Copyrighted material. For private use only.
After 150 of residence on the territory of Georgia, a Russian religious society of "Dukhobors", 400 descendants of resettlers, returned to their homeland. Adherents of this faith consider themnselves an ethnic group of protestant Christians. They do not recognize the forms of worship and attributes which, in their opinion, stand between God and the individual. The word "Dukhobor," according the the explanation of members of the society, signifies a struggle for spiritual perfection within one's self and for freedom of the spirit from the church, or a party of any other kind of organization.
The tsarist government began to expel Dukhobors in the seventeenth century for their inability to get along with people of the church and refusal to take an oath of loyalty. When they located on the remote reaches of the empire, they did not feel themselves a "repressed people." The faith of these people did not encourage lengthy idleness, drunkenness, dissipation, and celebration, and thus Dukhobors labored every day voluntarily, without drawing a distinction between individual and collective economy. Thanks to this the society lived prosperously for many decades.
In recent years the well-to-do Russian society began to attract impoverished residents of Georgian and Armenian villages. They arrived with weapons and plundered the estates since almost every family had a small enterprise, a bakery or small factory for producing butter, cheese, sausage, soft drinks, as well as dozens of head of cattle and fowl, vehicles and agricultural machinery. The communal economy consisted of herds, textile factory, and a flour mill.
Failing to reach agreement with local residents and to find support from law enforcement agencies, as well as being left without light and water, the Dukhobors wrote a letter to Boris Yeltsin. Russia extended the hand of assistance and the Russian society moved to the villate of Mirny, which is located in southwest Briansk province. Here it members had to start everything from nothing inasmuch as everything that they had acquired over long years was confiscated at Georgian customs. And the inadequate village, in which originally it was intended to resettle people from the radioactive zone following the Chernobyl accident, was only three-quarters built. The Dukhobors are convinced that with time they will get their life in order. The main thing is that their homeland has welcomed them cordially. (tr. by PDS)
Russian text at Radiotserkov
(posted 3 March 1999)
1. We, participants of the Orthodox Siberian international scholarly and practical conference "Totalitarian sects in Russia" (sic) express our profound concern over the practically uncontrolled and immoral proselytizing recruiting activity of a whole range of destructive religious and pseudoreligious organizations broadly known as "totalitarian sects. "For there are many insubordinate men, empty talkers and deceivers . . . who should be silenced: they break up whole families, teaching what they should not for shameful gain" (Titus 1.10-11).
2. We consider that the state should be concerned for the preservation and prosperity of traditional and culture-forming religions to which the majority of the population belongs, and it should give them aid and support.
3. Besides this, we testify that all religious movements that in their practice do not violate the basic rights of the individual and the structures of family life, society, and the bases of legislation, and do not directly or indirectly advocate hatred and service to evil and do not openly or covertly speak against traditional confession of our country have the right to exist.
4. At the same time we recognize that religious organizations have the right to explain publicly the differences of their faith from other religious convictions.
5. Moreover, religious congregations have the right to express their protest under circumstances when the authority of their founders or teachers is used for a reinterpretation of the foundational doctrines in a way that is essentially incompatible with them. For example, we who are Christians express our indignation over those interpretations of the Gospel and Christianity which have been proposed in the occultic and theosophical systems and we affirm that the idea of the similarity of these esoteric doctrines with the Gospel is false teaching.
6. We testify that the paths of religious movement may have diverse directions and that each religious action does not by any means lead to liberation and salvation of the individual. There are religious practices that lead a person from God who has been revealed to us in Christ and from that freedom which has been given to us in God's Son.
7. We express our indignation over the incessant public declaration of a number of totalitarian sects, such as for example the so-called church of Scientology (Dianetika), to the effect that members in them is compatible with membership in the Orthodox church; and this despite the clear and unequivocal declaration of the bishops' council of 1994 excommunicating from the church all leaders and members of totalitarian sects, pseudoreligious and neopagan organizations, many of which (including Scientology) is specified.
8. We also are profoundly offended by the incessant attempts of neopagan, pseudo-Hindu totalitarian sect, "Society of Krishna Consciousness," to establish a dialogue "as equals" with the Russian Orthodox church and to get it to rescind the resolution of the above-mentioned bishops' council relative to this destructive cult. We declare with full responsibility that the Orthodox church cannot conduct a dialogue with such extremist groups as the "Society of Krishna Consciousness," and that those individual Orthodox priests and laity who meet with Krishnaite workers do so on their own initiative and they represent nobody other than themselves. We recall the words of the apostle: "What fellowship has righteousness with iniquity? What does light have in common with darkness? What agreement is there between Christ and Belial? Or what cooperation is there between a believer and unbeliever? What compatibility has the temple of God with idols? (2 Cor 6.14-15).
9. Russia's experience has shown that the country in which Christian spirituality has been obliterated is liable to the danger of the development of the most primitive heathen superstitions and practices, which both arise within it and are imported from outside. We recognize with sorrow that those groups of people who have apostatized from Christ in the countries of the West are now moving the proclamation of their neopagan and occultic doctrines into Russia. We testify that the activity of totalitarian sects and the proclamation of their members, unrestricted by law, bears an unconcealed character of expansion, directed at the subversion of the security, civil peace, and all structures of the Russian state. We ask Russian not to confuse the word of western Christianity with the world of the neopagan sects.
10. Besides this, we should note that many occultic, neopagan, and totalitarian movements were born in Russia, too. We express our serious concern over the activity of the self-proclaimed "messiah" and false-Christ Vissarion, who has especially developed his work in the region of Siberia. Noting the sad anniversary of the Jonestown tragedy which twenty years ago put the lives of almost a thousand persons on the block, we express serious concerns that the further self-isolation of members of the Vissarionite community may lead to the same unpredictable results.
11. We express our profound rejection of the activity of the so-called "Mother of God center" ("church of the Transfigured Mother of God, " "Mother of God Branch of the True Orthodox Catacomb church," etc.). This superstitious, misanthropic, totalitarian sect has in recent times tried to mimic Orthodoxy (for example, one of its new pretenders, the "Orthodox church in the name of the Derzhavnaia [Sovereign] Mother of God") and thereby to deceive its potential victims. We call the Orthodox people and local agencies of authority to display healthy suspicion and to figure out what kind of person in a cassock this one is and what kind of church it really represents.
12. We Orthodox Christians from all corners of Russia unanimously bear witness to the anti-Christian, antihumane, and destructive character of those international pseudoreligious and extremely aggressive corporations like Moon's "Unification Church" and Hubbard's "Church of Scientology."
13. We take note of the destructive character of various pseudo-eastern teachings and sects that have flooded our country and we bear witness to the serious danger for the individual of their supportive phenomena like guruism. We know that absolute authority given to imperfect, sinful people, surely leads to tragic results. In most of the pseudo-eastern sects (for example, Sahaji Yoga, Krishna Consciousness, Tantra Sanghi, Sri Chinmo, Transcendental Meditation, Sai Baba) most often people achieve power who have ambitious and often even criminal goals.
14. We bear witness to the radical distortion of the Gospel that proceeds from the so-called "New Apostolic Church."
15. We call attention to the occultic character of the neopagan sect that calls itself the "Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints" (Mormons), which covers itself with the Christian label to achieve its proselytizing recruitment goals.
