnesses in Chelyabinsk, ruling that a real estate leasehold contract was severed with them without sufficient legal reasons.
In the course of the trial Jehovah's Witnesses were repeatedly referred to as a 'totalitarian sect.'
The Strasbourg Court ruled that in this particular case there occurred violations of article 6 and 9 of the European human rights convention. The Russian Federation was told to pay over 90,000 euros to the plaintiffs in compensation for the moral and material damage.
The deputy chairman of the commission for the affairs of religious associations under the Russian government, Andrei Sobentsov, offered this comment.
"Our authorities prefer not to quarrel with the traditional religions, because there is the majority behind them. It often happens that officials and politicians interpret statements by some religious figures as an action guide. Many scandals over sects are rooted in the lack of tolerance. Everything alien is perceived as an evil.''
The leader of the Russian Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostalists), Sergei Ryakhovsky, sees the need for a special law on sects.
"When such a law is in place, the authorities will be able to decide who is who,'' Bishop Ryakhovsky said.
In his opinion, the term 'sect' in Russia should be used very carefully, it must be devoid of any insulting, let alone, accusatory connotation.
Neither the Russian Constitution, nor the law on the freedom of conscience and religious associations contains any mention of 'unconventional religions' or 'sects'.
An expert in religious studies, member of the Federation Council's experts group told the on-line periodical NEWSru.com that such terms as 'sects' and 'traditional/untraditional' religions were not legal ones, but continued to be used widely with the aim of ousting some religious organizations from the sphere of active social work.
'New' religions suffer no smaller harm from the activity of all sorts of swindlers disguising themselves as magicians or people with extra-sensorial capabilities the public mind associates with the same category.
The strongest public outrage erupted over the case of so-called healer and sect leader Grigory Grabovoi, who was charged with fraud for promising the mothers of children killed in the Beslan school hostage crisis in September 2004 to resurrect their dear ones.
When Grabovoi was arrested, some started saying his arrest signaled reprisals against sects and unconventional religious associations.
The Federal Registration Service of Russia's Justice Ministry was quick to declare that it had no intention of taking any repressive measures against unconventional religious trends in Russia.
"We act in accordance with the law on the freedom of conscience and religious organizations, which establishes no mechanisms of repression against religious organizations,'' NEWSru.com quotes the chief of the registration services' political parties, non-governmental and religious organizations affairs department, Alexei Zhafyarov as saying. (posted 19 February 2007)
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