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Local group cites economic difference as basis for anti-Semitism
Hate crimes against Jews in Los Angeles, Chicago and Sacramento worry Boulder attorney Bill Cohen, but he says life for Jews in Russia is far worse.
Cohen released a report Friday detailing an escalating trend of hatred toward Jews in Russia. The 16-page document from the Boulder-based Center for Human Rights Advocacy cited economic hardship and general indifference as key ingredients of Russian anti-Semitism.
The report documents cases of violence against Jews and government apathy in Russia, as well as U.S. governmental reactions to those problems. Monitors in Russia supplied information for the report.
About 1 million Jews have left the former Soviet Union since 1989, the report said. The insurgence of anti-Semitism in the past year contributed to a 128 percent increase in emigrations to Israel.
The Boulder center, created in 1991, is a public-interest law firm focusing on human-rights issues in the former Soviet Union.
"This trend of hatred is disturbing, and will require a great overhaul of the corrupted system to change it," said Cohen, president and chief counsel of the center.
Russia's inadequate responses to anti-Semitism prompted 99 U.S. senators to threaten Russian President Boris Yeltsin with halting economic support, Cohen said.
"We are seeing a weak society, weak government in a terrible economic crisis," he said. "It's sad, but I don't think the trend can go anywhere but bad."
Russians have been facing poverty and scarce resources since the Soviet Union and Communism collapsed in 1991. Average wages have decreased sharply since 1990, and many consumer items are unattainable.
The Boulder center's report includes information on two "fascist" groups that used violence, demonstrations and intimidation to terrorize a town in northwestern Russia in December 1998.
The fascists sponsored television ads calling for residents to "pick up arms and kill at least one Jew a day," the report said, and local schools were used as recruiting grounds and meeting places by the fascists.
"Actually, it's not just Jews being persecuted, all minorities are in danger," Cohen said. "They just don't have anyone to turn to."
He said Russia's leading politicians are apathetic regarding anti-Semitism and uninterested in passing anti-Semitic legislation.
The report quotes Communist Deputy Viktor Ilyukhin, a member of Russia's legislature, who said in December 1998 that Jews are responsible for the "genocide against the Russian people."
Few criminal investigations on hate crimes in Russia are initiated and most court cases are unresolved, the report said.
Cohen said many politicians don't want to be photographed standing next to a Jew." In the United States, despite recent anti-Semitic violence, the trend is the opposite. Cindy Sliverman, associate director of the Anti-Defamation League of B'Nai B'Rith in Denver, said hate crimes in the United States are going down.
"We are quite concerned of the frequency of the recent shootings (in Los Angeles and Chicago), and we do hope this is not going to become a trend," Silverman said.
"Since the memberships in these hate groups are decreasing, the remaining members are trying desperately to make a statement," she said.
Last week, Buford O'Neal Furrow Jr. raked a Jewish day-care center in Los Angeles with gunfire and told police his actions were a wake-up call to Americans. In Chicago, a 21-year-old white supremacist initiated a shooting spree that ended with three dead and nine injured. In Sacramento, two synagogues and a library were torched.
Cohen said the shootings aren't part of a trend because the majority of Americans are not going to tolerate racial, religious or ethnic hatred.
"I firmly believe there is a core of goodness in this society that won't allow this kind of madness," he said.
Cohen recalled a recent incident in which the Jewish members of a U.S. community were vandalized regularly because they displayed menorahs in their windows. Christians and others in the community pulled together and prominently displayed menorahs in their own windows.
"There will always be some people full of hate, but our communities do and will come together as one," Cohen said.
[The full report is accessible at Union of Councils for Soviet Jews.]
THE ESCALATION OF ANTI-SEMITIC VIOLENCE IN RUSSIA
by William M. Cohen
(Excerpt) I. Summery: Anti-semitism and persecution of Jews in Russia has dramatically accelerated
The Center for Human Rights Advocacy (CHRA) has been monitoring and analyzing social, economic, political, ethnic and anti-Semitism developments in Russia and the former Soviet Union (FSU) since its inception in early 1991. In addition, because of the persistent evidence and reports of anti-Semitism in Russia, the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ), on which the author serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors, has steadily increased its monitoring and reporting on human rights and anti-Semitism in Russia. In cooperation with the Moscow Helsinki Group, and aided by a grant from the United States Agency for International Development, trained monitors located throughout Russia now regularly report to UCSJ and CHRA on this growing phenomenon.
