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Yesterday the St. Petersburg civil rights organization "Civic Control" announced its intention to go to court with a request for opening a criminal case on article 282 of the criminal code (inciting national, racial, or religious hostility), as well as to go to the city prosecutor's office. The issue is a whole series of frankly antisemitic broadcasts which have been broadcast by the Petersburg television program "Sobytie." Antisemitic speeches on the television station, whose stockholders include the administration of St. Petersburg and Leningrad province, are no rarity. But this time the announcer of the Sobytie program, Mr. Cherniadiev, on three days, 22, 29, and 30 July, regaled the television audience with such programs. The first involved Nikolai Bondarik, who is in prison for participation in the murder of the leader of the Russian party. The program included a survey. Television viewers were asked to answer: "Should ethnic cleansing be conducted in St. Petersburg?" In the 29 July broadcast the question resounded even more explicitly: "In case of pogroms in St. Petersburg, will you take part in them or defend the victims?" In the end the rights defenders' patience ran out and they announced their initiation of the legal process. (tr. by PDS)
(posted 8 August 1999)
In the space between two cynical robberies against the congregation of Edinovertsy [sect of Old Believers who reached an accommodation with the official Orthodox church in the eighteenth century--tr. note] which is known as Mikhailov settlement, the boss of Pamiat [Memory], Dmitry Vasiliev, who heard about the misfortunes, became a regular visitor. Calling the head of the congregation, Fr Irinarkh, an "Orthodox dissident," he begged him to become the spiritual leader of the society, but he was told to go back to where he came from. "You have a militant character, but we direct our militancy against ourselves and our vices," Fr Irinarkh said in explaining his refusal.
Followers of the Edinoverie, gray-headed men in black caftans and traditional Russian blouses, do not like being casually labeled "dissidents." "Dissidents are people who are a little sick, it seems," Fr Dmitry jokes (his intelligent eyes in thin-framed glasses make him appear more like a Buddhist). "But in essence, if one compares us with the so-called establishment Orthodoxy, then it is true."
One can get to the Mikhailov settlement by turning off the Riazan highway and going another ten minutes to the main gates of the society. Behind them, reaching high into the air, is the time-worn seventeenth-century bell tower. A bit farther is the green dome of the church which somehow seems in the style of "village" Petersburg classicism.
"From Vechernaiai Moskva?" a tall man in a traditional Russian blouse and with a dark beard asks again. "But, girl, why have you come in trousers? Women can come onto the territory of the church only in a skirt and scarf."
In embarrassment we backed off and stood stupidly at the gates. Our photographer even was wearing shorts.
"Well it doesn't matter," the man with the beard softened up. "I'll go ask Fr Irinarkh whether we can think up something."
They thought up something. The first assistant of the father, Tatiana Mikhailovna, soon brought some woman's clothing and invited us to the room of Hegumen Irinarkh. "For a cup of tea," as she expressed it. We went along trenches and wooden planks, with Tatiana Mikhailovna explaining that there already were eight deep cracks in the church building, and we reached the dining hall.
We passed through a cemetery. Tatiana Mikhailovna points out: "You see here that we have learned how to restore old graves. We have examined the ancient stone. On one hand it is covered with the black dust of centuries, but on the other hand it is already cleaned off. We did the same for our sister who recently was killed by a vehicle. She lived like an angel of light."
Just after the construction of the new thruway, many residents of the regional villages perished; the people were not used to crossing modern highways in designated places. Several members of the congregation died.
We reach the dining hall. The women are detained briefly: "Women never sit down at a table before the men." And then we had to rush.
It is strange; but when the head chorister Georgy (as he introduced himself later) read from the book "Spiritual mirror" during the extremely tasty soup course, he pronounced the letter "o" so much like the Volga region that he seemed quite like a person of the old Russian folk ballads with a harp, even though just five minutes before the meal his speech seemed more like a pure Muscovite intellectual accent.
