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Russia Religion News Current News Items
Muscovites object to accreditation of protestant university
ON THE BAPTIST NEEDLESovetskaia Rossiia, 25 October 2007
Open letter addressed to Patriarch Alexis II, Prime Minister V.A. Zubkov, Prosecutor General Yu.Ya. Chaika, Minister A.A. Fursenko, and a number of other well known leaders, from an action group of 15,000 Muscovites who disagree with the establishment of and grant of a license for educational activity and state accreditation of the Russian American Christian Institute (RAKhI)
We are compelled to disturb you in connection with our dissent to the granting of state accreditation to the RAKhI educational institution by the Ministry of Education and Science. This incident evoked a storm of displeasure among the public of Moscow and residents of Russian.
The curriculum of RAKhI is posted on the institute's own web site and it is also published in a separate volume and therefore our action group, which includes pedagogues with an education degree, journalists, students from Moscow institutions of higher education, and representatives of the Orthodox church, has been able to become acquainted with it in detail. And after this acquaintance, we have unanimously concluded that education in RAKhI is not beneficial for our youth and it poses great harm to Russia and its independent culture and defense capacity.
The leadership of RaKhI received a license and state accreditation for educational activity in the following disciplines: economics, philology, and social work, but actually it is also engaged in evangelistic activity with a neoprotestant Baptist bias. And it has not received any permits for this evangelistic activity. For example, RAKhI Prorector V. Obrovets is a pastor of the Baptist church in Moscow and he directs the Baptist seminary. Classes in RaKhI begin with a protestant prayer and every student, irrespective of his confession, is obligated to have a Baptist spiritual adviser. And, as the vice-chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow patriarchate, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, who carefully studied the materials of this institution, concludes, RAKhI engages in obvious proselytism with respect to Orthodoxy and other Christian confessions. In his opinion, the activity of RAKhI evidences nothing less than open hostility with regard to Russia and to its independent culture, traditions, and Orthodox confession. They call us to be tolerant, while they themselves have a double standard: you will be tolerant of us, but we do not wish to be so with you. This is why Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin draws the conclusion: "the activity of RAKhI should right away be attentively analyzed by official organs of education and city government, which is supporting its work" (we quote a letter by Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin). According to the RAKhI curriculum, our young men and women participate in American national holidays, including the pagan Halloween, which reminds one of a Devil's Sabbath and which unites all that is most sinister on earth. At a time when it is most necessary to imbue the souls of our youth with the foundations of our millennium-old independent culture, they suggest that we accommodate the "Procrustean Bed" of American values.
But in order that we not seem to you to be one-sided, we present as an example what was said about Baptist education by a former Baptist scholar, Vladimir Solodovnikov. We have here his article "Does the Russian intelligentsia have a spiritual home? Surely not in Baptist teaching!" Solodovnikov, who devoted 25 years to Baptist teaching and several years to RaKhI, recently quit them for good; in his article he says, in particular: "I assure you of this. You will not be able to realize fruitfully those talents that Almighty God has given you so long as you remain in Baptist congregations and share the Baptist worldview, and wither your brain by listening to illiterate primitive preaching, however heartfelt, of domestic and foreign preachers." Further in this article Solodovnikov gives the following information: "As a rule, teachers in Baptist institutions are evening students who graduated from high school during the time of the breakup Soviet secondary education. Russian Baptists have a 'beastly fear' of thinking people; they are out of control and that means they must be squeezed out of the sphere of education." But these trusted young "geniuses", these student teachers, without experienced pedagogues and without an academic base, have not created a single serious academic article, to say nothing of a basic monograph.
A license for educational activity should not be granted to such an institution as RAKhI mechanically, without a profound analysis of its ecclesiastical ideology, since it is this that creates the premises for instability in our society. American Baptists try to find for themselves propitious ground in Russia through large classes in the English language and through establishing in our land educational institutions of the RAKhI type. They have the money and they subject the Russian Baptists to dependence upon the American financing needle. The overwhelming (90%) portion of Baptist books and texts are produced in America.