16. We bear witness to the superstitious, misanthropic, and destructive character of the sect of "Jehovah's Witnesses," and to the heavy burden upon the personality that is applied by the leadership of this organization, which uses its status as a religious organization as a cover for commercial distribution of its unbeatable publishing activity. We are especially disturbed by the superstitious position of the "Jehovah's Witnesses" regarding blood transfusions, which already has led to the premature death of many hundreds of people.
17. We express our amazement at the inactivity of the Russian law enforcement agencies, which until now have not begun investigations of the sect, which actively and aggressively operates in our country, called the "Family" ("Children of God"), which has been judicially prosecuted in countries of Europe for its practice of recruitment through prostitution, rape of children, and other repulsive criminal activity.
18. We consider ourselves obligated to warn against the impermissibly cruel structure of interpersonal relations that has been established within movements that call themselves the "Church of Christ" ("Boston Movement"), so-called "Local Church" of Witness Lee ("Living Spring") and various neocharismatic groups belonging to the so-called "Movement of Faith" ("Theology of Prosperity"). Extreme intolerance and the attempt to place the entire life of its adepts under minute-by-minute, totalitarian control are characteristic for these movements (as a result of which there often appear psychological disorders and suicides of members of these sects), and they force us to recognize that the method of operation of these organizations is more likely to complicate the acceptance of the Gospel than to enable its genuine dissemination. We bear witness that the occultic and magi character of the teachings and practice of various groups belonging to the "Movement of Faith," (for example, the "Living Water," "New Life, "Living Spring," "Word of Truth," "Church of the New Generation," "Church of the Covenant," "Living Faith," "Glorification Church," "Word of Life," etc.) place them entirely outside the boundaries of the Christian world.
19. We bear witness regarding the destructive character of such commercial cults as "Herbal Life," and "Amway," and the dire consequences for the personality of all who fall into such pyramidal sects.
20. We, who are people who know Christianity from the inside and have profound acquaintance with other religions, bear witness that any attempt to create a "syncretistic world religion" is nothing other than an anti-Christian initiative. Everyone who professes Christianity knows that it, as the complete truth, does not need any supplements, and that moreover any attempt to supplement Christianity can only destroy it. We warn that if any religious or "cultural study" group says of itself that it has found the path to a synthesis of all world religions and to the unification of Christianity with any eastern or "esoteric" cult, then this is a clear sign that we are dealing with nothing like a "harmonizing doctrine," but an ordinary sect which is trying to spread one or another pseudo-eastern cult under the guise of sympathy for Christianity.
21. We call attention to the insincerity of the propaganda of preachers of syncretistic sects, who militantly demand "tolerance." They declare that any person who does not agree with their doctrine is an ignorant and uneducated fanatic, often affirming that between their followers and opponents there is a great gulf, and they continually accuse Christian of intolerance and discrimination. Declaring that they are proponents of a "broad view of the world," they never acknowledge the rights of the Christian to remain simply as Christians. The refusal of a Christian to bow before the "esoteric doctrine," which is simply impossible to do while remaining true to the spirit and letter of Christ's teaching, they immediately characterize as "medieval intolerance," "fanaticism," and the like, averring that for such people who stand on such as position (that is, the Christian position), there is no place in the new world order, to whose achievement these cults are devoted.
22. In the course of our conference we again became convinced that sects and new religious movements, even though the are independent from each other and oppose each other, form an alliance that has the goal of united opposition to any criticism directed against them. Often they engage the so-called "independent experts," particularly those who are engaged in activity defending rights. Some of them occupy high governmental office. It can be said that totalitarian sects have managed to cobble together a "sect defense lobby." In doing so the sects and their defenders have chosen the Russian Orthodox church as the special object of their attack, trying by any means to disparage and discredit it. In striving to suppress any attempt at criticism, they have incessantly initiated court cases, one after another, against their opponents, and they have used spiritual terror. As a result, officials and journalists, intimidated by their threats, have surrendered and removed any impediments (including legal requirements) to the sects' activities.
23. An object of the sects' special attention is the youth and especially students. Meanwhile, a young person who has not been given even an elementary knowledge of the history of religions and Christianity can easily become the slave of a youth sect. In some of these groups basic individual rights are suppressed, such as freedom of thought and discussion, freedom of exchange of information, and freedom of selection of wife or husband. An extreme manifestation of "youth religions" is the extremist and criminal phenomenon of satanic sects, whose development has been abetted by the broad distribution of "heavy rock music" with the accompanying symbolic and occultic-satanic literature and the general atmosphere of permissiveness and dissolute living that are promoted by the majority of the domestic media of mass communication.
24. We submit that a sufficient basis for public alarm over the activity of one or another religious movement is the presence within it of secret doctrinal texts. Freedom of choice by citizens of their religious ideas can be truly protected only when religious movements honestly lay out their convictions so that anybody who wishes, including those who do not undergo initiation procedures, are given the possibility of becoming fully acquainted with their system of belief.
25. We cannot remain silent in the face of the active anti-Christian movement, including theosophy, anthroposophy, "Living Ethics" of Rerikh, various manifestations of the so-called "Russian cosmism," and the cult of the "New Age." The dissemination of the "Agni-Yoga" of Rerikh in Russia that has emerged with the support of state leaders and structure, evokes our horror. With full responsibility, pursuant to the bishops' council of our church, we bear witness: the teaching of Rerikh is sectarian, and not only incompatible with Christianity but also directly inimical to it.
26. We are disturbed by the active spread of various neopagan nazi doctrines, teachings, and sects. Unfortunately, we must recognize that these teachings often have penetrated the structures of government which, in our opinion. can lead to the most lamentable consequences; after all a large part of these sects and teachings are extremely politicized and they bear an extremely aggressive, misanthropic character, and they have openly penetrated the government. Among them we especially wish to note the pseudopatriotic movement "Toward Theocracy" of General Petrov, which is superstitious in its goals and purposes, as well as the sects "Radostei," "Troianov trop," "Cult of Ur," etc. We, who are specialists in the areas of theology, religious studies, education, and culture testify with full responsibility that any appeal to the so-called "ancient magical knowledge" which supposedly existed in Rus long before Christianity is without basis either from an historical, theological, or cultural point of view. We emphasize that Russian culture, and Russian statehood and the life of our people is unthinkable without Orthodoxy. It is our profound conviction that the second neopagan experiment cannot be borne by either our country or our nation.
27 We especially wish to emphasize the anti-Christian, occultic, and anthroposophist basis of the "Waldorf Pedagogy." We express our extreme dismay that this racist system, hostile to the teaching of Christ, which in European countries is supported by only a few people and public initiatives, has received state support in Russia. We think that the actions of the Ministry of Culture of Russia, which established the state academy of eurythmic arts, as well as the action of the Ministry of Education of Russia, which supported with directives anthroposophy and introduced into public schools the teaching of the Waldorf Pedagogy, were illegal and wrong.
28. We consider that question of religious politics in Russia have a substantially different character than in the West. This relates to the fact that in Russia all land, the majority of public buildings, conference halls, movie theatres, schools, libraries, and the like are to one degree or another state owned. In so far as these public places function as the organizational and preaching centers of the totalitarian sects, the situation arises in which the activity of these sects are being supported by the state. We consider that no secular government should give its support to totalitarian sects. Under the conditions of Russian reality this means that state institutions must be protected from the attempts of sectarians to use them as propaganda centers. The criteria which have been worked out for determining the state's relationship to religious organizations must be clear and based on law. But on the basis of these criteria there should be established a list of cults with whom the state will not cooperate.
