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Commissions on Orthodox unification end first
session
MEETING OF COMMISSIONS FROM RPTsMP AND ROCOR FOR RESTORING CHURCH UNITY
CONDUCTED "IN SPIRIT OF LOVE AND PEACE"
Portal-credo.ru,
25 June 2004
The first joint session of the commissions of the Russian Orthodox
church of the Moscow patriarchate (RPTsMP) and the Russian Orthodox
Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) meeting for restoring ecclesiastical
unity was held from 22 to 24 June in Moscow with success.
"The work of the commissions was productive and occurred in a spirit of
love and peace. Agreed suggestions were worked out, which will be
presented to the hierarchy of the Moscow patriarchate and the church
abroad," RIA Novosti was told today at the Department of External
Church Relations (OVTsS) of RPTsMP. Details of the suggestions still
have not been made public.
The commissions discussed a number of questions in accordance with
agreements reached in may during the official visit to Russia of a
ROCOR delegation headed by its primate Metropolitan Laurus. (Lavr). At
that time the questions required the most common attention were the
topics of relations between the church and the state, relations with
other confessions, and the question of the autonomy of the foreign part
of the Russian church.
Members of the commissions, according to their own statements, "will
raise prayers to the Lord God and his Most-holy Mother with gratitude
for the possibility of working fruitfully for overcoming the sad
divisions that befell the Russian Orthodox church as a result of the
bolshevik revolution." They are asking the Lord "to bless the
continuation of their labors for the good of the holy church of Christ
and the Orthodox Russian people, both in the fatherland and in
diaspora."
The commission of ROCOR at the negotiations with RPTsMP was headed by
Archbishop of Berlin and Germany Mark. The members of the commission
included Bishop of Geneva Ambrose, Archimandrite Luke Murianka,
Archpriest Georgy Larin, and Archpriest Alexander Lebedev.
The commission of the Moscow patriarchate was headed by Archbishop of
Korsun Innokenty. Its members included the rector of the Moscow
Ecclesiastical Academy Archbishop of Vereisk Evgeny, the abbot of the
Presentation monastery Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, Archpriest
Vladislav Tsypin, and Archpriest Nikolai Balashov. (tr. by PDS, posted
26 June 2004)
Russia
Religion News Current News Items
ST. FILARET'S INSTITUTE, FOUNDING "PRESENTATION" BROTHERHOOD THREATENED
WITH EVICTION
St. Filaret's
Institute, 25 June 2004
On 30 June a first hearing will be held in the arbitration court of
Moscow on a suit by the religious public organization, "Presentation"
[Sretenie], representing the brotherhood by the same name, for finding
illegal and with numerous errors the order of the government of Moscow
concerning the accident rate and complete reconstruction of the
building where the premises of the Presentation brotherhood and the St.
Filaret's Orthodox Christian Institute, created by Orthodox priest
Georgy Kochetkov, are located.
The large residential building No. 29 on Pokrovka street, concerning
which the judicial case was begun, is well known in Christian circles
not only in Moscow but also throughout Russia and abroad. It is here
that for almost ten years has been the oldest advanced theological
educational institution of all those that arose after the years of
persecution against the church. The St. Filaret's Institute, founded in
1988, in the opinion of many scholars and cultural leaders is a unique
area of lively dialogue between ecclesiastical and secular scholarship
and one of the few real centers of the cultural and religious
enlightenment and regeneration of the Russian nation. The late
Academician Sergei Sergeevich Averintsev and Archbishop Mikhail
Mudiugin participated in the life and work of the institute most
actively. People attending it receive here not only theological
education but also real spiritual help and support. It is no accident
that employees, students, and friends of the institute have for several
years provided the means for its accommodations, making great sacrifice
and donating not only their savings but also personal effects and
family heirlooms.
In January of this year the government of Moscow adopted a hastily
conceived resolution to find the building dangerous and to evict the
residents and other owners of the premises. In doing so the necessary
inspection of the building that was the only way to determine its real
condition was not conducted. The Presentation brotherhood and St.
Filaret's Institute along with residents and other owners intend to
defend in court their right to legally dispose of their own property,
even if it is located in the center of Moscow. Many hundreds of people
have given their signatures and written letters in their support. (tr.
by PDS, posted 26 June 2004)
See also "Views on
investigation of Kochetkov"
Russia
Religion News Current News Items
Jehovah's Witnesses ruling raising intolerance
MOSCOW RULING VEXES RELIGIOUS MINORITIES
by Fred Weir
The Christian Science Monitor, 22 June 2004
A district court decision here to ban the Jehovah's Witnesses, upheld
by the city's top appeals court last week, is either an isolated event
or a chilling sign of reviving religious intolerance in Russia,
depending on whom you ask.