And do we want our youth to receive a social education with the soul-destroying neoprotestant ideology? By no means!
And the political goals of American Baptists, reeking with the odor of the CIA, are being overlooked.
At one of the meetings with students and teachers of RAKhI, its president, John Bernbaum, stated directly: "Our chief goal is the education of the potential leaders of the new Russia!" Doesn't it seem to you that we have already met this in the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine? Of such interference in our internal affairs, President Vladimir Putin has already spoken in Munich, as has FSB Director Nikolai Patrushev from the high tribunal in the State Duma.
Thus, proceeding from what has been said above, in the name of more than 15,000 Muscovites and residents of Russia we demand the creation of an independent commission of specialists of high rank and representatives of the public and the church, who would be able to conduct a profound analysis of the activity of RAKhI and draw a conclusion about the needs and dangers for Russia of such an institutions.
We are convinced that the danger is real. (tr. by PDS, posted 30 November 2007)
Promoting
Thanksgiving Ð not Halloween
Responses to
an open letter in ×Sovietskaya RossiyaÒ
An open letter condemning
RACU (only called an
institute or ÒRACIÓ in Russian) has needed to move several times since
setting up shop in
The open letter expresses
amazement that the institution was granted official accreditation,
citing a lack of scholarly excellence. Broersma, a US-American and
non-Baptist, responds: ÒThe accreditation commission checked us from
top to bottom back in 2003. There is no basis to that charge. We
believe we will again meet all requirements when that accreditation is
up for renewal in 2008.Ó
Broersma is at a loss to
explain the barrage of accusations of proselytisation being levelled at
the university. The open letter labels the institution as ÒBaptistÓ -
yet nearly half of RACU´s professors (and some students) are Orthodox.
The Provost admits: ÒAll of our students are required to write a
statement professing their Christian faith when they apply. But
Orthodox statements of faith are readily accepted. We are not in the
business of replacing a personÕs Christian faith with another one.Ó
RACU is one of over 70
learning institutions in 24 countries affiliated with the Washington
D.C.-based ÒCouncil of Christian Colleges and UniversitiesÓ. The CCCU
represents 102 universities and colleges in
This open letter heavily
nationalist in flavour faults Washington-based RACU-President Dr. John
Bernbaum for stating: ÒOur primary objective is educating the potential
leaders of a new
RACU-Orthodox relations
took a turn for the worse in March when Rev. Vsevolod Chaplin, a
spokesperson for the Moscow PatriarchateÕs ÒDepartment for External
Church RelationsÓ headed by Metropolitan Kirill, voiced public
criticism. In an article entitled ÒBaptising CaesarÓ, John Bernbaum had
cited low church attendance as proof for the claim that Russians are no
longer an Orthodox people. He added: ÒDespite all the hopes and
self-denying efforts of thousands of Western and Russian evangelists,
Rev. Vitaly Vlasenko,
Director of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists` own
Department of External Church Relations, comments: ÒWhile RACU is not a
Baptist organisation, we do wish RACU would cooperate more closely
with Baptist and Orthodox institutions in
A lawyer for
Protestant pastor sues Russian school
DATE SET FOR JUDICIAL INVESTIGATION OF SUIT FOR COMPENSATIN OF MORAL DAMAGE FROM CONDUCTING WORSHIP SERVICE IN SCHOOLCredo.ru, 16 November 2007
The pastor of the international "Community of Christ" church in Gribanovka settlement of Voronezh province, Aleksei Perov, has received a notice from the court with an indication of the date for the beginning of a judicial investigation, Portal-credo.ru reports.
The review of the case is scheduled for 6 December.
The defendant in the case is the administration of School No. 3 of Gribanovka settlement. The suit filed by Aleksei and Galina Perov, as legal representatives of their son David, names as "third persons" a priest of the Voronezh diocese of RPTsMP, Alexander Muraviev, who conducted a worship service in the classroom on 3 September, and the Board of Education of Voronezh province.