Fr Irinarkh has tried to revive an ancient tradition in the congregation. After the liturgies all parishioners should eat a meal together. On weekdays there are few people at the meal, several persons who live permanently in the congregation. On Sundays and feast days the dining hall is crowded but, as always, cozy. There are big, old icons, beautiful hangings on the walls, white tablecloths on the tables, as well as a contemporary influence, a television and VCR. A large crowd presses in, some coming from Moscow, and residents of surrounding Old Believer villages. In the past each village held to its own form of Old Belief, but recently the elderly folk have died off and the ancient traditions have faded into the past and all the Belokrinitsy and Bezpopovtsy [branches of the Old Belief which, respectively, had priests and rejected priests--tr. note] gradually have joined together under the leadership of Father Irinarkh.
Throughout the meal men took turns reading aloud from "Spiritual Mirror," from time to time suggesting to each other "Now let me read."
We asked for an explanation of the difference between Old Belief and the new faith. Old Believers cross themselves with two fingers, while in official Orthodoxy this is the prerogative of priests. All services are conducted only in accordance with books of the seventeenth century or their reprints, without the Nikonian corrections. And during services they sing from ancient "Znamenny" texts of chant signs rather than scores with musical notes. They call the singing in the regular church restricted. Old Believers still write and pronounce the name of the Savior with only one "I" (Isus) while all other Orthodox Christians since the Nikonian reforms pray to "Iisus."
Afterward we sat on a simple cemetery bench with Hegumen Irinarkh and he described the life of the congregation. "After 1967 the church was closed. The soviet authorities installed some kind of archive in it. Gradually the old building was neglected, so when the congregation was regenerated ten years ago services were first conducted in a small building nearby." Irinarkh points somewhere in the distance.
"Today the church is gradually reviving. Look, repair is going on, young people are coming." The rector dreams of restoring the church to the original form of the seventeenth century. But the most important thing is that the number of parishioners has substantially grown, and the former piety characteristic of Russian Old Believers has been revived.
The residents of Mikhailov settlement and the parishioners of the church of Saint Michael the Archangel proudly describe the history of their sacred place. A long time ago these lands were settled by soldiers, the "streltsy." At the beginning of the seventeenth century the land belonged to the St. George monastery of Moscow, but after Catherine II's decree it was secularized. The first mention of the ancient church comes from 1620. Almost seventy years later the old wooden building was torn down and a new one, also wooden, was erected on the same site. "The church was built in honor of the first tsar of the Romanov dynasty, Mikhail Alexandrovich," Fr Irinarkh tells us.
After the schism in the Orthodox church, local militiamen continued to support the old conservative rites. When a new church was built, the musketeers went to Moscow and in gratitude pledged loyalty to the sovereign, but they refused to worship in the new church. According to tradition, Fedor Alexeevich responded to this: "Since our heavenly Father will not compel you, neither will we. Serve the sovereign loyally and be on good terms with the church." He permitted the musketeers to conducted their services in accordance with the old ritual.
From that time Mikhailov settlement and the neighboring villages of Kulakovo and Chulkovo became Old Believer villages. The local parishioners did not rise up, like Archpriest Avvakum and the Solovky elders, in sharp opposition to the official Orthodoxy. They lived quite legally and worshipped in their own way. In 1980 the Holy Synod registered the Edinoverie, and the Mikhailov settlement became the first Edinovertsy church where the two seemingly irreconcilable groups were reconciled.
"In the schismatic church there are several branches," Fr Irinarkh explains. "There are 'okruzhniki' and 'neokruzhniki,' 'popovtsy' and 'bespopovtsy.' And we are Edinovertsy or so-called 'church Old Believers.'"
In today's congregation there are quite modern people, although what we saw in the dining hall seemed more like a scene out of deep antiquity, with an elder at the head of the table and sturdy fellows in broad beards along the sides. Fidgety kids in traditional shirts behave themselves and look upon the elders with respect and fear. Women and young girls, at the other end, each in a large white kerchief carefully tied under their chins ("You are lucky. Today is a holiday and all the troops have arrived.")