29. We ask journalists, teachers, and cultural and educational leaders to display caution in their acquaintance with new religious movements and not to give them publicity without preliminary, comprehensive study. As religious leaders, journalists, and teachers ourselves, we recall that our professional obligation is to be honest before our audiences and to testify only to what we really know, and we must do so even during our description of religious life.
30. We submit that the legislation of Russia on religious activity until now has still not been sufficiently worked out. Moreover, we express our extreme amazement that our government has not observed its own legislation on religious organizations and has been granting registration to organizations which have not met all criteria for receiving it.
31. We also note that the current situation gives effective priority to those religious groups who refuse registration as religious associations. By adopting the identity of cultural, information, ecological, or methodological centers, some sects have received direct access to the schools. Moreover, at the same time in some cases school administrations have cut off access to pupils for representatives of traditional, real, and juridically formed confessions. Of course, we can not help but express our amazement at the practical introduction of sectarian teaching in the form of required classes.
32. In particular we express our serious concern about the introduction into school curricula of the so-called valeology, which is an occultic religious movement with neopagan roots, as well as the penetration into Russian educational institutions of members of the totalitarian sect of the followers of the illiterate and psychotic false teacher Porfiry Ivanov. The proclamation of such doctrines in Russian schools contradicts all the traditions and forms of Russian education.
33. We propose the comprehensive creation of an interconfessional expert commission under the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Education of Russia, which whose approval it would be impossible for any religious or religion studies programs to be introduced into state schools and institutes.
34. We thank Almighty God who has brought all of us together in these splendid days of the birth of his only begotten Son and our Savior Jesus Christ so that we can express our unanimity with regard to the alarming and destructive processes that are at work in our country and in the world on the eve of the third millennium since the incarnation of the World of God. We ask all of our brothers, who have been unwittingly drawn into the nets of the totalitarian sects, to renounce their fatal deceits. We pray Almighty God for your enlightenment so that he would give you the power to know the truth, "and the truth will make you free" (Jn 8.32). Return to the saving court of the church. Understand that the door of Christ's church always are open for you. Know that the words of the apostle are for you: "Let nobody deceive you with empty words, for which the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience; and so do not be their associates. . . . Test what is pleasing to God and to not take part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but reprove them. For what they do in secret is shameful even to speak about. Nevertheless what is exposed is made clear by the light, for everything that is made clear is light. Thus it is said; 'Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light.'" (Eph 5. 6-7, 10-14)
Adopted 13 January 1999, unanimously, by 72 participants of the conference,
representing
--ten dioceses of the Russian Orthodox church, priests and laity, led
by Bishop Antony of Barnaul and Altai
--administration of Altai territory in the person of A.V. Bronikov,
advisor for religious affairs under the head of the administration
--AGU, in the person of kandidat of historical sciences V.Ya. Barkalov,
assistant head of department of political science; kandidat of philosophy
M.M. Volobtsova, assistant head of department of theology
--administrations of security and internal affairs for Altai territory,
in person of supervisors of relations with religious organizations
--centers for opposing totalitarian sects: Center of the Holy
Martyr Irenaeus of Lyons, Moscow, headed by doctor of philosophy, kandidat
of theology A.L. Dvorkin; Center of the Holy Prince Alexander Nevsky, Novosibirsk,
headed by Archpriest Alexander Novopashin; International Dialogue Center,
in the person of president, Professor Johannes Ogord, Denmark; vice-president
A.L. Dvorkin, Russia.
RECOMMENDATION
of the international scholarly and practical conference "Totalitarian sects in Siberia"
1. To send to the most holy patriarch of Moscow and all-Rus, Alexis II, the request to approve the creation under diocesan administrations centers for opposing totalitarian sects or to appoint diocesan agents responsible for antisectarian work.
2. To request the blessing of his holiness for the convocation in the future of a follow-up conference (whose delegates will be representatives of these centers or agents), devoted to the activity of the totalitarian sects in Siberia and means for opposing them. A possible place for holding this conference is Novosibirsk.
3. To appeal in the name of the organizing committee of the future conference to those dioceses which did not send their representatives to this conference to give their approval for the participation of such representatives in the Novosibirsk conference.
4. To take note of the necessity of correcting the shortcomings in the life of Orthodox believers in the country so that these shortcomings will not serve as a stumbling block to unstable servants of the church and will not cause them to leave the church for the sects. In particular, we should give special attention to the proper preparation for baptism, education, training, and enlightenment of parishioners, as well as to an intolerant attitude toward the so-called "ordinary sins" and, to the extent possible, to proper performance of the liturgy. It is necessary by all means to expose and condemn such an ugly manifestation of religious life as "youthful-elders." [Patriarch Alexis II made a reference to this last phenomenon in his December address. tr.] (tr. by PDS)
Russian text at Moskovskii tserkovnii vestnik
(posted 3 March 1999)
Recent widely reported storiesSt. Petersburg school besieged
"No surrender in St. Petersburg school siege"Moscow Scientology center raided
Reuters, 1 March 1999
"Conflict between religious school, St. Petersburg police continues"
RFE/RL Newsline, March 1, 1999
"Fears rise in siege at religious school"
by Marcus Warren , Electronic Telegraph, 1 March 1999
"Russian church school, police clash"
by Andrew Kramer, Associated Press, 27 February 1999
"School refuses to give in to city's threats"
by Anna Badkhen, St. Petersburg Times, 26 February 1999
"Armed OMON barricade Christian school children"
by Anna Badkhen, St. Petersburg Times February 23, 1999
"Cops raid Moscow Scientology center"
by Greg Myre Associated Press, 26 February 1999
"Raid in Moscow against the church of Scientology"
Human Rights Without Frontiers, 26 February 1999
"Moscow Scientology center raided"
by Anna Dolgov, Associated Press, 26 February 1999
"Scientologists become new target for police scrutiny"
RFE/RL 26 February 1999
"Moscow police raid church of Scientology"
by Adam Tanner, Reuters, 25 February 1999
articles on antisemitism:SWASTIKAS IN RUSSIA: ANTI-SEMITISM SURGES
New York Times, 2 March 1999
Boston Globe, 25 February 1999
Moscow Times, 25 February 1999
Interfax, 26 February
RFE/RL, 26 February
Associated Press, 24 February
MOSCOW -- With their black uniforms and barely disguised swastikas, the followers of Alexander Barkashov's Russian National Unity party are hard to miss, which is one reason their march through a Moscow neighborhood a few weeks ago attracted so much attention.
The marchers, shouting out "Glory to Russia!" with stiff-armed salutes, numbered no more than 200, hardly a show of strength in a city of 10 million. But for Barkashov, 45, a pony-tailed karate expert and veteran of an earlier extremely nationalist movement, just showing up was enough.
"He wanted to prove his legal rights," noted Vladimir Bondarenko, deputy editor of the newspaper Zavtra, which provides ideological support for Barkashov and other Russian supremacists, "that is to say, his right to walk down the sidewalks, to go where he wants, when he wants."
These are strange times in Russia where, seven years after the collapse of communism, hopes for lasting stability seem more elusive than ever. Elections -- first to the Parliament, then to the presidency -- are still months away, but, ready or not, the country is already stricken by pre-election nerves that flare up in the press, on television and sometimes on the streets.
It was in this jumpy atmosphere that the "barkashovtsi" made their move -- and it was in this atmosphere that their Sunday outing stirred a noisy national debate: politicians and prosecutors are once again arguing over how to deal with Russia's peculiar, virulent brand of nationalist socialism, with its deep strains of anti-Semitism and its glaring antagonism to the West.