The persistent pattern of anti-Semitism and the pernicious practice of persecution of Jews in Russia was identified and summarized by CHRA in March of 1996: This phenomenon [i.e., steadily growing anti-Semitism in an atmosphere of economic hardship following the breakup of the FSU] is exploited by politicians and elected officials for political gain. It is manifested by acts of discrimination, insults, threats, and violence against Jews, Jewish property, and Jewish institutions. It is aimed, in substantial part, at driving Jews out of Russia to make room for Russians in a time of scarcity, economic distress, and political instability arising out of the destruction of the Soviet Empire. Moreover, it is clear that there now exists no Russian governmental agency able or willing to protect Jews from persecution because of their nationality or religion. The absence of any meaningful deterrent to such conduct plus the permission given to anti-Semites by leading politicians and elected officials to engage in such conduct encourages those who would persecute Jews to do so with impunity.
Since the economic crisis and the collapse of the ruble which struck Russia in August 1998, anti-Semitic expressions by leading politicians and elected officials, aimed at demonizing and scapegoating Jews, and, ultimately, at driving them out of Russia, have dramatically accelerated. This increase in anti-Semitic rhetoric has been accompanied by a concurrent increase in the number of violent acts targeting Jews, Jewish property, and Jewish institutions. Such violence is now frequent and widespread throughout the vast number of Russia's regions as well as in the major city centers of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Nizhny Novgorod, the location of the three largest population of Jews in Russia.
The frequency and ferocity of the various anti-Semitic violent acts appears to be accelerating. At the same time, the governmental institutions upon which Jews and other targeted minorities must rely for protection against extremist violence are either unable or unwilling to effectively provide that protection.
In addition, during the political and economic crises which continue today in Russia following the August 1998 collapse, militantly anti-Semitic groups, such as Russian National Unity (RNU), have grown in size and popularity. Sensing both the impotence and indifference of law enforcement agencies, these groups have increased the openness of their anti-Semitic expressions with little or no effective action by government authorities to deter them. Under these circumstances, Jews in Russia continue to be vulnerable to anti-Semitic discrimination, violence, and persecution without any effective recourse to the Russian government at any level for protection against such prejudicial treatment.
Indeed, the risk to Jews in Russia today is greater than at any time since the breakup of the Soviet Union. The Russian government has so far demonstrated that it is both unwilling and unable to deter growing anti-Semitic violence against its steadily diminishing Jewish population. Hence, those aimed at driving Jews out of Russia, punishing them because of hatred of Jews, and scapegoating Jews for a variety of political ends can generally do so with impunity.
Faced with escalating anti-Semitic violence combined with indifference to these attacks by the general Russian populace, political exploitation of the phenomenon and government impotence to protect them, the Jewish community has resorted to funding its own security for Jewish institutions and turned to Western governments and non-governmental human rights organizations for help. Increasingly more Jews are also leaving Russia and the FSU permanently for Israel, the United States and other countries where they will be free persecution because of their Jewish religion and nationality.
Absent a dramatic change in the economic, social and political climate in Russia, it is highly unlikely that the current atmosphere of openly and violently expressed anti-Semitism will diminish any time soon. To the contrary, the escalating incidents combined with government silence and ineffective law enforcement, indicate that Jews are at great risk in Russia today and for the foreseeable future....
from Johnson's Russia List
(posted 16 August 1999)
SYKTYVKAR, August 14 (Itar-Tass) - Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia said the upcoming elections to the State Duma should be "honest and clean".
In his meeting with the leaders of the Komi Republic on Saturday, the patriarch said a candidate is a good candidate if "he care about business and Russia".
He cited elections in the Belgorod region as an example. "Although candidates made a lot of promises, only those were elected who did the real job," he added.
The patriarch stressed that it is during elections that people begin to understand that they should judge candidates not by their words but by their deeds. This is a guarantee that only the best candidates will be elected, he said.