But outside the walls of the church everyone has a fully secular occupation: auto repairman, scholar, student. "We don't force ourselves on all our acquaintances with sermons; we have many friends who rarely go to church. But the majority of our families live piously."
Among the settlement Edinovertsy there are some who have given up Moscow apartments and the comforts of capital life for the sake of the immersing themselves in the spirit of Holy Rus. We talked with a young man who did not want to identify himself. "Three years ago I made an important decision for myself and I have never regretted it. Now I live nearby, in Chulkovo. Of course, I had to overcome a bit in myself, though to tell the truth I have not broken finally with my past life. I did not sell my apartment. I am not a maximalist, you see. There were not harsh disputes with relatives; I did not slam the door. I simply left quietly. Into my own faith. The usual way of life does not bother me so much that I let it get me down; it doesn't make me a slave of the sauna and aromatic soap. But this does not mean that I am filthy," he smiles.
At that time the hegumen returned to the cemetery. He gave some instructions to a maid: wash the floors, prepare the soda; pick the cherries and apples in the back yard. The maid bowed and left.
"You confess the ideals of Holy Rus. Fr. Irinarkh, do the political parties and associations deal with you?"
"You see, as far as I know convinced communists, even highly placed ones, come to worship with us, as well as the greens and ecologists."
Hegumen Irinarkh is pleased when despite their commanders soldiers from the neighboring military unit come to the church. "This is daring for them," the head of the community of Edinovertsy thinks.
We part, and at the exit joyful children's noises envelop us. A large family gets out of a BMW. Parents dressed in holiday finery have brought a four-month-old girl for baptism. "Why here, in particular?" we try to outshout the pink being hidden in the blanket. "Here they do everything in accordance with conscience and not conventionally, as in other churches. Throughout the region the women speak only well of the Edinovertsy."
The parishioners are convinced that it is necessary to baptize properly. "Nowadays too often they simply splash water and read a prayer and take the money--and good-bye."
Fr Irinarkh baptizes in accordance with ancient traditions, conscientiously. Triple immersion in the water is necessary; in summer, in a reservoir; in winter, in a font.
But the church of the Archangel Michael is attended not only by people who have been baptized here. Liudmila is nineteen years old. She went to the regular church for four years, but she always recalled her grandmother who was a singer at the Mikhailov settlement. Today Liudmila is a student in law school in Moscow, but she comes here for every service.
"I have many friends; they all are ordinary laity, but I love them very much," she smiles.
We were ushered to the gates by nimble children in colorful shirts, children of heirs of the Old Belief of the neighboring Chulkovo and Kulakovo.
From the editor: At the regular session of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox church (RPTs), which was held 18-19 July under the chairmanship of Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow and all-Rus, relations with Old Believers were reviewed. The supreme church body of RPTs, the local council, already had discussed this problem in 1971 and 1988. At the session cases of violent methods for overcoming the schism that happened in history were discussed, which were the result of interference of secular authorities in the affairs of the church. The Holy Synod called church printing houses to be especially cautious in reprinting prerevolutionary literature, since at that time Old Belief was criticized in incorrect and unacceptable methods. Questions dealing with property that have arisen among local church authorities in connection with Old Believers as well as matters of the use of buildings and lands should, according to the synod's determination, be decided in a spirit of harmony and respect for the parties, and in accordance with civil legislation. It was decided to create a commission for coordination of the action of RPTs regarding Old Belief. (tr. by PDS)
(posted 8 August 1999)
On Monday, 2 August, at 8:20 p.m. the flight from Krasnoiarsk to Ekaterinburg landed at Koltsovo airport in Ekaterinburg, in which His Eminence Vikenty, archbishop of Ekaterinburg and Verkhoture, came to the Ekaterinburg see. At the stairway of the plane the bishop was met by the rector of the church of the Nativity of Christ of Ekaterinburg, Archpriest Vladimir Ziazev, rector of the church of the Transfiguration of the Lord of Ekaterinburg, Archpriest Nikolai Ladiuk, and rector of the church of Panteleimon the Healer of Ekaterinburg, the monastic priest Dimitry Baibakov.
