Ecumenical News International ENI News Service / 24 September 1997

RUSSIA'S RELIGION LAW GETS GREEN LIGHT, DESPITE MINORITY CHURCH PROTESTS

Andrei Zolotov

Moscow, 24 September (ENI)--The upper chamber of the Russian parliament, the Federation Council, took only several minutes today, 24 September, to approve Russia's controversial bill on freedom of religion. The chamber, comprised of regional delegates, voted unanimously - 137 votes - for the bill.

The bill still needs President Boris Yeltsin's signature to officially become law, but since the latest version is a compromise which came from the President's office, there is little doubt that it will receive his approval. The new law has strong support from the Russian Orthodox Church, but has been condemned as discriminatory by Russia's Roman Catholics and Protestants as well as by human rights activists. However, the bill's supporters say it is aimed at curbing the activities of religious sects and the proliferation of foreigners "proselytising" in Russia.

In July President Yeltsin vetoed the first version of the bill after strong protests from the Vatican, Protestants, US President Bill Clinton, the US Congress and other organisations.

The version passed today by the Federation Council includes some substantial compromises, but retains a two-tier system dividing religious "organisations" from "groups" as well as requiring a 15-year probation period before any religious "group" can be upgraded to "organisation" status with more rights.

The Russian Orthodox Church's leader, Patriarch Alexei II, who is visiting Odessa in southern Ukraine, this week confirmed his strong support for the law. "I'm convinced that sects and pseudo-missionaries are driven by the wish to sow the seeds of religious enmity in Russia, rather than to educate people," the patriarch said in Odessa yesterday 23 September, according to Interfax news agency. "This is a source of danger not only for the church, but also for the state, for state unity is the guarantee of the future."

Leaders of Russia's minority religious organisations, who originally backed the compromise version, later withdrew their support, saying that presidential officials had not fulfilled the assurances given when they persuaded religious leaders to sign a petition of support for the compromise version.

Human rights activists, along with representatives of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches and members of a breakaway Orthodox group held a joint press conference yesterday 23 September, condemning the law as the beginning of the end of civil liberties in Russia. They called for a public campaign against the law, but said that churches were unlikely to call their members onto the streets to protest.

"We can fight only with the word - the word of God and the word of the world," said prominent Russian dissident, Larissa Bogoraz.

When the law is enacted, its opponents are expected to lodge an appeal with Russia's Constitutional Court. However, it is rare for the court to reverse presidential decisions.

US Vice President, Al Gore, who is visiting Russia, raised the subject of the religion law in his meetings with Yeltsin and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin earlier this week.

"I tried very hard to explain why we Americans feel so strongly about this," Gore told journalists this week, according to the Moscow Times newspaper. But he also said that President Yeltsin was likely to sign the bill. "At no time did I hear anything that would make me feel comfortable in saying to you that there is a possibility that he will veto it," said Gore.

The government and the Russian Orthodox Church have been trying, behind-the-scenes, to assure their Western partners that the implications of the law will not be as disastrous as critics have claimed.

The Los Angeles Times newspaper reported this week that Bruce Robbins, ecumenical officer of the United Methodist Church in the US, wrote to his colleagues following a meeting on 14 September in Geneva with a Russian Orthodox Church official, stating that "it was apparent to all that a confrontational approach would not be helpful and could be very destructive to future relationships".

US Senator Robert F. Benett also said that he had received assurances from Russian officials that non-traditional religions, many of which originated in the United States and had powerful political lobbies on Capitol Hill in Washington, would not be adversely affected by the new law.

"I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and I would recommend to other folks that they back off a firm attack at the moment and wait and see what happens," Senator Benett said, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The newspaper said that a key church official, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, and leading figures in PresidentYeltsin's administration involved in preparation of the bill had given assurances that tolerance would continue. Al Gore received similar assurances from Prime Minister Chernomyrdin.

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