How dangerous a threat is posed by Russia's 'neo-fascism' is one of the main questions under debate. It is not difficult to make a comparison between Russia today and pre-Hitler Germany -- a collapsed economy, an electorate that feels bitter and betrayed, a weak central government. Poll takers do not have to look too far or too deep to find a widespread yearning for an "iron hand."
But for all the scare talk, Russia's neo-fascist groups are still small and marginal. Some experts maintain that they are creatures of the old KGB, while others argue conspiratorially that they are used by the authorities to whip up pre-election anxieties that will drive voters back into the embrace of the political establishment.
"You notice they make no noise until the pre-election period, when people in power try to use them for their own ends," said Oleg Vakulovsky, a television documentary film maker who has become an expert on Russian fascist groups. "The authorities have done more to boost their popularity than their own swastikas do. But their popularity takes on a life of its own, like a snowball."
One of the themes that now unite extreme nationalists and alarm liberal Russians is a recurrence of anti-Semitism. According to Bondarenko, it is no more and no less than a popular expression of the humiliation of Russian national feelings.
"For Estonians, Russians are the symbol of occupation," said Bondarenko, expanding on one of his newspaper's favorite subjects. "Here in Russia, Jews have power over finances, information and the circles that surround the president. So for millions of Russians, Jews are a symbol of their humiliation. You cannot stomp on national feelings for too long."
With their open attacks on Jews, Russia's hardcore nationalists, including those in the mainstream Communist Party, have served up a challenge to Russia's democratic politicians -- a challenge that so far has been answered only feebly, some say disgracefully.
Moscow's mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, has taken Barkashov's grandstanding as a personal affront and is trying to have the Russian National Unity party banned from the city. Elsewhere, however, attempts to put a stop to the overt racism have mostly ended in bureaucratic quagmires, with groups of "experts" assigned to "study" the legal definition of "political extremism."
As the debate heats up, so does the language of hate. In Moscow, the Russian National Unity followers are now lying low, but on television, reports of anti-Semitic statements -- and excuses for anti-Semitic statements -- have become practically commonplace.
The Russian National Unity party may not be the biggest danger; by employing Nazi symbols, it has relegated itself to the political fringe in a country that lost millions of lives in the war against Hitler.
The party -- mostly young men in their 20s and 30s, many employed in sport clubs and security firms -- has its strongholds, particularly in the Stavropol region along Russia's border with the unruly Caucasus. But membership, even in this season of deep political disillusionment, does not exceed 100,000, by the party's own boastful estimate.
There are other, even more flamboyant groups, of which the noisiest is Eduard Limonov's Nationalist Bolsheviks, who recently interrupted a political gathering of Russia's fast-dwindling liberal elite with chants of "Stalin! Gulag! Beria!"
Such shock tactics have earned Limonov, a writer and former emigre, a reputation as an outrageous star of political theater. But his followers -- almost of all of them young students, not yet in their 20s -- number no more than 6,000, and his victories are measured by media exposure, not by the ballot box.
More disturbing than all the extreme nationalist groups (which, as Russian nationalists like to point out, are less armed or violent than America's own militias) is the nationalist wing of the Communist Party, headed by Gen. Albert Makashov.
His rabid anti-Semitism has become increasingly blatant and vicious, and to date it is still unchecked. As he stumps the country, sometimes with Viktor Ilyukhin, a fellow Communist and chairman of a parliamentary committee, Makashov seems to have no other message than an appeal to a centuries-old Russian instinct to blame Jews for everything.
Just last week, let loose with another tirade, this time to an enthusiastic gathering of Cossacks in southern Russia. "So, the word 'anti-Semite' is illegal, et cetera, et cetera," Makashov shouted into a microphone. "Yet everything done for the good of the people is legal. The people are always right. We will remain anti-Semites, and we must triumph."
The Makashov strategy seems to confirm the view that the Communist Party, which can claim the sympathy of about one-third of the electorate, plans to divide like an amoeba in the December parliamentary elections. In this view, an extreme wing, led by Makashov and Ilyukhin, would make an open pitch for hardline, anti-Semitic nationalists, reaching out for nationalist protest votes that in 1993 went to Vladimir Zhirinovsky and in 1996 to Gen. Alexander Lebed.
By the calculations of Bondarenko, the editor, the Makashov wing could get as much as 15 percent of the vote. Together with the rest of the Communist Party, which may split further between hardline Marxists and more moderate socialists, the extreme nationalists could patch together a coalition that could lure more than 50 percent of the members of parliament, he added.
Limonov is more dubious about the nationalists' chances, citing the pitiful showing of Yuri Vlasov, an Olympic weight-lifting champion and hardcore nationalist who won only 220,000 votes in the 1996 presidential election.
"Yes, sure we have popular anti-Semitism, but when it comes to elections, people prefer to be very, very cautious and not vote for radicals," said Limonov, whose party is one of the few nationalist groups that tries to steer clear of racist name-calling.
Polls on the subject are often contradictory. One taken in January showed 43 percent supporting "Russia for Russians," an ambiguous slogan in a country that has more than 100 nationalities. But another recent poll found that 83 percent considered the anti-Semitic statements of Makashov and his ilk to be "unacceptable."
The various nationalist movements draw on different parts of the past for inspiration -- some looking to Czarist times, others to the perceived glory of Soviet power.
But the movements themselves have also intertwined. Barkashov, for instance, came from Pamyat, a late Soviet-era nationalist organization that sank from sight after one leader was sent to prison for shouting out anti-Semitic slogans at a literary gathering.
Both Barkashov and Makashov became symbols of violent opposition to President Boris Yeltsin in 1993 when they helped lead an abortive coup that ended with Yeltsin's order to shell the Russian Parliament.
Limonov sees his movement, which he says has surged in membership since the financial crisis hit last August, as more radical, certainly more youth-oriented than the others, and drawing on symbols of Russian power -- like Stalin.
"You Americans worship George Washington, so why should we not worship Stalin?" he asked. "I am sure if you looked into Washington's biography, you would find unpleasant moments, too. Stalin is our national hero; he was the head of our state at its most powerful."
But Limonov rejects attempts to paint his followers as dangerous extremists.
"It is very sad," he said. "We are widely accused of being extremists while those big bosses -- Makashov and Ilyukhin -- are sitting quietly in their seats in the Parliament. My question is: why aren't they being prosecuted for not behaving properly?"
c. New York Times
IN RURAL RUSSIA, RETURN OF SWASTIKA
by David Filipov
Boston Globe, 25 February 1999
Anti-Semitism returns, with vague nationalism
BOROVICHI, Russia - Eduard Alexeyev flipped through the latest batch of anonymous hate mail that turned up at his apartment.
''Get your stinking family out of Russia,'' one letter read.
''Streets will be washed with Jewish blood,'' read another. ''Every Friday there will be a pogrom.''
Such messages are routine these days for Alexeyev, 29, leader of the tiny Jewish community of Borovichi, a provincial factory town of 80,000 that has become a center of the new wave of anti-Semitism sweeping rural Russia.
In the kitchen, a burly man in his 40s assessed the distance to his own apartment balcony, 150 yards across the courtyard. This was Alexei Finkelshtein, Alexeyev's friend and unofficial ''security chief'' and an avid collector of firearms.
''If anyone tries a pogrom, give me a call and I'll fire a few rounds above their heads,'' Finkelshtein said, only half joking. ''That'll calm them down.''