After blessing the clergy the bishop was greeted by representatives of the government, the vice premier of the provincial government, A.G. Kobernichenko, advisor to the governor, V.P. Smirnov, and others.
The arrival of the new archpastor drew great interest from the presence among those meeting the flight of a large number of representatives of the press; all five local television stations attended the meeting of the bishop and conducted an interview with His Eminence on the airfield.
In the room of official deletations the ruling bishop held his first meeting with representatives of the provincial leadership, which proceeded in an atmosphere of complete mutual understanding and readiness for fruitful cooperation.
At the cathedral of Saint John the Forerunner, desite the late hour, parishioners of the city's churches and clergy who came from all around the diocese joyfully greeted the arriving bishop. One of the olders clergymen of the diocese, a member of the diocesan council, Archpriest Ioann Osipovich delivered an emotional greeting speech in the name of the clergy. Then a thanksgiving prayer service was held. The bishop addressed the flock with his first archpastoral exhortation in the land of the Urals and he blessed the people who overflowed the cathedral church. (tr. by PDS)
Russian text at Sobornost
(posted 6 August 1999)
Shagildy Atakov, a Baptist in the Central Asian republic of Turkmenistan, has been sentenced to four years in prison by a court in the capital Ashgabad. He also has been fined an astronomical sum of $12,000, the Friedensstimme mission in Germany added. Average wages in Turkmenistan are no more than $30 a month.
The latest trial -- held August 3 and 4 -- was called after prosecutors complained that the punishment handed down at Atakov's first trial in March was too lenient. He had then been sentenced to two years in labor camp and a $12,000 fine under Article 228 of the Criminal Code, which covers swindling.
The charges -- which members of his church say are fraudulent -- relate to his activities as a car trader before he became a Christian and joined the Baptist congregation in the port city of Turkmenbashi. The congregation belongs to the Council of Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists, which rejected state control during the Soviet period. Like all non-Orthodox churches in present-day Turkmenistan, it does not have state registration.
Local Baptists suggest that the charges against Atakov, an ethnic convert to Christianity, were designed to halt his preaching activity in the Turkmenbashi congregation.
Atakov -- who is 36 and married with five children -- was arrested in his home in Turkmenbashi last December. He has been singled out for harsh punishment while in prison, where he was reportedly beaten severely by an officer named Aliev. At one point he is said to have lost his sight as a result of the maltreatment. When members of his family visited him in prison Atakov could not let them embrace him as his body hurt too much.
However, in late July, when a group of Baptists visited the prison near the town of Mary where he was being held, the prison director denied that he had been beaten and told the visitors, who were not allowed to speak to Atakov, that he spends his whole time in prayer.
Atakov is said to have converted many of his fellow prisoners to Christianity. Some cannot understand why prison staff then beat them for their new-found faith.
During a visit in July, the director of the Friedensstimme mission, Klaus Karsten, made an appeal to the president of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, expressing his mission's concern about Atakov's detention and maltreatment.
Karsten also expressed concern that officers of the Turkmen National Security Committee (the former KGB) are seeking to expel Vladimir Chernov, the leader of the congregation in Ashgabad, from Turkmenistan solely because he hosts the church in his home.
Chernov, a long-time resident of Turkmenistan, holds Russian citizenship. His home has been raided several times, including a raid on June 9, by National Security officers.
"We appeal to you -- as the guarantor of the constitutional rights and freedoms of citizens and residents of Turkmenistan -- for the immediate release of Shagildy Atakov and a halt to the harassment of the family of Vladimir Chernov for their faith in God," Karsten wrote in his appeal to Niyazov.
(posted 6 August 1999)
Yesterday Trud described how a group of satanists conducted a bacchanalia in a cemetery in the Kuntsev district of the capital. They selected the full moon for the event, the time most propitious for the "bloody mass."