For determination of the amount of compensation for moral damage, the plaintiffs propose in their suit the application of the Erdelevsky method, which is unique to Russia now, that is employed in the practice of Russian courts. In this calculation, for violation of civil rights in the sphere of freedom of conscience and confession, a coefficient of 0.025 is used. Translation of this coefficient into a monetary equivalent yields a figure of 18 times the minimum wage.
Considering that the moral damage was done to a minor, the plaintiffs ask the court to double the coefficient in determining the amount of moral compensation for their son and to use the coefficient itself in the case of the parents. (tr. by PDS, posted 16 November 2007)
Related article: Orthodoxy in schools provokes violence against non-Orthodox
SCHOOLBOY TAKES UNORTHODOX STAND
by Svetlana Osadchuk, Staff Writer
Moscow Times, 13 November 2007
David Perov's first day of school was almost his last.
The 7-year-old boy was punched, kicked and taunted by other first graders after he refused to participate in an Orthodox service to open the school year, he and his parents said.
Prosecutors have determined that Voronezh School No. 3 violated the boy's religious rights by holding the service, and his parents are now suing the public school in court.
"We just want to prevent something like this from happening to another child," Alexei Perov, the boy's father and pastor of the local Community of Christ church, said in a telephone interview.
David Perov's story exposes a darker side to the growing influence of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has seen a revival under President Vladimir Putin, a professed believer. Although the Constitution envisions the separation of church and state, Orthodoxy has made huge inroads since the Soviet collapse, with Putin attending services with church leaders, priests being called to bless factories, airplanes and even power turbines, and lessons on church culture being taught in some public schools.
The church says it has public support for its activities. Indeed, 75 percent of Russians consider themselves Orthodox Christians, even though only 10 percent of them attend church and observe Orthodox traditions, according to a recent survey by state-controlled VTsIOM.
For many people, being Orthodox is akin to being Russian, said Anatoly Pchelintsev, a lawyer and head of the Slavic Legal Center, an interfaith organization founded in 1992 to help safeguard the rights of believers in the former Soviet Union.
David Perov's troubles started when a local Orthodox priest, Alexander Muraviyev, arrived to conduct the service for the first graders on Sept. 3.
The boy did not know how to behave during the service, said Alexei Perov, who is raising his son in the Community of Christ, a church with headquarters in Independence, Missouri, that claims 250,000 members worldwide and traces its roots back to Mormon founder Joseph Smith.
The first graders' Orthodox service included prayers and incense burning while the children crossed themselves, said the school's principal, Tatyana Zhukova. At the end, the children were given a cross to kiss, she said.
"I did not want to kiss the cross," David Perov said by telephone. He said several boys hit him and called him "fanatic" in a playroom after the service. "The teacher saw that they were beating me but said nothing," he said.
When boy's mother, Galina Perova, came to pick him up, she found him hiding in the bathroom, she said. "I asked the teacher what had happened, but she told me, 'Nothing,'" she said. Back at home, her son tearfully told her that he would never go to school again.
The parents complained to the local prosecutor's office, and prosecutors agreed that the school had broken two laws, on religious freedom and education, prosecutor Alexander Bykanov wrote in an official letter to Alexei Perov on Oct. 8.
Zhukova, the principal, said the school had done nothing wrong. "We did receive a note from the prosecutor's office, but we deny that anything bad was done to the child," she said. "We did not know that the boy was of a different faith."
Muraviyev, the priest, said by telephone that he had not known that a non-Orthodox boy was in the class. Later in the interview, though, he acknowledged that he had been told about the boy when he arrived at the school that day. His son was among the first graders.
Asked about David Perov being abused by his classmates, he said, "Nothing of the sort happened." Muraviyev said he had been invited to conduct the service by the teacher and parents.
Voronezh region's top education official, Georgy Zvorygin, said in a letter to Alexei Perov on Sept. 20 that the decision to hold the service had been made at a parents' meeting.
Zvorygin, like education officials in several other regions, has a special arrangement with the Orthodox Church, under which many schools offer a class titled "The Foundation of Orthodox Culture." The classes -- which the church insists teaches only culture, not doctrine -- are permitted under a law that allows each region to set its own policy on whether religious classes are taught in their schools. A total of 12 regions now offer "The Foundation of Orthodox Culture" class, according to a Public Chamber survey.
