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The abrupt sound of the doorbell interrupted my Sunday morning sleep. Scarcely having opened my eyes I managed to tie my robe and get to the door.
"Who's there?" I cautiously enquired, since I wasn't expecting guests at such an early hour.
"Excuse me, do you believe in God?" a quiet female voice enquired behind the door.
"Well . . . in general terms." Because of my surprise I simply could not find how to answer.
"Then, perhaps, you will take a look. We would like to give you some divine literature. Free."
Looking at "divine literature" had in no way entered into my Sunday morning plans; nevertheless, in order not to be impolite I opened the door. In the doorway stood two women with heavy bags.
"Do you know that the world will end soon?" one of the aunties challenged me with emphatic vigor. "Take a look; everything is written here."
I managed to free myself from the persistent women only an hour later. Since I was chilly from the draft, I wasn't up to being delicate. The tireless women left, promising to return, inasmuch as evidently they were obliged to teach me the secrets of the Jehovah's Witnesses' doctrine.
Isn't this a familiar situation? We think that we will not be mistaken if we suggest that in the past year or two adherents of the American Jehovah's Witnesses sect have gotten around to practically all Moscow apartments. In this sense the Jehovists, it seems, outdo even the Japanese sectarians from Aum Shinrikyo. They, at least, haven't wandered about since they are afraid of people and they haven't tried to spread their faith around the apartments. As a result they have all gone back home. The criminal case instigated against three Japanese citizens who were leading the capital city's "Doctrine of the Aum Truth" has been under examination to the present. The heads were charged with organizing an association that infringes on the person and rights of citizens. According to Procurator General of Russia Yury Skuratov, the materials of this case include information that "the leadership of the sect, by means of deception, employing heightened psychological states and their specific effect upon the psyche, drew Russian citizens into their organization."
Subsequent to the instigation of the case against the leadership of Aum Shinrikyo (1995) a criminal case with regard to the activity of the American religious association Jehovah's Witnesses was begun (1996). This was based on the very same article, 143-1 of the criminal code of RSFSR, "Organization of an association which infringes on the person and rights of citizens." The basis for instigation of the case were frightening facts.
In February 1996 a twenty-year-old young man came to the Moscow city clinic of hospital no. 40 with a diagnosis of acute lymphocytosis. To save him from death a blood transfusion was required. However the patient categorically refused to accept the indicated transfusion on the basis that he was a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses sect and opposed blood transfusion on the grounds of religious convictions. The sectarian's fellow believers, who came in droves to the hospital, insisted upon the same: do not give the "brother" a blood transfusion.
"Perhaps you could suggest some other form of therapy?" the physician challenged the Jehovists. "After all, he is at the brink of death."
But the sectarians were not able to suggest anything else. Of course, the physician was not able to force him. He didn't have the right. On the other hand, our medicine also is unable to agree to allowing a person to die whom it is possible to help. Besides, the relatives of the dying man insisted on transfusing the young man.
The medical people were in a complicated situation. Nevertheless a resolution was found. With the consent of the sick man's mother a blood transfusion was given, but without his knowledge; that is, under the guise of a different procedure. This was changed shortly.
A much less happy outcome occured in the case of another patient of the same hospital. An eighty-one-year-old woman arrived with a whole gamut of illnesses: chronic lymphoma, diabetes, artereosclerosis, etc. Because of her age it was extremely difficult to treat her. The only chance of saving her was blood transfusion. But the old woman was not compliant. She rejected all attempts to inject donor's blood inasmuch as the religion she professed, Jehovah's Witnesses, forbade blood transfusion. Soon the retiree died from advancing heart failure.
The attending physician said that it was difficult to predict whether she would have been saved by a blood transfusion because of all her problems. Nevertheless, it was one of the possibilities.
In the opinion of experts, in principle the rational core is that the Jehovists forbid their spiritual slaves from having blood transfusion. After all, it is known that some of the traits of the donor's character are mixed with the blood of the patient; obviously no one wants the blood of a murdered or maniac to flow in his veins.
Jehovah's Witnesses themselves claim that they refuse transfusions because they are trying to avoid AIDS infection, or hepatitis, or other contagious diseases. But if we had more effective means of treatment than blood transfusion, then it would be possible to understand the refusal. However, often blood transfusion is the only means of saving someone.
The materials of the criminal case which the procurator of the northern district of the capital has investigated include documents of another Jehovah's Witnesses citizen, Lebedeva, who on religious grounds tried to kill her seven-year-old son. On a winter day of 1996 Levedeva took her young son (the family had three children) to the zoo. However they did not get far. The Jehovist woman took the boy to the entry of a nearby building, took off his scarf, and began to choke him. The boy began to scream and only when he became quiet did the murderer release the scarf. She left the boy's body in the entry and went to deal with the other children.
Fortunately, the dying boy was found by residents of the building. They called "emergency" and thanks to this he survived.
