RUSSIA RELIGION NEWS


Russian authorities not fond of protestants

INTERVIEW: "PERSECUTION OF PROTESTANTS WILL INCREASE, BUT THEY HAVE NOWHERE TO ESCAPE"

Bishop Alexander Semchenko, president of Council of Churches of Evangelical Christians of Russia

Portal-Credo.ru, 21 December 2017

 

--Vladimir Oivin, Portal-Credo.ru: Why was the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation so imperceptible and dull in Russia, especially if one compares it with western Europe?

 

--Bishop Alexander Semchenko: I did not notice seriousness in marking this date in Europe. It was all limited to perfunctory events. Judging by news media, there wasn't any special Europe-wide celebration.

 

As regards Russia, then our protestantism displayed genuine interest in this jubilee. At least, on the part of Pentecostal unions, Evangelical Christians, and Baptists. With the help of this celebration they kind of declared: "Indeed, we are 500 years old and we date ourselves from Luther. Thanks to his 95 theses we are aware of ourselves as protestants."

 

For many years Evangelical Christians denied their participation in that old Reformation. There are several reasons for this. For example, Lutherans have practiced child baptism until now and their services look more like the liturgy than charismatic joy.

 

--And how did Russian authorities take the jubilee of the Reformation?

 

--Our authorities strove by all means to mark this date and they allocated certain grants to unions in order to note this celebration, which incidentally coincided with the 140th anniversary of the Russian translation of the Bible. The central event of the celebration, which occurred in the Pashkov House, was sponsored by our government. Also, for the 500th anniversary a church in Moscow was transferred to Lutheran ownership and the president of Germany came for this occasion.

 

At the same time, the authorities paid attention to the not very strong desire of evangelical protestants to join the Lutherans, and all the glory of the jubilee went to the numerically few Lutherans. Bishop Dietrich accepted the congratulations and acted as the host, which was distressing for the other protestant denominations that are huge in comparison with Lutherans.

 

Of course, the support of the Orthodox Church also played a large part.

 

--How much is protestantism rooted in Russian culture and Russian history?

 

--Luther was no more than a Catholic priest. But the success of protestantism is not so much his work as it was the result of political processes in Europe of the 16th century. After arriving in Russia, back under Catherine, the Lutherans created a definite base here for the development of protestantism. At the time enormous churches were built, which we see even today. To be sure, those protestants dealt only with their own "ethnic" believers and they did not conduct so-called "proselytizing" activity. Which you will not say about Baptists and other evangelicals, who built all of their own activity on "proselytizing."

 

Maybe that is why the authorities to the present time are not especially fond of protestants. We know about the victorious march of the "Yarovaya Law" about Russia and now new initiatives are heard "to take children from the sectarians."

 

Scholars often discuss the alternative of "Reformation or Revolution" and they credit Luther that he made a historic transition more or less peacefully. But this is an illusion. After all, we know about the enormous number of religious wars and, finally, the escape of protestants from Catholic society on ships to America. It is bad that such Americas are not left now and contemporary protestants have nowhere to escape. Unless they join up with the already existing America, but there everything has greatly changed and liberalism mostly repels Christians.

 

--Is there any threat of serious persecution of protestants in Russia? Did the authorities send them a signal in banning the Jehovah's Witnesses?

 

--Persecutions always have begun with Jehovah's Witnesses, counting on the fact that simple people will not particularly understand what is the difference between neo-Pentecostals and Witnesses. Therefore I think that the charismatic movements of Protestantism will be next, and then the Baptists will come, especially the unregistered Baptists. Formally they will not be harried for their convictions but for improperly registering their property.

 

--Does the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow patriarchate need its own reformation?

 

--The RPTs has already tried to conduct its own reformation, in the form of Renovationism. It even had a leading position with the support of the authorities of that period. The current government, including the president, does not understand much about what distinguishes Orthodox of various types and I understand their desire to unify all of this. Isn't it stupidity? But apparently the authorities will persist in this stupidity for a long time, because the struggle for faith is the most stubborn of all that exist on the earth. (tr. by PDS, posted 23 December 2017)


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