Our reporter managed to get through the police cordon and reach the place where the event happened. The municipal cemetery in the village of Rublevo was surrounded by guards. Grieving relatives of those who are buried here can reach "their" grave only after presenting appropriate documents. Every new arrival evokes in the guards understandable suspicion: who are these people? what are they doing here? This is natural even though it is late. At night, when the group of young people, obviously armed with sledge hammers and other heavy instruments, entered the territory of the cemetery without hindrance. The night watchman was not even here. Until now there had not been a single witness to the matter. The young people did their dark work and quietly departed.
On the same day two eighteen-year-old youths were arrested. Why did suspicion fall on them? The head of the local administration, Dmitry Leshchenko, who knows these fellows well, says that one of them was already under investigation in the case of the burning of the cemetery chapel a year ago. The second is his friend. Neither of them works anywhere and they are attracted by every faddish religious movement. At the time of a search in their apartments, a mass of satanic literature was seized; it is said that even a skull and jars with dried blood were found.
We walk the length of the grave. There healthy workers in working clothes are laboring and groaning trying to raise a ordinary granite monument that had been overturned. Red from strain, they shout: "No pictures!" "What do you think; how many people did it take to do this?" I ask. "A company of soldiers couldn't deal with it!" While the officer at the Kuntsev UVD said about ten persons participated in the destruction. And all under twenty.
Those who came to the cemetery are filled with mystical fear. Some cross themselves and others are crying. "Something evil had to happen," a woman complains. "They say that crosses flew out of the earth by themselves and fell head over heals. Here, look, the stone is hot!" And she fearfully points to an obelisk that has been torn out of the earth.
Broken crosses now again have been overturned. Two strong men explain: their brother and father are buried here. Both were Russian, Orthodox, simple, honest people. Who raised their hand against their graves? It is strange that among the approximately 100 damaged graves, by no means did all have crosses. It seems they hit each one in a row. They did not bother a Muslim grave nor, by luck, a family with an Armenian name. The victims of the night vandals--by chance or not--were entirely Russian men.
The chapel that was burned last year was consecrated by Bishop Savva. A cross was set up next to it at that time as well; it was overturned. For some reason no witnesses have been found. they told us at the 56th police department that you can be sure that to this day it is not known who did all of this and whether they have gotten those people at all.
The satanist movement has become extraordinarily popular in our country. A negative spirit has penetrated most of the youth who have to let out their adrenaline somewhere. An abundance of choices tempts them. Besides the widely known "Church of Satan" with its headquarters in San Francisco, there is the Church of Evil, headed by the "fallen Christian" Michael Akvino, the clubs of the Flames of Hell, Church of Vampires, and numerous gatherings of witches and wizards who also deal with "ministers of the underground." The "theological" principles of these organizations are somewhat varied, but they are united by the inevitable spirit of denial of the "good Father God," who "is Love." Satanists of all times and nations argue that "there is no God above you yourself," and the Jehovah who created the world did not put into it anything other than evil and deception. Thus, the satanist bible declares, it is necessary "to be happy and enjoy yourself, and not surrender to spiritual fantasies." The concept of enjoying oneself is connected by the ministers of the Prince of Darkness directly with the destruction of shrines, orgies, and practicing sacrifices. Our newspaper has already described how satanists killed Orthodox priests in the Crimea, considering that this was how to please the devil. They consider that the more blood of the faithful is spilled, the sooner the world will be cleansed of the "divine flaws" and will approach a genuine "infernal" perfection.
"Do you want to know what we feel?" for some reason an old woman who had buried her daughter last year asked in a whisper. "We are afraid. We all will be here and we expect something bad will happen. After all these kids are only carrying out someone's will. They are dancing here all the time; they are up to something. I tell you plainly, something horrible is coming." She crosses herself superstitiously.
Many link the arrival of the satanists with the expected imminent end of the world. You see, it has begun.