Investigators of the Dorogomilov procuracy were unable to get an explanation from the child-killer. They took her directly from the police station to the psychiatric hospital. The defendant's husband (incidentally, also a Jehovist) tried to explain the wild conduct of his spouse. He told investigators that he and his wife began to attend the Jehovah's Witnesses in 1990. At the time the woman's psyche was rather disordered because her own father had tried to rape her when she was fourteen years old.
When she was about thirty years old, Lebedeva became interested in various religious movements and in the end joined the Jehovists. Four years later she was hospitalized in an asylum with the diagnosis of "chronic schizophrenic paranoia." The woman talked incessantly about Armageddon, the divine war when children will be killed before their parents' eyes because of general sins. Under the influence of these ideas the mother wanted to put away her own children in advance of the onset of Armageddon. The court sent the thirty-six year old Jehovist to compulsory treated in a psychiatric hospital under intense surveillance.
It is possible that Lebedeva's psychological illness has nothing to do with attending the sect, but nevertheless, aren't there too many coincidences?
The procuracy was not able to use the testimony of yet another former Jehovist, a twenty-three-year-old young man. His mother, coming to the inquest in her son's place, persistently requested that law enforcement agencies not keep summoning him in order to give testimony with regard to the Jehovah's Witnesses.
"I am trying to get my son back to a normal life," she declared to the investigator. "Your inquest and analysis only make his psychological state worse and destroy all my attempts."
Nevertheless, on the insistence of the investigator, the woman cautiously tried to learn from her son whether he wanted to go to the psychiatrist. The son responded to his mother in a very sick manner and this topic was not raised again within the family.
According to the young man's father, who also was summoned to give testimony, the son always was characteristically weak-willed and subject to outside influence. He became a member of the sect in 1995. Since then his conduct became, to put it mildly, strange. The youth constantly said that he should quit work, sell his apartment, and move to America. He also said often: "We all are doomed; everything is useless; I am near the end." As a result the young man was put into a psychiatric clinic.
Dozens of other witnesses in the case of the Witnesses have affirmed with a single voice that their relatives who became members of the Jehovah's Witnesses sect seemed to put on blinders. They lost interest in their family. They do not celebrate traditional holidays, even New Year's. They isolate their extremely young children, forbidding them to play with their peers. Many of the sectarians in the end turn up in psychiatric hospitals.
Recently a Moscow district court deprived one of the Jehovists of the custody of her minor son. The deprivation of parental rights was achieved by the boy's father, an agent of the security force of the Russian federation. He reckoned that the mother, an early convert to the Jehovah's Witnesses sect, had a negative influence on the child. In order to preserve his son from psychological damage, the agent of the power ministry tried to limit contact with his mother and in the end took her to court. Incidentally, agents proposed that the woman could retain her right of contact with the child if she would renounce her religious convictions, but she refused.
INFORMATION: The religious society of Jehovah's Witnesses was registered with the Department of Justice of Moscow on 30 December 1993 (registration number 432). According to the bylaws, the society is a voluntary association of believers, formed for the purposes of joint confession and disseminatin of the Jehovah's Witnesses faith. The bylaws also say that the society's activities respect the constitution and legislation of the Russian federation. Also the society is guided in its activities by canon law.
The criminal case which was developed on the basis of illegal activity of the religious association of Jehovah's Witnesses has been dismissed three times "for lack of substance of criminality in the activities of members of the organization." The fourth time the investigation was initiated in March of this year. But a month had not passed when the case was closed again. This time there was the rather peculiar commentary: "By its activity the religious organization of Jehovah's Witnesses violates international law on human rights and the Russian laws 'On freedom of religious confession,' 'On ecudation,' etc., and violated provisions of the Russian constitution, although specific instances of crime by members of the given organization have not been manifested, so that it is impossible to hold them criminally responsible for specific violation of the law." Which being translated means that the sect actually is engaged in dangerous activity but it is impossible to hold them criminally responsible. Although it would seem that there is a flood of outrageous evidence. However, on closer examination it turns out that the best charge against the Jehovists is "caution." They weigh their every step; they make every act conform with law.
But the impossibility of holding the organizers of the sect criminally responsible testifies not so much to the fact that the Jehovists' actions are legal. It is simply that our legislation is so inadequate that it permits invading sectarians to humiliate us and manipulate our shaken psyche. There is good point in the folk wisdom that "you get out from the law what you put in." This is just such a matter.
In Greece, for example, the Jehovah's Witnesses have it much worse. The constitution of Greece contains the term "proselytism." This means, in particular, "any direct or covert attempt to draw into a religious confession a person of another confession, for the purpose of undermining this confession, or through any enticement or benefit, moral support or material aid, or deceitful means or exploitation of naivete, trust, force, or inferior intellect."
This speaks explicitly about us. Here we are, Russians, naive, gullible, inexperienced, and needy. They deceive us by promising benefits and material support. We succomb to the religious sweet-talk of the foreigners.
In the opinion of experts, Russia occupies second place in suicides, behind Hungary. As to suicides of children and minor, it is in first place by a long shot.