The judgment ends a six-year court battle by the Jehovah's Witnesses to
maintain legal registration under Russia's 1997 law on religion.
Without that, the group's 10,000-member Moscow community is forbidden
to rent premises, print literature, or officially assemble. The court
further ordered the Jehovah's Witnesses to "terminate their activity,"
which could subject members to fines or arrest simply for gathering in
a private home or discussing their faith with friends.
"We may have to go back to meeting in the forest as Jehovah's Witnesses
had to do in Soviet times," says Christian Presber, spokesman for the
group. "This decision is like putting a bull's-eye on the back of every
Jehovah's Witness and, by extension, everyone who's a member of a
religious minority in Russia."
The Jehovah's Witnesses, who sprang from a Bible-reading class in
Pittsburgh in 1870, today claim more than 5 million members around the
world and about 130,000 in Russia.
The group has angered a succession of Russian governments by its
refusal to celebrate national holidays or perform military service. Its
tough intracommunity discipline and an assertive style of proselytizing
new converts has also irritated authorities. One of the first Russian
Jehovah's Witnesses, Semyon Kozlitsky, was exiled to Siberia by Czar
Alexander III in 1891. Thousands died in Soviet dictator Joseph
Stalin's Gulag prison camps, but the organization was legalized as the
Soviet Union was collapsing in 1991.
Most representatives of other registered churches have declined to
comment on the case. Of those who do speak, many insist they have no
difficulties working in Russia.
But Mikhail Odintsov, an official liaison with public associations on
behalf of the Kremlin's Human Rights Ombudsman, says many other
religious groups are deeply worried by the ruling.
"It's my personal opinion that this ban is likely to stimulate similar
processes in the Russian provinces," he says. "I think other religious
groups feel they're on a hot frying pan right now, though they're not
likely to tell you that because they're scared."
The 1997 law on religion requires all churches not associated with
Russia's four "indigenous" faiths - Orthodoxy, Judaism, Islam, and
Buddhism - to obtain registration and accept strict state regulation.
According to deputy Justice Minister Yevgeny Sidorenko, there are
currently 21,000 local congregations belonging to 59 different faiths,
including the Jehovah's Witnesses, registered by the federal
authorities.
Mr. Sidorenko said the law is working well, though last year the state
issued 1,900 warnings to religious groups that their activities
"infringe supervising bodies upon the legislation." Local prosecutors
filed 246 court applications to close down specific local religious
communities.
Although the Jehovah's Witnesses had gained federal registration, they
ran into a brick wall trying to legalize their Moscow organization.
Prosecutors charged the group with stirring up religious strife,
dividing families, infringing on individual rights and freedoms,
encouraging suicide by enjoining members to refuse medical assistance
(Jehovah's Witnesses reject blood transfusions), and inciting citizens
to ignore civic obligations such as military service. A lower court
threw the charges out three years ago but prosecutors ordered a
retrial, which resulted in last week's verdict, the first outright
banning of a church under the 1997 law.
"The decision against the Jehovah's Witnesses is more political than
legal," says Anatoly Pchelintsev, director of the official Institute of
Religion and Law in Moscow. He says the same charges could be applied
to any religion that advertises itself as the "true" one. "We are
repeating the actions of Hitler and Stalin in banning them. It's a very
bad precedent and it will have ill consequences for other confessions,"
Mr. Pchelintsev says.
Mr. Presber says his group is already experiencing stepped-up official
harassment in other regions around Russia, where Jehovah's Witnesses
have some 400 registered communities. "This is being seen everywhere as
a green light to attack us," he says. "When Moscow speaks, all the
regions listen."
Legal options in Russia are largely exhausted, unless the Kremlin steps
in to suspend the ban, Presber says. The group now says its best hope
lies with the European Court of Human Rights, which has repeatedly
declared Jehovah's Witnesses to be a "known religion" entitled to
protection under international conventions that Russia has signed.
Some applaud the move. "We do not consider the Jehovah's Witnesses real
Christians; it's high time they were prohibited," says Dimitri Lotov, a
chaplain with the Lutheran Church in Moscow.
The giant Orthodox Church has often been accused of fomenting official
trouble for its competitors, but insists that it did not instigate the
case. "This decision [to ban the group] was just wrong and it will do
no good," says Yelena Speranskaya, a spokeswoman for the Church's
Moscow Patriarchate. ((c) Copyright 2004. The Christian Science
Monitor, posted 24 June 2004}
Russia
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