"Actually the end of the world is within our spirits," they told us at the Moscow patriarchate. "One should not expect skyscrapers to fall and solar eclipses. The end begins when faith declines. Do not allow fear of the reign of the 'deceiver' to eclipse your inner light, and then there will be no apocalypse to frighten us." (tr. by PDS)
(posted 4 August 1999)
BACCHANALIA OF SERVANTS OF THE PRINCE OF DARKNESS
by Natalia Leskova
Trud, 30 July 1999
An enormous act of vandalism was committed yesterday at night in the municipal cemetery of the Rublevo settlement which is in the Kuntsev district of the capital. Workers arriving early in the morning discovered with horror around 100 desecrated graves, more than twenty of which were completely destroyed. On the basis of fresh evidence two eighteen-year-old local residents were arrested, one of whom at the present time already is under investigation in connection with participating in the burning of the cemetery chapel last year. At the time the young vandal was released upon a certification not to go off. Upon a search of the quarters of both of the accused, a large quantity of satanist literature was seized, along with leaflets and symbols of the "church of the devil."
It has been suggested that the destruction that was found in the cemetery was an act of retribution by members of a dangerous sect. The bacchanalia occurred on the night of a full moon, which is considered by satanists as the most propitious time for their activities. Apparently the youths worked with sledgehammers and the crosses were torn out and set upside down. It remains unclear on what principle they chose the objects for their outrage; in the damaged graves are buried people with Russian surnames, mostly men in age from 30 to 70, while not all the graves had crosses.
Yesterday there were many people at the cemetery. Only those who had relatives and loved ones buried here were admitted. Only with difficulty did we manage to get through the police cordon. Confusion reigned among the people; everybody was saying that this was by no means the first time when satanists have raised their hand against Orthodox shrines. Recently the "servants of the prince of darkness" movement has become extraordinarily active for both political and social reasons. (tr. by PDS)
SATANISTS WHO BURNED THE CHAPEL TURNED OUT TO BE CHILDREN FROM RICH
FAMILIES
Moskovskii komsomolets, 30 July 1999
One of quietest and most desolate places in the capital, the Rublevo cemetery, was desecrated Tuesday night by unknown vandals. The police literally were run off their feet seeking the barbarians and in the end they arrested two dunces who torched the chapel in the same cemetery last year. However, it is quite certain that they are dealing with the very same people who held the bacchanalia in the little churchyard.
As MK learned at the "Ritual" enterprise, the Rublevo cemetery contains about twelve hectares and was built more than sixty years ago in a small settlement that then was a distant suburb of the capital. As the capital grew and the churchyard was incorporated into the city, the government did not expand it. As before, only residents of Rublevo settlement are buried in the cemetery and in a month's time five or six persons are laid to rest here. Since there is no money for security of the yard and an attendant is on duty only in the day time, the cemetery recently was fenced in with a reinforced concrete wall. But this did not save the graves from profanation.
The day before yesterday Mamai stormed through the cemetery. Vandals ran along the paths between the graves, toppling crosses and breaking the monuments with their feet. In all eighty graves were damaged. Yesterday "first aid" came to the churchyard, consisting of the workers from "Ritual" who were supposed to restore order to the damaged cemetery. Officers of the 56th police department began an investigation and within hours arrested two local residents, 18 and 20 years old. To be sure, they have not been charged with destruction of the churchyard but with burning the chapel. On the night of 24 October of last year vandals set fire to the three-story chapel in this cemetery. The criminals poured combustible material from some cars' gas tanks into a bottle and broke into the chapel at night. They removed from the premises almost all icons and candelabra, and then they set fire to the wooden structure. Some of the stolen items later were found in the lobby of the building where one of the arsonists lived. The youth threw out the candelabra as of no use to him. Then, in October, investigators went to the criminals' home and interrogated them, but they were not able to prove that they committed arson. The police have not made a secret of the fact that heavy pressure was put on them by the parents of the young people; they are wealthy businessmen.