It is no secret that certain political forces in the USA generally want to eliminate the question of some kind of Russian spiritual leadership. For this they need to extract the key point from Russian society, namely the cultural heritage and our Orthodox traditions. Thus all sorts of Jehovah's Witnesses, Aum Shinriko, and Church of Christ groups break out. All of these sects are working against Orthodoxy, and this means against our national traditions, against the Russian nation. We now face imminent ethnic destruction. The demographer Mikhail Bernshtam back in 1990 calculated that if eastern Slavs by 1995 had not selected an effective economic mechanism that produced renaissance, then by 2015 they would literally be "dispersed" as emigrants.
The Greek government, which prohibited any form of proselytism, has tried to protect the country from all imported religious movement and to preserve its traditional Orthodox Christian faith.
Or take the Italians. They are not religious fanatics. But at the same time they observe all religious rituals and rites one hundred percent. Nobody there even imagines not baptizing a newborn. Or not to be married in church. And in the case of a funeral, the service must be in church. And funds for restoring churches are given by everybody without exception. All of this is simply, as they say, in the blood. Thus the Catholic church there is the most powerful uniting force.
The Russian Orthodox church, of course, has no such authority. And that is the church's own fault. That comes from the seventy years of the communist epoch. But this does not mean that we can lightly reject such a powerful heritage which our ancestors left us and buy into the promises of sectarians.
According to the materials of the criminal case: "The Committee for Salvation of Youth affirms that Jehovah's Witnesses is a powerful totalitarian sect of world significance, which engages in drawing into its ranks young children and employs elements of psychic manipulation, substantially lowers the financial conditions of families of sectarians by a strict system of diversion of funds into the sect, promotes hatred toward traditional relibions and religious movement of the Russian Orthodox church, which leads to the destruction of national traditions in the minds of the young generation, destroys bonds of kinship, promotes refusal to perform civic duties, promotes refusal of blood transfusions, and exacerbates fear, anxiety, and psychosis out of expectation of the "end of the world."
Here is what the Orthodox priest Oleg Steniaev (his testimony also is among the matls of the case) has to say about the activity of Jehovah's Witnesses: "The distinctive trait of the sect is proclamatin of the imminent end of the world (Armageddon) and the destruction of all sinners. The leadership of Jehovah's Witnesses have frequently established a date for the end of the world (1914, 1918, 1925, 1975). Their expansion has complicated the political situation in those countries where this organization has many adherents. People did not want to do their work or conduct a normal form of life. They sold their homes and property. This destroyed the fortune of many young people who not only abandoned their familes but did not educate themselves and thus were deprived of training and employemnt and were lost to society.
This organization is reactionary with regard to governmental authority by treating it as superfluous and intolerant to all confessions; it infringes upon human personality and destroys patriotism in its members; and in the end it distorts the national consciousness of a person, making him a useless member of that society in which he lives.
The procurator of the northern district, having closed the criminal case, nevertheless sent to the Golovin district court a presentation in which he petitioned on civil procedure for the liquidation of the religious society of Jehovah's Witnesses as a legal entity and the prohibition of the activity of this religious organization in Moscow.
The judicial examination of the suit of the procurator of the northern district began last week. While it is difficult to predict how these hearings will end, inasmuch as the Jehovah's Witnesses have no intention of simply surrendering since they have the protection of the laws. It is enough to state that the lawyer for the sect, Galina Krylova, also defended Aum Shinrikyo and the Unification Church (Moonists).
In any case the procuracy has time to prepare itself for an indictment that is substantial and supported by laws. The next session of the trial is scheduled for the first of February of next year. (tr. by PDS)
(posted 13 December 1998)
MOSCOW, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Russian activists marked the 50th anniversary of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Thursday with an attack on a controversial law that curbs the freedom of minority religious groups.
The activists said the law symbolised a growing spirit of intolerance in Russia seven years after the collapse of Soviet communism and was now being used by the authorities to try to outlaw the Jehovah's Witnesses Christian group in Moscow.
``Anybody looking into this law will conclude that it is nothing other than an attempt to turn the clock back to the Soviet past,'' said human rights lawyer Galina Krylova, who is currently helping to defend the Jehovah's Witnesses.
``What is at stake here is not just the rights of one small religious group but the freedom of conscience of all Russian citizens,'' she told a news conference.
Alexei Nazarychev, a spokesman for the Jehovah's Witnesses in Moscow, said the new religion law, approved last year despite fierce international criticism, encouraged extremists who had stepped up physical intimidation of believers.
``The law has given the green light to ultra-nationalist groups and some of our meeting places and our members have been subjected to physical attacks,'' he said.
Moscow prosecutors have accused the Jehovah's Witnesses of violating the Russian constitution with their missionary activities. They say the group poses a threat to Russian family life and say it should have its registration revoked.
But Krylova said the prosecutors had failed to find evidence to back their claims and Nazarychev said his group stood for precisely those family values and Christian morality that the prosecutors accused them of undermining.
Lyudmila Alekseyeva, president of the International Helsinki Federation which monitors human rights, said the campaign against the Jehovah's Witnesses was politically motivated and had much wider implications for individual freedoms in Russia.