Tensions in this town 240 miles north of Moscow have risen sharply in recent weeks, since the neo-fascist group, Russian National Unity, known as RNE in Russia, became active here.
RNE's swastika-wearing followers preach a message of hatred, blaming Jews and other ''foreign people'' for Russia's recent economic problems and calling for the establishment of ''Russian order.'' Posters and stickers with anti-Semitic slogans and pictures have gone up at bus stops and on sign posts and store windows. Jewish graves were vandalized at the local cemetery. Someone painted a red Star of David on a Jewish family's door and set fire to it.
And Alexeyev has been receiving those letters.
Every Sunday, RNE men in their trademark black shirts and red swastika armbands gather in Borovichi's center to distribute anti-Semitic material and enlist young recruits.
Officially, Russia is nothing like the openly anti-Semitic regimes of the Soviet Union or the Czarist empire. Russia has a law against inciting ethnic hatred. But in Borovichi, where there are about 500 Jews, and other rural areas, Jews worry that authorities are doing too little to implement it.
''Borovichi represents the new Russian anti-Semitism - anti-Semitism in the vast regions of Russia that grows unchecked by national or international governmental institutions,'' Yosef Abramowitz, president of the New York-based Union of Councils on Soviet Jewry, said last week.
Alexeyev has appealed to local authorities for help. But Borovichi's prosecutor last week refused to bring charges against RNE, saying that the party itself is not illegal and that the swastikas that its members wear do not incite ethnic hatred. The local legislature has tried to ban RNE from displaying fascist logos. Meanwhile, the posters and stickers keep appearing.
''People are afraid,'' Alexeyev said. ''They tell us: `Don't forget that you're Jews, don't be too loud. You know who you're up against.'''
Alexeyev, who is married with two small children, says he is not afraid. But he is cautious about criticizing Borovichi. He does not want to harm his relationship with its mayor, Vladimir Ogontsov.
Two years ago, when another neo-fascist group ran television ads telling Christians to take up arms and ''kill a Jew a week,'' Ogontsov had the ads stopped.
During Hanukkah in December, Borovichi officials helped put on four sellout concerts of Jewish music. Officials also have offered Alexeyev a building, for the price of $2,000, for a new synagogue to replace the one destroyed by the Soviet authorities in 1937.
Alexeyev knows it could be worse. In Vladimir, a gritty provincial center 120 miles east of Moscow, the governor still flies the red Soviet flag and the regional legislature apparently thinks anti-Semitism and Russian patriotism are the same thing.
''We are tolerated here as long as we keep quiet,'' Natalya Itelson, 33, a leader of Vladimir's 700-member Jewish community. She spoke from the Tractory Factory club there, one of the two buildings in town where ''Jews feel safe about getting together.''
''We will not live to see the day when Jews in Vladimir are seen as ordinary Russian citizens,'' Itelson said.
She became convinced of this after the past fall's barrage of bluntly anti-Semitic outbursts in Moscow by leaders of the Communist Party, which dominates the federal parliament. Prominent Communist lawmaker Viktor Ilyukhin in November accused Jews of waging ''genocide'' on Russians, and argued that the country's population was falling because President Boris N. Yeltsin's government was made up ''exclusively of one group, the Jews.'' (Yeltsin's governments have included some Jews and other minorities.) Another lawmaker proposed quotas for Jews in government, and Vladimir's local legislature voted 34-2 to support the idea.
Then in December, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov said he had nothing against Jews but that what he called Zionists were plotting to rule the world. Russian Jews, he said, had to choose which group they belonged to.
The outbursts were shocking but familiar.
''Why have they brought this up now? Elections are coming'' this December, ''and the Communists need an enemy,'' said Alexander Osovtsov, executive vice president of the Moscow-based Russian Jewish Congress. ''Whenever that happens in Russia, the first candidate is the Jews.''
Is anti-Semitism an effective electoral strategy in Russia? The voters are certainly out there. In a recent survey of 3,000 listeners by Ekho Moskvy radio, 34 percent said ''yes'' to the question: ''Would Russia be a better place if all the Jews left?''
Sociologist Lev Gudkov, who studies anti-Semitism in Russia, says both the Communists and ultranationalist groups such as RNE are vying for similar voters: the estimated 20 to 25 percent of Russians who harbor anti-Semitic attitudes.
Not everyone approves of politicians who employ anti-Semitism. Moscow's mayor, Yury M. Luzhkov, has condemned the attacks and banned RNE from holding a congress in Moscow. Yeltsin has ordered his administration to combat political extremism.
Jews generally report less tension in Moscow and St. Petersburg, home to most of Russia's Jewish population. Few Jewish leaders in Moscow think a return to state-sponsored anti-Semitism is imminent.
But there is a different view in the regions where Communists and their nationalist allies constitute the main political force and Moscow's laws carry little weight.
In Krasnodar Territory in southern Russia, RNE last month put up posters calling on citizens to burn down Jews' houses. Krasnodar's governor, Nikolai Kondratenko, frequently demands the ouster of so-called Zionists from his region. Recently, Kondratenko has introduced a textbook for Krasnodar schools that blames Russia's problems in the 20th century on a Jewish conspiracy.
In nearby Stavropol, a large RNE poster welcomes visitors with an appeal for help in defending ''Russian order.'' When RNE wanted to hold a congress here, they were given the main exhibition hall. Black-shirted gangs harass Jews and warn of reprisals.
''Sometimes it's frightening to go out on the street,'' said Fima Fainer, head of Stavropol's small Jewish community. ''People are starting to worry.''
Although that worry has translated into only a slight increase in Jewish emigration from Russia, Osovtsov of the Russian Jewish Congress said, the number of Jews who want to know what they need to do to leave has doubled.
''When Jews leave, it is not a Jewish problem, it is a threat to the idea of a democratic Russian state,'' Osovtsov said.
Jewish leaders say the federal authorities have to act more decisively in prosecuting hate crimes.
''People are worried about the lack of action. ... This sends the wrong signal to regional authorities,'' said Adolf Shayevich, the chief rabbi of Russia. ''The big danger for Russia is if these people realize they can get away with anything.
''Today, there are many Jews in business and government,'' Shayevich said. ''But there is fear because the government can't control the situation. Perhaps some people have started to fear all this fascist literature. Jews have a genetic memory and they know where that leads.''
MOSCOW GETS TOUGH ON NAZI SYMBOLS
by Natalya Shuyakovskaya
Moscow Times, 25 February 1999
Moscow's chief prosecutor, tired of being accused of letting neo-Nazis off the hook too easily, proposed a tough new city law Wednesday that would turn punishing those who wear or sell fascist or fascist-like symbols into an easy one-stop procedure.
The proposed law submitted by prosecutor Sergie Gerasimov to the Moscow City Duma would bypass reluctant judges and allow police chiefs to punish offenders directly with hefty fines.
The initiative is another step in the battle that the Moscow authorities, led by Mayor Yury Luzhkov, are waging against Russsian National Unity, or RNE. The group's members call themselves fascists, wear black uniforms and red armbands with swastika-like symbols and perform a Hitler-like salute....
...The law would allow the dozens of district police chiefs to make the ruling themselves. They would have the power to levy a fine as large as 8,300 rubles ($363 at Thursday's official rate) on anyone caught selling or wearing symbols resembling those of the Nazis. "We are offering our own way of making the law work one way or another," Statesenko said Wednesday in an interview.