Yesterday at the first interrogations, the pair admitted the arson of the chapel. True, why this was necessary their friends are not saying, but it seems to be clear. The bodies of the arrested youths are covered with upside-down five-pointed stars (a sign of Satan) and various tattoos, and the masochists themselves had drawn grotesque patterns on one another's legs. In the apartments of the friends investigators found special literature. According to one account, the youths are members of one of the sects and reject any religion, including Orthodoxy, and that's why they attacked the Rublevo cemetery. Now they are being investigated over participation in the destruction of the churchyard. (tr. by PDS)
(posted 5 August 1999)
What will become of the bodies buried in and near the Kremlin wall? . . . Judging from the statements of the president and patriarch, the history of the Kremlin necropolis is coming to a head. . . .In all the years of Boris Yeltsin's administratin the presence of Lenin's body in the very heard of the country which has rejected communism has bothered the president. This subject has arisen every time he has had meetings with the heads of the mass media, intellectuals, and associates from the first democratic years. It was obvious: Yeltsin hesitates only because of the possible reaction of the population to an attempt to remove the corporeal symbol from the Kremlin. . . .
The time remaining in Boris Nikolaevich's administration is getting less and less. It seems that the question will be forced. This became expecially obvious after the head of the church's power, the patriarch, joined with the head of the secular power, the president. In a July interview with Izvestia, the president answered the question, "Will Lenin be buried?" by saying "He will be. The question is when. The problem is serious. Lenin in the mausoleum is a historical symbol of our past. On the other hand, I agree with Patriarch Alexis II of all-Rus: it is neither humane nor Christian to leave the body of a long dead man on display. I think that we will have to create a special public-state commission in order to work out all matters in detail. . . . ." (tr. by PDS)
(posted 3 August 1999)
WASHINGTON - Since 1989, the United States has granted coveted refugee status to numerous emigres from the former Soviet Union on the basis of fraudulent documents or unverified assertions that they were Jewish or evangelical Christians, according to US officials who have administered the program.
Nearly 275,000 Jewish immigrants and 100,000 evangelical Christians have arrived in the United States despite the State Department's urging in 1996 that the program be scrubbed because it was vulnerable to fraud and had outlived its usefulness. Even so, the Clinton administration, expressing fears of a new wave of anti-Semitism in Russia, is now poised to ask Congress to extend it for another year.
Meanwhile, amid evidence that many non-Jews, some allegedly with Russian mafia connections, have manipulated the program to enter the United States illegally, about 6,000 other Jews from the former Soviet Union await refugee designation.
Regardless of its future, the program's past is troubled: It has cleared for emigration an unknown, but apparently substantial, number of applicants on the basis of faked documents and little or no evidence that they faced persecution, according to several officials who worked in the program.
''There clearly was a mindset among our superiors that unless there was a clear case of fraud or forgery, we were to approve what was in front of us,'' said Rebecca Fong, a former review officer for the Immigration and Naturalization Service at the US Embassy in Moscow.
A 1993 INS internal document, obtained by the Globe, provided no precise estimate of the number of people who had entered the United States under false pretenses, but it characterized fraud in the program as ''astronomical.'' Still, INS officials, in recent interviews, played down the number of applicants who have arrived in the United States illicitly. While they acknowledged that many applicants submitted faked documents, they said most of those were weeded out during Washington processing before the interview stage at the Moscow Embassy.
Critics of the 1989 rules relaxation, sponsored by Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, have focused on the lower standard for refugee status that was created for Jews and evangelical Christians from the former Soviet Union.
While officials privately focus their criticism on the level of fraud by Jewish applicants over the last decade, in the last year or so they say they have found an increasing level of fraud among evangelical Christians. In 1998 for the first time, more evangelicals were admitted as refugees than Jews.
In other troubled parts of the world, would-be refugees must show they are being persecuted or have a ''well-founded fear'' of persecution on account of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a social class, or political affiliation. But applicants from the former Soviet Union need only show a ''credible basis'' for concern that they might face persecution.
Such vague standards left INS employees uncertain what assertions were acceptable to win refugee status. But they said they soon learned from their superiors that a claim of a minor act of discrimination, such as being denied a promotion or raise, was acceptable, without any need for verification.
The vast majority of the 275,000 who emigrated here through the program were men, women, and children of Jewish heritage who had close family members living in the United States and were able to show they had experienced some discrimination, if not persecution, in the former Soviet Union, the officials said.