``We cannot stand aside, we are obliged to act. If we lose this case, it will be the turn of other religous minorities, and then perhaps of independent trade unions and political organisations,'' she told the news conference.
``The 1997 law ``on freedom of conscience and religious organisations'' is a clear violation of people's right to organise themselves for reasons of religious faith,'' she said.
The law, already condemned by the United States, the Vatican and international human rights bodies, requires all religious groups in Russia to re-register by the end of 1999.
It imposes a 15-year waiting period for groups deemed ``non-traditional.'' Unregistered groups lack full legal rights and cannot conduct missionary work or educational activities.
The preamble to the law, which is not legally binding, identifies Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism as Russia's traditional faiths.
The law's defenders, who include the influential Orthodox Church and Communist lawmakers, say it is needed to halt the spread of dangerous sects trying to exploit the spiritual vacuum left by the fall of the Soviet Union.
The Helsinki Federation's Alekseyeva said the law left too much to the discretion of local bureaucrats, who were generally conservative and deeply suspicious of anything unfamiliar.
``Most Russian bureaucrats don't like independent organisations as they are untidy and, by definition, cannot be controlled,'' said Alekseyeva, herself an Orthodox believer.
``In Russia we are trying to build a civil society following the fall of the old Soviet system,'' she later told Reuters. ``But you cannot have a civil society without real religious freedom.''
courtesy of Ray Prigodich
(posted 12 December 1998)
As previously, liberal Protestant groups set the tone in the Ecumenical Movement
One of the significant questions which arose during the VIII Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) had to do with the future participation of Orthodox Churches in the Ecumenical Movement. Previously the Orthodox have never attracted so much attention to themselves in international Christian forums. From the first days of its existence the WCC, the largest ecumenical organization in the world, has been under Protestant control and during recent times the role of the neoliberal groups has been growing significantly.
"We feel less and less at home in the WCC" said Hieromonk Illarion (Alfeyev), head of the Russian Orthodox Church's delegation. "When we started to work in the WCC we hoped that the Western Christians would change, if only to reconcile themselves to the teaching, structure and the spirit of the Ancient Undivided Church. They did change, but only in the opposite direction," says Father Vsevolod Chaplin.
Thus the question arose about the practicality of further Orthodox participation in the Ecumenical Movement. This question was directly and pointedly raised during the May, 1998 pan-Orthodox convocation in Thessalonika and whose communique was confirmed at the inter-Orthodox meetings in Syria and the U.S.
Notwithstanding the fifty years of Orthodox participation in the work of the WCC, the Protestant majority, as in the past, considers the Orthodox as a small, closed group and does not like to be reminded that the Russian Orthodox Church is the largest member of the WCC.
The contradictory and inconsistent treatment of the Orthodox by Protestants is well known. On the one hand they have a poor understanding of the Orthodox and think that the latter have simply began a struggle for power. On the other hand, it is very important for Protestants to keep the Orthodox in the WCC. Without the Orthodox, the World Council of Churches will turn into a purely Protestant organization and could not even pretend to express the position of the majority of the world""s Christians.
The Thessalonika announcement was shocking to many. The administration of the WCC attempted to make a serious analysis of the situation. A special analytical group of Orthodox theologians and workers in the WCC was convened which prepared a detailed report about the problems of Orthodox participation in the Ecumenical Movement. Factually the principal result of this effort was a recommendation for the establishment of a special theological commission which would work to resolve all the problems which have come up. It already became evident that nothing could be accomplished without a reorganization of the WCC. On the eve of the Assembly many spoke about a serious crisis within institutional ecumenism.
For the first time during the preparation for the Assembly serious consideration was given to the Orthodox positions. Paul Meyendorff, an Orthodox theologian from America participated in the Assembly's worship committee. He commented that for the first time in many years the Eucharistic service was completely eliminated from the program upon the insistence of the Orthodox and that the majority concurred with their position. "This is our victory but the struggle was not easy," commented Paul Meyendorff. Furthermore, the main objective was achieved: the danger of Orthodox departure from the WCC.
But the timid hopes for a peaceful and superficial dialogue were premature. Before the Assembly opened Protopresbyter George Cecis (Ecumenical Patriarchate) declared: "The problem is not about the conflict between the Orthodox and the rest of the Christians, but between traditionalism and liberalism in the life of the Church and in theology."
The WCC leaders openly acknowledged that the Orthodox would not participate fully in the WCC inasmuch as, according to a moderator of the WCC's Central Committee, Catholicos Aram I of Cilicia (Armenian Apostolic Church), "certain tendencies and practices of the WCC were not compatible with Orthodox Tradition."
In fact, the Orthodox do not agree with many Protestants in their understanding of the Eucharist, women clerics, inclusive language in theology, the rights of sexual minorities and religious syncretism. It is interesting that in a number of points, traditional Protestants, especially from Africa and Latin America, were in accord with the Orthodox.
The events taking place at the Assembly fully confirmed the words of the Greek theologian The neoliberal lobby was sufficiently influential and imposed their questions upon the Assembly.