But as Moscow legal professionals mulled over how to shut down the RNE in the capital, the group held a meeting in Yekaterinburg on Tuesday. RNE leader Alexander Barkashov announced that he was changing the name of his political group, Movement in Support of the Army, to MOVEMENT AGAINST THE JEWS.
"Why is the word anti-semitic illegal?" raged Barkashov, who has a criminal case pending against him. "EVERYTHING DONE FOR THE GOOD OF THE NATION SHOULD BE LEGAL." (courtesy of Lauren Homer)
MOST RUSSIAN POLL RESPONDENTS FAVOR BANNING NAZIS
MOSCOW, Feb 26 (Interfax) - A vast majority of Russians - 78% - say that pro-Nazi organizations, their newspapers and their symbols must be banned. A poll of 1,600 people taken by the All-Russian Public Opinion Center during February 19-22 says that 12% of respondents said there is no need for a ban, and 10% were undecided. People over 40, having an average income, having voted for Boris Yeltsin in 1996 and living in small towns are likely to support the ban. The poll asked about the attitude toward Aleksandr Barkashov's Russian National Unity [RNE]. One percent of the respondents said they are active supporters of the party, 3% sympathized with the party and its leader, and 15% said they have a neutral attitude toward the party. The view that the party has a right to operate legally was shared by 13% of respondents. Thirty-five percent of Russians wanted RNE to be banned; 22% knew nothing about it; and 11% had no opinion on the subject. Men, people over 55 and people under 25 were more likely to sympathize with RNE. Middle-school dropouts outnumbered university-educated people 6 to 1 as RNE sympathizers. Residents of the southern part of European Russia outnumbered those of the Moscow region, Siberia and the Far East 5 to 1 as RNE sympathizers. People who supported Communist Party leader Gennadiy Zyuganov in the second round of the 1996 presidential elections are three times as likely to sympathize with RNE as those who supported Boris Yeltsin. Another question in the poll was about the attitude toward the Communist Party of Russia (KPRF). Eight percent of respondents called themselves active supporters of the party, 23% sympathized with it, 38% were neutral about it, 18% did not like the party but believed that it had a right to act legally, and 5% wanted it banned. Surprisingly, 2% knew nothing of the party's existence, and 11% were undecided. Men outnumber women 2 to 1 among active supporters of the KPRF, while there were slightly more women among the sympathizers. KPRF supporters younger than 25 add up to just one twentieth of supporters older than 55. Only among pensioners was the fraction of supporters and sympathizers above the average. KPRF supporters predominantly came from the northern part of European Russia and predominantly live in towns and villages.
from Johnson's Russia List
AN ANCIENT EVIL, A NEW CONFLICT
by Paul Goble
Washington, 26 February 1999 (RFE/RL) -- Anti-Semitism is again on the rise in Russia, a development that bodes ill for the social and political future of that country. But in addition, such a trend may threaten relations between Moscow and many Western capitals.
If that occurs, it will be only the latest occasion in which the rise of anti-Semitism there has had that effect. But this time, there is a significant difference. Earlier, primarily state-sponsored anti-Semitism disturbed the West. Now, it faces a situation in which the Russian State appears incapable of containing or stamping out this ancient evil.
Consequently, the latest increase in anti-Semitic statements and actions in Russia could have the effect of intensifying the debate about Moscow's ability to deal with a variety of other problems on its territory and to deliver on its promises to Western governments.
That stark conclusion is suggested by the testimony provided during a hearing on anti-Semitism in Russia held on Wednesday by the European Affairs Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Among the speakers were David Harris, the executive director of the American Jewish Committee, and Mark Levin, the executive director of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry.
Harris pointed out that anti-Semitism has a continuing appeal in societies, like that of Russia, which are undergoing radical and uncertain change. Levin added that the statements of Russian communist leaders such as the widely criticized comments of Duma deputy Albert Makashov in October 1998 have created an environment in which anti-Semitism can flourish.
In summing up the results of this hearing -- the third the U.S. Congress has held on this subject in recent years -- Senator Gordon Smith, the chairman of the subcommittee and a Republican from Oregon, said that Washington must make it clear that any mistreatment of Russia's approximately 600,000 Jewish citizens will hurt Russian-American relations.
American leaders over the past century have taken the same position. For example, President Woodrow Wilson was reluctant to join Russia as an ally in World War I until the Provisional Government in early 1917 overthrew the regime of Nicholas II whose government was widely condemned for sponsoring anti-Semitic outrages.
And Washington's relations with Moscow in the 1970s and 1980s were often dependent on how the Soviet government treated Jews and how many of them it allowed to emigrate to Israel and the West.
In both these cases as well as in many others, the West held Russian and Soviet governments accountable for what they were doing rather than what they had failed to prevent. Now, however, people and governments in the West are worried about what the current Russian government has failed to block.
During Wednesday's hearing, most of the testimony focused on the statements and actions of individuals who are not part of the Russian government itself: communist activists, radical nationalists and so on. And they thus called attention to the weakness of the Russian State itself.
That presents both Moscow and the West with a situation with which neither is yet certain how to cope.
On the one hand, many Russian officials are quite willing to point out that they cannot be held responsible for the actions of Russians who are not in the government. Even more, they are happy to exploit this situation either to bolster their own authority by allowing others to whip up popular passions or to use such outrages to gain Western support for a strengthening of the Russian state apparatus.
On the other, many in the West are appalled and even frightened by the intensification of anti-Semitism in Russia. Not only does this play into the notion now widely discussed that the Russian Federation is drifting toward fascism, but it leads some to conclude that only a new and more authoritarian regime can deal with this situation.
Given these uncertainties, the rise in anti-Semitic statements and actions in Russia appear likely to make relations between Moscow and the West far more difficult and contentious as each side struggles to find a way out of a situation in which the West is holding the Russian government responsible for something Moscow cannot now control.
c. RFE-RL
RUSSIAN ANTI-SEMITISM SAID RISING
by Jim Abrams
.c The Associated Press, 24 February 1999
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Anti-Semitism is growing in Russia, kindled by economic distress and fueled by political parties on both the right and left, Jewish leaders told members of Congress.
``Again, history has shown the enduring appeal of anti-Semitism as a political weapon in this part of the world, especially during periods of transition,'' David Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Committee, said Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations European affairs subcommittee.
Those who testified identified bombed synagogues, desecrated cemeteries, Nazi- style demonstrations and, most ominously, blatantly anti-Jewish rhetoric from some of Russia's top political leaders as symptoms of the phenomenon.
Mark B. Levin, executive director of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, said statements of hate and violence by the Russian Communist Party have ``created a tense atmosphere and growing fear of anti-Semitism in an already precarious environment.''
Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, chief rabbi of Moscow, said Gennady Zuganov, leader of the Communist Party, has blamed Russia's economic crisis on Jews by noting that some ministers in the last government were of Jewish descent.
On the right, the virulently anti-Semitic Russian National Unity party has established chapters in more than a dozen cities across the country, Levin said.
He said while polls show that most Russians are not overtly anti-Semitic, many are ambivalent in their attitudes toward Jews and thereby are open to manipulation by politicians. Anti-Semitism has a long history in Russia; tsarist governments sanctioned pogroms against Jewish populations.
``All this pathetic scapegoating certainly casts a pall over our relations with Russia,'' Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., said.
The subcommittee chairman, Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., said U.S. leaders
must make clear that mistreatment of Russia's estimated 600,000 Jews will
affect U.S.-Russian relations. ``We've got to make some tough calls,''
said Smith, who in the past has tried to tie U.S. aid to religious freedom
in Russia.