Human rights activists, however, warn that the class can encourage xenophobia. "It was just a bad idea to impose these lessons in a region where 17 different nationalities live," said Olga Gnezdilova, a lawyer with Chernozemiye, a human rights organization in Voronezh, who is advising the Perovs.
The State Duma is considering an amendment to close the legal loophole through which the Orthodox classes were introduced. Facing opposition from the church, however, Duma deputies have watered down the amendment to allow individual schools to determine their own curriculum by "taking into account regional or national particularities, the type of school, educational requirements and students' requests," said Stepan Medvedko, an adviser to the Duma's Public and Religious Organizations Committee.
Orthodox activists, meanwhile, have collected more than 100,000 signatures in favor of requiring all schoolchildren to take Orthodox classes, said Vadim Kvyatkovsky, the Moscow leader of a church youth organization.
Kvyatkovsky, speaking to reporters earlier this month, said the petition aimed to influence the authorities and "to show the opinion of the majority" after 10 prominent academics sent an open letter to President Vladimir Putin criticizing the Orthodox class in public schools and the "growing clericalization" of society.
The church's main spokesman, Vsevolod Chaplin, said that dropping the class would violate the rights of Orthodox children. "We have a majority of Orthodox children in this country, and we should respect their rights," Chaplin said by telephone. "In Belgorod, for instance, there are thousands of children who study Orthodox culture at school and there is no problem. As far as I know, only about 60 children have refused to attend these lessons."
Belgorod has more schools offering the Orthodox class than any other region, creating such an outcry that Putin addressed the issue during a visit there in September. "We have to find a form acceptable for all of society," Putin said. He stopped short of calling for the classes to be scaled back.
The head of the federal ombudsman's religious freedom office, Mikhail Odintsov, said he had been flooded with letters from parents complaining about their children being forced to take Orthodox classes. "The class should not be compulsory because that would be a violation of the law," he said at a news conference on Oct. 4, Interfax reported.
A Voronezh court is now being asked to award damages to David Perov for his ordeal. Alexei Perov filed a lawsuit seeking 41,000 rubles ($1,640) from School No. 3 this month. "This is not a considerable amount, but those found guilty in the case would be punished financially at least," said Gnezdilova, the lawyer.
The school principal accused David Perov's parents of exaggerating the incident and accused the Community of Christ of stirring up trouble. "I guess that his parents got a lot of money from their American religious sponsors to start this scandal," Zhukova said.
A senior Community of Christ official said the only money sent to Alexei Perov was "a very small monthly amount from the church for his expenses as pastor." "Neither the Community of Christ nor any of our ministers have ever suggested to Alexis anything about this case," said Leonard Young, supervising minister of the Community of Christ's Europe church. "We are a church that promotes peace, reconciliation and cultural understanding and certainly would not seek to cause any problems in [Voronezh]."
Chaplin, the Orthodox church spokesman, said he stood by the school. "The teachers said nothing wrong was done to the boy, and I believe them," he said. "It is only the boy's father who says his son was beaten. I don't think the children would beat another child immediately after the service."
David Perov eventually returned to School No. 3, although he was placed in a class with a different teacher. He said he liked his studies, but that he was afraid that the priest might come back one day.
Russia Religion News Current News Items
Duma undermines means for teaching religion in schools
FOUNDATIONS OF ORTHODOX CULTURE WILL NOT BE TAUGHT IN SCHOOLSState Duma adopts amendments to education law abolishing regional curriculum
by Boris Klin
Izvestiia, 15 November 2007
On Tuesday the State Duma adopted on second reading amendments to the law "On education," abolishing the so-called regional curriculum. Beginning 1 September 2009, "Foundations of Orthodox culture" will be removed from the curriculum; it has been introduced as a regional curriculum in a number of provinces. Teaching of ntional languages and literature also will be stopped in several republics.