Introducing the events of the decade of "The Churches in their solidarity with women," dedicated to the role of women in Christian societies and in society in general, the decade's participants pointed out that they firmly support such views as "the human community of interests, in which each person""s participation is significant, and no one is excluded for reasons of race, sex, age, religious or cultural tradition, where diversity is accepted as God""s gift."
At the same time a number of ethical and theological problems are given, such as female ministry, abortion, divorce and different sexual orientations, which are viewed differently by different Christian communities. Sexuality could be mentioned separately, which was presented "in all its diversity." The liberal groups actively participated in the decade and achieved that in the final message "constraints resulting from diversities in this matter" was condemned.
After a difficult struggle in the resolutions committee, the final version of the appeal was approved by the Orthodox. But after the document was presented to the Assembly, the Orthodox delegates were forced to protest against the changes which were introduced by feminists following the adoption of the final version.
The decisive protest of the Orthodox was that, contrary to all rules, the appeal included a statement in support of reproductive rights. This term is a euphemism for the rights of women for contraception and abortion. All Orthodox Churches, in contrast to the neoliberal Protestant groups, consider abortion as a killing which cannot be justified by any "rights of women over their own bodies" and are categorically opposed to its recognition.
Anna MacKoul, a member of the Antiochian Patriarchate's delegation affirms that this point was not included in the appeal's final version. "This text was a complete surprise for me and we protested against its inclusion in the document," she said during an interview with Metaphrasis.
The Orthodox were not ready for the liberal lobby's methods of pushing their line. Unsanctioned "augmentation" of the documents is one of the most frequent examples which the liberal lobby uses. The behind the scenes maneuvers during the Assembly actively make use of all political technology for a power struggle.
"After many years of our participation in the ecumenical movement it becomes clear that the Orthodox Church and the Protestant churches are developing in opposite directions," said Hieromonk Ilarion (Alfeyev) during one of the plenary sessions. "Many Protestant churches are developing views and positions which are characteristic for the Western liberal establishment and are losing Christian values."
At this time, the word is that the decision whether the Orthodox will remain in the ecumenical movement is not final. Hieromonk Ilarion does not exclude the possibility that "The Orthodox Churches will follow the example of the Georgian Church and leave the Council." Only a radical reorganization of the WCC can prevent this.
The Orthodox, on more than one occasion, proposed that the WCC change into a Christian forum without a fixed membership, and be organized on the principle of "families." This would result in a parity of participation of all basic Christian traditions in a dialogue. Today this could consist of three families, the Orthodox, the Protestants and the so-called "free churches." In the future, perhaps the Catholics could participate in such an organization.
There is one obstacle which may stand in the way of Orthodox implementation of such a plan. The positions of the local Orthodox Churches constitute a broad spectre of views: from a complete participation to a complete rejection of ecumenism. At one pole are the Ecumenical and Romanian patriarchates which will preserve their membership in the WCC to the end. At the other pole are the Georgian and Bulgarian patriarchates which already officially left the WCC, with the Bulgarian Church submitting its letter about leaving during the Assembly. The Jerusalem patriarchate is leaning towards them, which refused to have a theological dialogue with the heterodox but which partly participates in the work of the WCC and even delegated its representative for the WCC""s Central Committee, inasmuch as it is interested in the support of the ecumenical organization's for Jerusalem's special status.
The position of the "center" is more flexible, which today is represented by the Russian Orthodox Church. The Serbian and the Polish, and in part the Greek Church are leaning towards it. They did not have sufficient strength at the Harare Assembly to make their position known loud and clear.
The opportunity has not been lost. The special theological commission whichwill be formed soon after the Assembly, will unite the efforts of the Orthodox and Protestant theologians for searching of new forms for the organization of the WCC which would guarantee the Orthodox a full participation in the Ecumenical Movement and, in the words of Konrad Raiser, WCC's general secretary "will prevent the further marginalization and drifting away of the Orthodox."
The Orthodox received 37 positions during the election to the WCC Central Committee, achieving a complete consensus according to the number of representatives from each Church, with the Russian Church receiving five places. However, during the first sessions of the new Central Committee her representatives said that they will cease their participation until the completion of the special theological commission's work, i.e. for not less than two or three years. It is possible that other Churches will follow the example of the Moscow Patriarchate.
The Orthodox do have a serious contradiction. On the one hand they affirm that the participation of the Orthodox in the ecumenical movement should be understood as one of the global missionary project of the twentieth century. The possibility of witnessing the Orthodox Church before the whole world as the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, presumes that experienced missionaries and apologists must participate in the Ecumenical Movement. On the other hand, the Orthodox delegations consisted completely of ecclesiastical diplomats and bureaucrats for whom the ardent witness of Orthodoxy, the proffering of love and respect towards their neighbors was, as a rule, rather difficult.