(posted 2 March 1999)
MOSCOW, Mar. 02, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Some 60 Pentecostalists took over a public building in Yakutia, eastern Siberia, and threatened to commit suicide if authorities forced them out, Russian media reported Tuesday. The fundamentalist Christians invaded the building Monday to protest against a January decision by residents of their village, Kutana, to expel them. Security forces surrounded the Aldan district building as the Pentecostalists inside, who included an estimated 20 children, sang and danced, media reports said. Regional officials tried to talk the protestors out of the building, without success. "What they want is not clear. They are reluctant to open a dialogue," regional official Alexei Shashkov told Itar-Tass news agency. A man known as "Pastor Yevgeny," who served a 13-year prison sentence for murdering his wife, was the group's leader, the reports said. Two years ago, the group occupied a police station in the Ust-Maya district, near Aldan where they currently reside.
courtesy of Ray Prigodich
PENTECOSTALS IN MAGADAN FACING POLICE PRESSURE.
RFE/RL 22 February 1999
The Word of Life Church in Magadan filed a complaint on 15 February with the oblast's Prosecutor-General's Office about harassment by local police and tax officials, Keston News Service reported on 20 February. In December and January, local tax officials raided the Church and removed documents, which have still not been returned. In February, local police officials threatened Church members during a night raid on the pretext of a hunt for drug dealers, according to the UK-based agency. According to the Church's pastor, the Pentecostal organization has some 800 followers in the city of Magadan and branches throughout the oblast. A local expert on religions reckons that the Pentecostals are the biggest denomination in Magadan after the Orthodox Church. Last month, some 350 members of the Church appealed to the U.S. embassy in Moscow for political asylum. JAC
(posted 2 March 1999)
"Again there is no cotton in the drugstore. Who's guilty? The Jews." (from almost contemporary folklore)
Surely there is hardly any sense in arguing with a recently published brochure titled "How an antisemite is made" (Hodigitriia, 1998) were it not that its author is Deacon Andrei Kuraev. Personally I do not have any Orthodox acquaintance who would not know this name. The books which come from the pen of Deacon Andrei are produced conscientiously, several titles a year, as a rule, have episcopal imprimatur and are sold in just about every Moscow parish of the Russian Orthodox church. I think that nobody who is the least bit aware of contemporary Russian church reality could fail to note the "green light" that is nowadays given, in contrast with a number of other talented preachers, to the diverse activity of Fr Andrei, who now is a professor of the Saint Tikhon's Theological Institute and to recognize the image as a kind of "chief apologist" of the Russian Orthodox church which Fr Andrei has, although it is not stated. [Link to Deacon Kuraev's home page on the WWW.]The situation is complicated in that the views of Fr Andrei, whether he wants it or not, can hardly be separated from the official church point of view. Without doubt Fr Andrei himself recognizes this situation; otherwise there would be no sense in his making a special qualification in the book that the Russian Orthodox church is not responsible for its contents, but only the author personally. However, such a qualification does not blunt the problem. Such a recognized and popular church writer has too great a responsibility for every word, however he may stress the personal character of his opinions. We'll say more about the responsibility for such talk below, but first a bit about the contents of the brochure as a whole. This time Deacon Andrei offers us not a Christian apologetical work, nor a polemic with protestants or Rerikites, nor a criticism of ecumenism. In the new book he is complaining that he has been made an antisemite.
"I do not want to become one," Fr Andrei exclaims at the end of the preface. Who is making Fr Andrei an antisemite? In essence the author gives two answers. One is more narrowly and sharply formulated: Jewish journalists, the "masters of NTV and other representatives of the democratic press." The second is broader and dispersed throughout the text: Jews are such. This is what the book is written about. Again about the destructive role of Jews in world history and the Russian revolution, the "Berezovsky-Gusinsky" financial and information empire, the "sacrilegious file," the notorious article of Eduard Topol--in a word, about all of this again.
Naturally the deacon father tries everywhere to emphasize that he is definitely not like the atavistic bigots. He would not be himself if he forgot to supply the text with periodic notes about his objectivity and qualifications about the necessity for a Christian to see the log in his own eye, and with references to the insufficiencies of love, prayerfulness, and spirituality within himself (and those who agree with him): "The Russian land is not populated by some Serafims of Sarov." They push you around, you see, and goad you into "impulsive reactions," and then it breaks out. . . . However the text raises some doubt. It is quite possible to admit that a feeble person, as Fr Kuraev recognizes himself, as a result of some recurrent trick of the "democratic-Judeophile" press (Fr Andrei's neologism), which, in his views, offends "religious and national sensibilities," could erupt in emotion: "There they are again. . .! They're all around...!" (incidentally, the word "zhid" and its derivatives appear in the citations with which the book abounds). But how does one write off to feelings and emotions the following passage: ". . . The Jews' permanent revolutionary enthusiasm has religious roots. The point is that when the Lord created Israel, he created him so that he would be able to survive amidst the older and more powerful . . . nations and empires. Israel was given an amazing talent of resistance, a talent for revolution. In order for Israel to be able to survive in empires. . . he was given the penetrating force that is possessed by a blade that can cut concrete. This gift remained with Israel even after the prophetic and spiritual gifts were taken from him. But now this talent has begun to work against the Christian empires and cultures. In any revolution, directed to the destruction of canons and traditions, or national forms of life and consciousness, Jews take a most active part--either they directly organize it or they provoke it by persistent grumbling about 'this country' and 'these dogmas,' or they provide it informational and rhetorical support" (pp. 79-80). The question arises naturally: what is this, an "impulsive reaction" or the intellectual conviction of the author supported by a theological foundation? In other places of the book the author seems to forget his own recent contrition for his personal weakness and he tries to justify it before the reader. He says he is not alone: these Jews will make anyone available into an antisemite. "Among all nations on earth," we read on page 68, "in all ages these has arisen an identical reaction to Jews (that is, antisemitism, D.M.), when they have settled among them in sufficient numbers." Naturally, with appropriate historical examples (for which, however, it is not difficult to find counterexamples). Nevertheless, the Jews do this by their own conduct--they exercise their gift of self-preservation or, on the contrary, they display their "inability to live next door," bringing down upon their head the negative "reaction" of their neighbors, but this matter is not illuminated by either a single example or the author's own ideas. It is not hard for even the outstanding intellect of Deacon Andrei to be deceived by the darkness of irrational nationalist mythology when he runs the risk of wandering into this darkness.
In spite of such trivialities and similar contradictions, the author has created his own myths. One of his "discoveries" is that International Women's Day, 8 March, has as its prototype Purim, a terrible (according to Fr Andrei) Jewish holiday that vividly testifies to the cruelty of "their" national character.
I want to be understood correctly: I definitely do not consider the writer to be some kind of pathological Judeophobe. I am writing this article not because I am "offended for the Jews." The issue is not, in essence, the Jews. I do not set for myself the task of arguing with all misanthropic ravings that set one's teeth on edge; I am very much more concerned for the fate of the church and the personality of the writer who has suddenly undertaken to recall and "creatively" develop these ravings. I am simply upset that the principle as old as the Fall has continued to play bad jokes on Fr Andrei: someone is guilty, but it is not I. And its collective variant: some other race is guilty, but not mine. For Deacon Andrei, judging by his current writings, this race bears the name of "Jew." For the Arab nationalist it also is the Jews, although for the Jew, it is the Arabs. For someone it can be the bicyclists or postmen who are guilty. Regular tribal or group consciousness, arising from our egocentrism, gives birth to antisemitism, or russophobia, caucasian-phobia, Catholic-, Orthodox-, sect-, and all other similar "phobias." Spiritual weakness forces us to divide those around into "ours"--correct--and "theirs--guilty. It's a common thing.