(posted 16 August 1999)
The vicar bishop of the Tula diocese, Bishop Kirill of Bogoroditsk, ordered in his circular "all fathers, rectors, abbots and superiors of monasteries categorically not to allow into God's temples the director of the Department of Culture of the administration of Tula province, L.D. Kovyrzenkova, without the personal permission of the ruling bishop of Tula diocese or his vicar."
How had this government employee so provoked the wrath of Fr Kirill?
It seems that on 13 July she permitted herself, despite the protest of the clergy, to enter the altar area of the cathedral of the Dormition in the Tula kremlin. The issue was not at all that Larisa Dmitrievna, who once headed the department of culture of the regional committee of the communist party, did not know that according to church canons women (even directors) are categorically forbidden to enter the altar. It seems that the Dormition cathedral still is used jointly by the department of culture and the diocese, and restoration work is currently going on for reviving the frescoes, the costs of which have been provided by the provincial administration. Kovyrzenkova personally came to examine the "project," but she did not consult ahead of time the church calendar. And consequently . . . . (tr. by PDS)
TULA GOVERNMENT WORKER DESECRATED CHURCH
by Valery Panfilov
Kommersant, 4 August 1999
The leadership of the Tula diocese of the Russian Orthodox church has sent out an order to block entrance into churches for the head of the provincial department of culture. Priests have accused the government worker of blasphemy; she entered the altar where, according to church canons, women are not permitted. The provincial administration has tried to stem the uproar by alleging that a worker who is "on duty" is a sexless being, according to the report in the Tula paper Molodoi kommunar.
The warning not to permit the director of the department of culture, Larisa Kovyrzenkova, into churches was issued completely officially by the Tula diocese. The chancellery of the administrator of the diocese sent out to all rectors of churches, parish councils, and abbots and superiors of monasteries a special circular letter over the signature of the vicar of the diocese, Bishop Kirill of Bogoroditsk. The letter reports that on 13 July Kovyrzenkova permitted herself to enter the altar area of the cathedral of the Dormition in the Tula kremlin, despite protests of the clergy of the church. By doing this she committed "blasphemy and outrage against the sanctum" (according to church canons, women may not enter the altar).
Besides this, according to eyewitnesses, the director of the department behaved simply crudely, as if she were in her own office. The treasurer of the Dormition cathedral reported to a correspondent of Molodoi kommunar that Kovyrzenkova entered the church with her head uncovered and, ignoring admonitions, unceremoniously walked behind the royal doors [in the center of the iconostasis--tr. note] that separate the altar from the rest of the church. The director of the provincial department of culture strolled into the altar area and touched sacred objects that were located there, which even priests touch with fear.
The newspaper of the provincial administration, Tulskie izvestia, undertook to explain the strange conduct of Mrs. Kovyrzenkova. According to its version, the department of culture has provided money for the restoration of Dormition cathedral and the government worker decided "personally to take a look at what government funds were doing." True, according to information from Molodoi kommunar, the inspection was for some reason conducted without the knowledge of the leadership of the diocese and the rector of the church, Archpriest Fr Lev. Incidentally, he claims that the money from the provincial treasury for the restoration of the church has not been provided.
There is a rather curious second argument in defense of Kovyrzenkova given by Tulskie izvestia. In the opinion of this paper, a government worker who is fulfilling official duties is a figure that does not have sex. Thus it is impossible to find any blasphemy in Kovyrzenkova's actions. However, reporters of Molodoi kommunar consider that Larisa Kovyrzenkova's conduct is best explained by her education. In her time she graduated from the Academy of Social Sciences of the Central Committee of the communist party. In the reporters' opinion, her action was more an expression of militant atheism than of sexlessness. (tr. by PDS)
[compare report from RFE-RL, 11 August 1999:(posted 14 August 1999)
SHUT OUT BY THE BISHOPS. The head of the Tula diocese
has banned Larisa Kovyrzenkova, director of the oblast
Department of Culture, from entering the Cathedral of
the Assumption at the Tula Kremlin, "Kommersant-Daily"
reported on 4 August. Kovyrzenkova is accused of having
committed blasphemy by standing directly in front of the
altar of the cathedral. According to Church canons,
women are not allowed in the immediate vicinity of that
part of the church.]