However, there was an example of such a witness. The most brilliant of which was the presence of Archbishop Anastassy of Tirana and Albania, one of the outstanding Orthodox missionaries of the twentieth century. His voice was resonant and convincing not only at meetings with the Orthodox delegations but during the Assembly's plenary sessions. "Why are we held captive by European rationalism and expect immediate results? Isn't it enough that we are witnessing Christ in love and patience? That is how the apostles acted and our calling is the same. Yes, it is difficult. But if we leave, it will be a testimony of our weakness alone." No one could contradict Archbishop Anastassy. Even though the Orthodox were actively being "ushed into self-isolation, this did not happen. The global missionary project has not ended.
translation by A.N. Smirensky
Russian text at Sobornost
(posted 12 December 1998)
HARARE. A meeting of the delegates of Orthodox and pre-Chaldedonian churches was held on 3 December in Harare. Before the start of the Seventh Assembly of the World Council of Churches, the largest international ecumenical organization, they tried to reconcile their positions on basic issues of the assembly and to present a united Orthodox position.
Despite profound discontent with the ecumenical movement expressed at the conference in Thessaloniki in May 1998, practically all local churches sent their delegations. However the recommendation given by the holy synods of local churches differed among themselves.
Despite the recommendation of the Thessaloniki conference, many delegations are being led by bishops, while the delegation of the Ethiopian church is headed by its primate, Patriarch Paul, and the head of the delegation of the Albanian church is Archbishop of Tirana and all-Albania, Anastasy, one of the most famous missionaries of the twentieth century. Many Orthodox delegates noted that several decisions of the Thessaloniki conference were insufficiently precise and thus the provision on nonparticipation in the ecumenical worship services was taken by a majority of Orthodox to mean nonparticipation in the reading of holy scripture, prayers, singing, and preaching. Only the Russian and Greek churches definitely declared that they understand nonparticipation to mean absence from ecumenical services.
In the course of the past year and a half the Georgian, Serbian, and Bulgarian Orthodox churches have declared their withdrawal from the ecumenical movement, although it turned out that in the end only the Georgian church left WCC. Nevertheless without exception all Orthodox churches sent an official delegation or observers to the assembly. The delegation of the Russian Orthodox church is one of the largest and for the first time in many years was not led by a bishop.
Opening the conference, the head of the delegation of the ecumenical patriarchate, Metropolitan Afanasy of Heliopolis, emphasized that the state of the ecumenical movement must be characterized as "in crisis." Among the most serious problems with which the Orthodox are contending, Metropolitan Afanasy named the divergent understanding of the Eucharist and attitudes toward a female priesthood, inclusive language, rights of sexual minorities, proselytism, religious syncretism, and problems of arrogant terminology used by WCC.
In addition he noted that WCC is treating these problems with understanding and is ready not only for serious dialogue but also for reorganization. At the suggestion of WCC, after the assembly a bilaterial theological commission will be created, which will take up the resolution of these questions. In October the general secretary of WCC, Konrad Raiser, conducted conversations with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. Besides this, the problems arising in connection with participation of Orthodox in the ecumenical movement will be dealt with in reports of WCC moderator Catholicos Aram I and WCC General Secretary Konrad Raiser. "We thank WCC for efforts directed toward overcoming this crisis," Metropolitan Afanasy declared.
Paul Meyendorff, an Orthodox theologian from America, noted that for the first time in many years the program of the assembly does not include a "joint Eucharist," that is, the problem of intercommunion will not come up. Orthodox members of the worship commission insisted on this and their position was accepted by the majority. "This was a victory for us, but the battle was fierce," Paul Meyendorff emphasized.
In all likelihood, the Orthodox will take part in discussion of all basic questions of the assembly, including the adoption of a concluding document and a declaration on Jerusalem and the election of the central committee of WCC. Along with this no specific decisions were adopted by the conference.
At the first plenary session of 4 December, the primate of the Albanian Orthodox church, Archbishop Anastasy, gave an address. (tr. by PDS)
Russian text at Sobornost
ORTHODOX BOYCOTT CHURCHES ASSEMBLY
by Richard N. Ostling
.c The Associated Press
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- The World Council of Churches began its 50th anniversary assembly on treacherous footing today, with Orthodox delegates from Russia and Greece boycotting the opening worship service.
Growing tensions between the restive Orthodox and the WCC's Protestant majority are a major problem facing the international church meeting, which is expected to address world political and economic problems and a series of theological questions.
The boycott could have been worse. Many Orthodox participants followed the lead of Istanbul's Ecumenical Patriarchate, the symbolic center of Eastern Orthodoxy, whose delegates are attending the worship but are not leading it.
The Orthodox partipants debated their strategies and made their decision just hours before the WCC's opening ceremony, scheduled for later today.
The Very Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky, the first Orthodox president of America's National Council of Churches and one of four Orthodox members of the WCC executive committee, said ``the Russian Orthodox position underscores the serious challenge faced by the ecumenical movement as a whole and the World Council of Churches in particular.''
The 960 delegates at the assembly, which meets daily through Dec. 14, represents 330 denominations on all continents, with some 350 million to 450 million Christians. The biggest non-member, by far, is the Roman Catholic Church. The assembly is also being attended by 3,500 visitors.
The WCC delegates will be discussing -- but not necessarily resolving -- increasing Orthodox anxiety about liberal trends among Protestants in Europe and North America. One current flashpoint is homosexuality, which also divides the western liberals from many rapidly growing Protestant churches in the Southern Hemisphere.