It would be common, except for one circumstance: Deacon Andrei Kuraev is a Christian, and that means that he is called to overcome all of this within himself, not merely to quote the command given him by the Lord to look for the log in his own eye but also to obey it. Besides, Deacon Andrei Kuraev is not simply a Christian, but a designated evangelist, to a certain extent the "calling card" of the Russian Orthodox church. That means that to give in to the temptation of tribal psychology is for him an especially impermissible evil. Hardly anyone has ever read the marginal nazi newspaper "Right Hand" (Desnitsa) which he cites, describing the destructive effects of the showing of Scorsece's film (I, for example, did not even know that such a paper existed; I have seen the paper "Desiatina," but this is the first I heard of "Desnitsa.") Now a multitude of people will read and pass on Kuraev, who is philosophizing on this "hot" subject: look what an authoritative man in the church is saying! And is this not what the church is saying? It is clear that there is a dual demand upon such a man. Speaking according to conscience, he must not complain about his own weakness but work on it and then increase, as they say in the church, his ascetic efforts. The necessity of seeing what is best in people guides me, which also Fr Andrei himself somewhere in the depths of his heart fully understands, or at least is able to understand. He is right when he insists that there is no antisemitism in the church. In general, there is no place in it for sin. Any sin of any Christian, including antisemitism, always is outside the church. It is no accident that the brochure "How an antisemite is made" is perhaps the only one of his numerous books that does not have episcopal imprimatur. In practice, Fr Andrei , for all his current success, remains within our church as a, I would say, tragic figure. The very role which he has voluntarily taken upon himself is tragic, which I would define as the role of the intellectual in the service of obscurantism. In a certain sense, to be sure, there is reason for optimism: if such a thing is possible it means that obscurantism has still not triumphed in our church. Triumphant obscurantism doesn't need intellectuals. But properly speaking it has become clear wherein lies the tragedy.
Fr Andrei, as a rule, has used his undoubted gift of expression and his clear preaching and apologetic talent not for a positive testimony about Christ and Orthodoxy but in a fruitless polemic against those who believe and worship differently and on a scrupulous examination of the prophets of "foreign" teachings and practices, like some kind of Talmud or Kabbala, "Vital Ethic," or Catholic liturgical conduct. Thereby he has doomed himself to adherence not to the present but to the past. The style of apologetics that Deacon Andrei Kuraev has chosen is by no means an "Orthodox apologetics for the brink of the twenty-first century," as is mentioned on the first page of a number of his books published by the Blagovest fund. It is a hoary proselytizing style of "confrontational theology," a real ideological war, in which everything of "theirs" is subjected to ideological bombardment and any manifestation of a critical (which simply means "rational") attitude toward "ours" is viewed as betrayal. Such apologetics, in the final analysis, offers a person only a path of slavishness--it intimidates the person who already has been intimidated by this world or by the fears created in the other competitor religions, and then it says to him: come to us; we do not have anything like that. One should think that the time for such apologetics passed away for us Christians long before the "brink of the twenty-first century."
It seems that evangelizing "out of the trenches" is psychologically easier and more comfortable. This is likely in the case where we retain the tribal and group consciousness that forces us to take the church as "our group," outside of which there is a circle of enemies. Besides, when such a consciousness has not been rooted out another variant is possible where the church becomes for a person one other group alongside others that function for him in the capacity of race, tribe, nation, etc. A person becomes accustomed to living within the church, without ridding himself of this psychology and its destructive and schismatic activity.
What kinds of consequences this leads to for the one who has such consciousness and for the Christian mission and the church as a whole is abundantly evident in the example of even such a venerable church leader as Fr Kuraev. Thus, in the brochure under review, which develops the theological basis for the thesis of the inherent destructiveness of Judaism (on p. 80) he constructs the following antitheses: Israel's ideal model is the one who denounces the errors of surrounding prophets (whose secular variant is the "oppositional journalist") and the feeling of responsibility for everything turns out to be a "Jewish" feeling (p. 82); the Orthodox-Russian ideal model is, on the contrary, the peaceful supplicant "who inaudibly creates good within himself and shares it with those around him." Unquestionably, such a valuable gift is needed in the church, but after all there are various gifts in it. Why deprive our local church by such an artificial alternative of the no less valuable and important prophetic gift? Shouldn't Rus give birth to prophets and simply people with a heightened sense of responsibility? Properly speaking, what is Deacon Andrei concerned with here: the gifts of the church or the purity of a "national ideal," interpreted in his peculiar way?
Meanwhile, there are false prophets all around--really many of them--and this is not some paranoia but the logical spiritual reality in a fallen world. To avoid falling into their nets we need true prophets; we recall the opposition between Jeremiah and Ananiah. But hasn't it turned out that when responsibility and the prophetic gift are sorely needed, they have been rejected: Deacon Andrei Kuraev turned them over to Israel and denied them to the "new Israel"? Another example. In 1997 Fr Andrei produced the brochures "Protestants on Orthodoxy" and "Christ's Heritage." The first book and ninety-five percent of the second were devoted to a polemic against protestants and matters of the relationship between scripture and tradition. All of this led to the conclusion in the ten last pages of the second brochure--in the "Epilogue for students of culture," without beating around the bush, he says that these books are a "normal protest of the local culture against global McDonaldization." No more nor less. In other words, the writer actually admitted that he is not defending doctrinal truths, nor the church, nor even confessional interests, but simply the interests of "local culture." One wonders: is all this theological, philosophical, and ethical argumentation contained in these book really only a piece of craftwork, a means for achieving goals extraneous to the church? When such a secularization of consciousness suddenly is manifested by a worthy church apologist, this is a troubling symptom.
There are many such symptoms in our church today. The appearance of the brochure "How an antisemite is made" is one of them. This is a "very timely book," but, alas, not for the church. It should be stored alongside "Topol, Makashov, Iliukhin."
Everyone chooses for himself whom and what to serve.
Fr Andrei has such a moment of choice recently. Last summer the newspaper "Russkii vestnik" took him on. This is a newspaper tied up with several of our isolationists that appears as an Orthodox publication, but which really is not ecclesiastical; it is so nonecclesiastical that it could not assess the merits of the father deacon on the basis of the theological position of the party to which he belongs. In his articles the editors of Russkii vestnik seem to detect the hated "liberalism" (people with such views are generally characterized by an allergy to intelligent people and coherent talk), and in the newspaper there arose an illiterate diatribe under the title "Against the heresy of Deacon Andrei (Kuraev)." The illiteracy extended everywhere, even to the title: within the church it is customary to put within parentheses the surnames only of monks. At first Fr Andrei displayed a normal reaction; he called slander, slander; hatred, hatred; and stupidity, stupidity. To be sure, on the whole the answers seemed somehow incommensurate with the scale of the attacks--whole newspapers in several editions, as if the issue were some theologically based claims that arose from reputable church circle. But soon the storm subsided and then appeared the book "How an antisemite is made."
Not without sorrow do I suggest that now Fr Andrei's problem with Russkii vestnik has been wiped out. Although I very much hope that I am mistaken. (tr. by PDS)
(posted 2 March
1999)
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