The Boston area, after New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Miami, has become a major resettlement destination for the emigres. About 50,000 of the refugees from the former Soviet Union have settled in Massachusetts since 1983, according to the state Office of Refugee Resettlement.
''Our focus is not on fraud but on how this program has taken people out of a country that has had a history of anti-Semitic persecution,'' said Leonard Glickman, executive vice president of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, which has helped most of the refugees resettle in the United States. Glickman sidestepped questions about the extent of fraud.
Yet an investigation by the State Department's Inspector General's office reported in 1996 that fraudulent documentation had become an increasing problem for the program.
''Since fraudulent documents can be obtained and category membership only has to be stated, not proved, it is difficult for INS to verify family claims,'' stated the Inspector General's report. ''The increased fraud and the low standards imposed resulted in people not eligible for resettlement gaining access to the US.''
While the program initially facilitated the emigration of many Jews who had been persecuted under the Soviet system, INS officials in Moscow came to believe that the program should have ended by 1993 because of the potential for fraud, according to the report.
Now, with White House plans to extend the program through next year's election, one of the highest INS priorities is how to prevent fraud, the same issue that arose in 1993 and 1996 when State Department-led efforts to end the program were beaten back by Jewish lobbying groups.
Any attempt to end the program now could prove costly to Democratic candidates, especially to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has taken steps to court Jewish voters in New York state.
INS officials confirmed there has long been disagreement between INS agents who process applicants at the Moscow Embassy and their superiors in Washington about the proof needed to qualify. One superior, who asked not to be identified, acknowledged: ''I'll admit the program is more generous than elsewhere, but that's what Congress mandated.''
Several reviewers complained that their entreaties that the Embassy take a tougher stand against fraud and baseless claims of persecution were ignored. For much of the last decade, their requests that criminal background checks be done and equipment be bought that could detect forged documents were rebuffed. They said superiors also repeatedly questioned reviewers' judgment when they rejected applications.
Even applicants considered extremely suspect by INS reviewers were ultimately approved, officials said. In many cases, they said, applicants would claim to have lost their internal Soviet passports that would identify them as Jewish. Instead, they were allowed to present other papers, even those that appeared to have been produced by the thriving fake document industry in the former Soviet Union, to attest that they had Jewish heritage.
''This program has been documented to be so loosely administered that it has served as a conduit for the settlement of a strong refugee mafia to take root in the United States,'' Dan Stein executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which wants the program eliminated, told a House subcommittee last year.
Added one INS interviewer, who asked for anonymity: ''The prevailing attitude was that Congress had passed the ... amendment'' loosening the restrictions for Jews to enter as refugees ''and we weren't to stand in the way of putting up the numbers.''
And impressive numbers were reached. At the end of the first year of the program's operation in 1990, nearly 40,000 applicants of Jewish heritage were accepted as refugees.
The Scripps Howard News Service reported in 1995 on the criticism inside the INS on the program's level of fraud, but Congress approved an extension of the Lautenberg Amendment the following year.
While no one would estimate how many residents of the former Soviet Union took advantage of the program to enter the United States illegally, US statistics show that few of the applicants interviewed were rejected. Between 1989 and 1998, more than 97 percent of the Russian Jews interviewed became emigres. About 90 percent of the evangelical Christians seeking admission were approved.
In contrast, only about 75 percent of refugee applicants from elsewhere who reach the interview stage win approval, mostly because they face the higher theshhold of proving that they face persecution at home.
Refugee status is an immigrant's dream: Refugees are entitled to several benefits, including welfare for eight months, health insurance, employment services, and instruction in English as a second language for 18 months, that are not available to foreign visitors on work visas. And it allows them to petition for US citizenship after five years.
But a decade after the rules were relaxed, no one can say for sure how extensive the fraud is.
One INS executive, who asked not to be identified but is familiar with
the refugee program, said the agency's top tier of officials are
aware that loose standards and lax controls allowed some who did
not deserve it to gain refugee status. Asked how many came in without
proper credentials, he said: ''It's anybody's guess.''
(posted 2 August 1999)
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