Contrary to earlier assurances from WCC officials, it seems certain that the homosexual issue will reach the assembly floor, at least obliquely. A message from a pre-assembly women's festival will refer to ``human sexuality in all its diversity.'' Such language was opposed by Orthodox women as well as Protestants from Africa and the Mideast.
During the discussions, Aruna Gnanadason, who runs WCC women's programs, apologized that ``our lesbian sisters'' in attendance had been left off the festival program.
In addition, the WCC is staging an open forum during the assembly in which Christian organizations will address homosexuality. It remains unclear whether those presentations will have any impact on the assembly itself.
At a meeting last summer of the world's Anglican and Episcopal bishops, Africans helped push through a clear stand against homosexuality, over objections from western liberals.
The issue has also long been troublesome for three WCC stalwarts in the U.S.: the Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (USA) and United Methodist Church.
courtesy of Ray Prigodich
(posted 5 December 1998)
MOSCOW -- As a boy during the Stalinist era, Vasilii Kalin was swept into years of exile in Siberia along with thousands of other Soviet members of the Jehovah's Witnesses, an outlawed religious group born in America in the 1870s.
Now, seven years after the denomination was registered to practice openly in post-Soviet Russia, Kalin worries he may be forced once again to practice his beliefs in secret. Russian prosecutors are seeking to ban the Jehovah's Witnesses in the first court test of a controversial religious law denounced by the United States and other Western governments when it took effect in 1997.
The court case, which started two weeks ago and has been delayed until Feb. 9, also comes at a time when Russia is embroiled in a scandal over anti-Semitic remarks made by a hard-line communist lawmaker, heightening fears the religious freedoms that sprouted throughout Russia after the fall of communism may be curtailed.
"It's alarming," said Ludmilla Alexeyeva, chairwoman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, a human-rights watchdog committee created by the 1975 Helsinki Accords. Alexeyeva's organization has denounced both the court case and the State Duma's refusal to sanction Duma deputy Albert Makashov, a former Soviet-era general who referred to Jews as "Yids" and said they should be rounded up and jailed.
Makashov's remarks have drawn international scorn and produced a political uproar that has included calls for a ban on the Communist Party, which controls the Duma, the lower house of Russia's parliament.
The case against Jehovah's Witnesses, who claim about 200,000 members in Russia, stems from a law that would "liquidate" religious organizations if a court rules they are engaged in anti-social behavior. The law also restricts "nontraditional" religions that have practiced in Russia less than 15 years.
Traditional religions in Russia are defined as Russian Orthodoxy and other forms of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism.
The law was seen as an attempt to solidify the Russian Orthodox Church's position as Russia's dominant religion following the emergence of other religious groups after communism collapsed. The Orthodox Church, the nation's official church during centuries of czarist rule, is assisting the prosecution in the civil case, which depicts Jehovah's Witnesses as a cult that is stirring social discord by claiming to be the only true religion.
Roman Kon, a Moscow spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church, said church leaders believed Jehovah's Witnesses' tenets were "harmful" to the religious fabric of Russia, but he dismissed assertions his church was engaged in a wholesale assault on foreign denominations. Others, however, fear otherwise.
"They're going after minority religions, and we're considered an easy target," said Judah Schroeder, a Jehovah's Witnesses spokesman. "But we don't think it's going to be isolated to us."
Alexeyeva said a ruling against Jehovah's Witnesses would set "a very bad precedent." Other denominations are closely watching the case, fearful their missionary activities also may be targeted.
"It would bother us greatly if they lost," said Jim Slack of the International Mission Board for the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest evangelical denomination in the United States, with 15 million members. Southern Baptists have had a presence in Russia since the late 1800s and have nearly 1,000 churches in the country.
"Part of our doctrine as Southern Baptists is religious freedom," said Slack. "If they could do it to anybody else, they could do it to us."
The Jehovah's Witnesses faith was founded in 1872 by Charles Taze Russell, a Pittsburgh clergyman. It espouses a strict belief in the teachings of the Bible but differs from most other Christian denominations by not recognizing the Holy Trinity, a view that Russian Orthodox officials have denounced as "heresy."
The doctrine spread to Europe and into Russia in the early 1900s, but practitioners later confronted government persecution by the totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Thousands of Jehovah's Witnesses were shipped to Nazi concentration camps, in part because of their rigid refusal to salute or to serve in the military.
Kalin, 52, coordinator for the denomination's presiding committee in Russia, was born into a Jehovah's Witnesses household in Ukraine. In the early 1950s, his family was uprooted and exiled to Siberia, along with more than 5,000 other Ukrainian Jehovah's Witnesses.
For more than two decades, Kalin recalls, he and other members of the denomination were subjected to poverty and repression, conducting worship services in secret while they watched for the KGB, the Soviet secret police. His older brother spent three years in prison for his religious views, and Kalin was jailed for more than a month as a conscientious objector.