We recall that representatives of the church had spoken out against the abolition of the regional curriculum, and on 6 November His Holiness Pariarch Alexis II of Moscow and all-Rus and the Holy Synod issued an official declaration which said, in particular: "The preservation of the right of regional authorities and of schools themselves to determine a certain part of the obligatory curriculum, which could be used for introducing subjects with spiritual and moral contents, is justifiable." However, as a legal consultant of the Moscow patriarchate, Kseniia Chernega, told Izvestiia, no amendment was a adopted for the church. In its turn, the press secretary of the Moscow patriarchate, priest Vladimir Vigiliansky stated: "The decision of the Duma was made despite the wishes of a majority of the country. Children will be deprived of the opportunity to deal with traditional values and the culture of Russian civilization. It seems to me that the deputies are in thrall to disinformation being spread by opponents of the foundations of Orthodox culture and they simply do not know what they are doing."
The State Council of Tatarstan is disappointed with the position of the State Duma. An advisor for the head of the Committee on Culture, Ildus Davleev said: "Once the regional curriculum is removed then it will turn out that our opinion will not be considered." It is necessary to note that opposition to this draft law also was expressed in other regions, for example, in Kuban. But on Tuesday at the session the head of the Duma Committee on Education, Valery Grebennikov, stated: "Conceptually, the law proceeds from a granting to offices of state administration of the right to establish certain [educationalÑIzv.] standards."
At the same time the Duma adopted a law granting to religious educational institutions the possibility to issue diplomas in the state form. Here, according to Fr Vladimir, the Duma members simply fulfilled the president's promise: "We now remain the last country in Europe where diplomas of religious higher educational institutions are not recognized." (tr. by PDS, posted 16 November 2007)
Russian original posted on Credo.ru site, 15 November 2007
Russia Religion News Current News Items
Tenth anniversary of Russia's religion law
FUTURE OF LAW "ON FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATIONS"
DISCUSSED IN SEMINARSlavic Legal Center, 16 November 2007
The future of the 1997 federal law "On freedom of conscience and religious associations" and the practice of implementation of freedom of conscience and problems of state-church relations in Russia were dealt with in the course of an academic and practical seminar devoted to the tenth anniversary of the law on freedom of conscience, the press service of the Slavic Legal Center reports. The seminar was held on 14 November in the press center of the Slavic Legal Center in Moscow.
Organizers of the seminar included the "National Interests" magazine, the department of State-Confessional relations of the presidential administration of the Russian federation, and the Slavic Legal Center. The following topics were chosen for discussion: results of the decade; the effect of the federal law "On freedom of conscience and religious associations" on the religious situation and on the development of state-confessional relations; directions for the improvement of the law; cooperation of the state and religious organizations and its significance and prospects for preserving the secularity of the state; and the threat of "clericalization" of Russia: myth or reality? It is intended that the texts of the addresses will be published in the "National Interests" magazine.
The directors of the seminar included Andrei Panibrattsev, chief editor of "National Interests," Mikhail Shakhov, professor of the department of state-confessional relations and deputy chief editor of "National Interests," and Attorney Anatoly Pchelintsev, chief editor of "Religion and Law" magazine.
In the course of the sharp debate the legal enforcement of the law on freedom of conscience was discussed and also the opinion was expressed that the current law should remain as a monument of the times, because any change will evoke a mass of arguments and attempts by various groups to introduce into it amendments favorable to them. Speakers expressed concerns with regard to the unjustified introduction of "Foundations of Orthodox culture" in a virtually obligatory form, the institution of the military chaplaincy, and intensification of attempts to make the Russian Orthodox church the de facto state church in a country with a multiconfessional and multiethnic culture. Seminar participations noted possible future changes in Russian legislation which will affect religious organizations. In addition, it was noted that there is no articulated religious policy nor any discussion of significant religious and social problems in the Profile Committee of the State Duma. A number of speakers advocated creation of a state office which would be responsible for concrete development of a religion policy and would ward off arbitrariness of bureaucrats in the province, with whom religious associations often clash in all regions of the Russian federation. (tr. by PDS, posted 16 November 2007)
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