The atmosphere became more tolerant under Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet president, bringing Jehovah's Witnesses back into the open in the late 1980s. The denomination registered as a practicing religion in 1991, and Kalin and other former exiles were officially recognized as "victims of political repression."
Seizing on the relative tolerance of the post-Soviet era, the denomination has grown steadily throughout Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union. More than 50 congregations are scattered throughout Moscow, meeting mostly in rented "Kingdom Halls." Most are Russian, but the congregations include a growing number of Americans and West Europeans.
Ed and Linda Blow, who belong to a 250-member congregation in south Moscow, moved to Russia from Nebraska more than four months ago, drawn by a desire to practice their faith in another country. Now they worry their denomination may be abolished when the court case resumes in February.
"I didn't take it seriously when I first moved here because it seemed absurd," said Ed Blow, whose parents were Jehovah's Witnesses missionaries. "But after being here four months, I'd say it could go either way."
courtesy of Ray Prigodich
(posted 4 December 1998)
HRWF (03.12.1998) - For several years, a Moon affiliated organization has been sued by an anticult group with the obvious support of the court. This trial might be a blueprint for the one in which Jehovah's Witnesses are involved in Moscow. A number of common points can indeed be identified between both cases concerning "unpopular religions." Both trials may pave the way to further similar cases involving less unpopular religions in the near future. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
St. Petersburg, RUSSIA. On the 19th of November, 1998 the Dzerzhinsky Federal Court of St. Petersburg resumed the first stage hearing of the civil case initiated by the Interregional Committee for Salvation from Totalitarian Sects against the Collegiate Association for the Research of the Principle (CARP, a Unification Church affiliated organization) with the aim of liquidating this organization and receiving compensation for alleged moral distress.
The suit was submitted to the Court in 1995. At that time CARP's lawyers pointed out to the court that a public organization has no right to attempt in a court of law to liquidate another public organization. This can only be done either by the prosecutor or the Department of Justice as the registering organ. Claims for compensation for moral distress are acceptable only from the individuals who experienced moral damage and never from organizations. Nevertheless, for more than three years the Court conducted hearings of the case.
As soon as the suit was accepted by the Court, the Interregional Committee started to receive financial support straight from the St. Petersburg City Budget. Its financing was fixed as a separate item in the city's expenditures. Thus the fight of Mrs. N. Russkikh and Mr. V. Babkin for "salvation from totalitarian sects" was directly paid from the city budget not counting the support received from the Prosecutor and the Justice Department.
It also became clear that the anti-cult activists constantly avoided actually participating in the court hearings under various pretexts. First they asked for more time to clearly specify their claims, although this was never done. In 1996 they solicited the court to conduct a psychiatric examination of members of CARP and postponed further hearings until the result was available. In their Statement No. 10253/20 the experts explained why the examination took so long: the third party in the court process and representative of the Interregional Committee, Mrs. N. Russkikh, did not provide the necessary material for a long time (13 January, 97 - 17 June, 97), and later "escaped from participating in the expert's work." The length of the court's psychiatric examination was also due to the Interregional Committee's failure to make the payments necessary for the expert examination. By law it is the soliciting party that should pay and even though the Committee produced in court letters of guaranteeing payment, the payments were not made. In the end the psychiatric examination was performed at the expense of the State. On the 19th of June, 1998 the plaintiffs made a statement in the court that as their lawyer was absent at the hearing they could not properly defend their supposedly violated rights. CARP then proved that the contract between the Interregional Committee and its lawyers had been discontinued since summer 1997. With the support of the court, the Committee for the Salvation from Totalitarian Sects used various pretexts to postpone the hearing, probably because the State financing might end.
In this way the Court had more than enough evidence of the absurdity of the suit. On the 19th of November 1998, CARP produced documentary evidence showing that the so-called "distress" of the parents who were demanding the forced psychiatric hospitalization of their mentally healthy adult children, "brainwashed" by the Unification Church, was being financed out of the budget of the city of St. Petersburg, a subject of the Russian Federation. Then, in order to save the Committee from loosing to CARP, the Court used a technical device to declare that the case should not even have been started. Thus the case was dismissed as having been improperly brought.
Although the three-year long court case was closed by the court, it was not highlighted by the State or the mass media. Nor has CARP received any compensation for its substantial legal expenses. Instead, the members of the anti-cult committee are still having their say as witnesses in the Prosecutor's case. He is demanding the liquidation of CARP although in fact his case has also been postponed for an indefinite period. Early in October 1998, the City Court of St. Petersburg almost heard the whole case but postponed it because the Prosecutor was not properly prepared. So the court suggested to the Prosecutor that he prepare and produce evidence. On the 30th of November 1998, the case was taken off the Court schedule for no apparent reason and is now postponed indefinitely.
Thus the legal controversy between the State represented by the Prosecutor, the Justice Department, the Committee for the Salvation from Totalitarian Sects, and a student organization sharing the doctrine of the Unification Church continues.
Source: Konstantin Krylov (Tel/fax: 7 095 2343292) and Human Rights Without Frontiers.
courtesy of Ray Prigodich
(posted 4 December 1998)
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