At the same time that court cases against Muslims in Uzbekistan have attracted wide attention, illegal actions with regard to believers of other religions in the republic have remained unnoticed. As a result of recent court investigations representatives of Baptists, Pentecostals, and Jehovah's Witnesses have been sentenced to fines and imprisonment.
According to a report of the Keston News Service (KNS), on the evening of 14 June 1999 in the city of Gulistan the Uzbek police arrested a group of Baptists who were conducting street evangelism and then confiscated their loudspeaker, Christian literature, and vehicle. Two days later the court of Gulistan imposed on all of those arrested a fine totaling 97,000 som. On the same day eleven Baptists belonging to churches connected with the Council of Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists were forcibly driven out of the city without any court decision.
Before long the persecutions of Baptists in Gulistan were continued. On the evening of 17 June around 15 police officers entered the home of P. Mikhaleva, where at the time she was conducting a religious meeting with friends and relatives. According to a report from the Council of Churches, they "conducted a search without the appropriate permission of the procuracy, seized property of the believers (Bibles, money, Christian literature), and recorded on video all who were present in the apartment. Believers then were sent to the Chief Administration of Internal Affairs of Gulistan, where they were threatened with confiscation of Mikhaileva' s apartment in order to pay the fines." By decision of the court of Gulistan of 23 June 1999 one of those present at the meeting was fined a sum of 10,000 som (about two-month's average wages).
As the Council of Churches declared: "By judicial decision our brother believers were accused of conducting religious meetings and street processions for the purpose of converting people to their faith and of missionary activity (articles 201.2 and 240.2). At the same time the constitution of the republic of Uzbekistan (article 31) guarantees freedom of conscience and religious freedom. Present legislation governing the procedure for registration of religious groups in Uzbekistan not only does not recognize freedom of preaching the gospel but persecutes Christians for various 'administrative and criminal violations,' when they exercise the right of confessing their faith in Jesus Christ."
The Council of Churches has called the authorities of Uzbekistan to annul the decision of the Gulistan court against the Baptists and, in the final analysis, to guarantee the freedom of preaching the gospel in the country.
According to Liubomir Muller, attorney for the Jehovah's Witnesses of Kazakhstan, the tribulations of their society are continuing. Thirty-year-old Witness from Uchkuduka (central Uzbekistan) Sergei Brazgin was arrested on 25 February 1999 and sentenced to two years in prison on the basis of articles 216.1, 216.2, and 229 of the criminal code, which pertain to active participants in forbidden religious organizations, movements, and sects that earlier had been held administratively responsible under these articles. The accusation dealt with events of 14 February 1999 when Brazgin and his wife, Tatiana, were visiting Mustakhim Khalilov and conversed about religion. "There followed a loud knock on the door and four law enforcement officers entered. They asked those present to continue their meeting. Then the captain of the police Samyev declared that the meeting appeared illegal since it was being conducted by participants of an organization that is not registered in Uzbekistan." Brazgin was fined for "illegal missionary activity" under article 240 of the administrative code. However, according to Muller's statement, no religious organization had given Brazgin the status of a missionary and he himself had never declared himself a missionary.
At a judicial hearing conducted on 9 June in Nukus, capital of the republic of Karakalpakstan, four members of the city's Church of the Full Gospel (a Pentecostal group) were sentenced in a case connected with drugs. The convicts completely deny their guilt. According to a report of the Compass Direct News Service, twenty-two-year-old Pastor Rashid Turibaev was sentenced to a term of 15 years and two other members of the church, Parkhad Yangibaev and Issed Tanishiev, were sentenced to ten years. Turibaev was convicted under articles 216.1, 216.2, and 273.3, and Yangibaev and Tanishiev under article 273.3. (Article 273 provides punishment for crimes associated with the production, possession, and distribution of drugs.) A fourth participant in this group, Kuiiat Numanov, previously was sentenced to a fine, according to reports in western media. The indictment noted that religious meetings conducted in Turibaev's home beginning in 1995 were illegal, since the Ministry of Justice of the republic of Karakalpakstan had not registered this religious organization. "Each Sunday they gathered people from various regions with the goal of turning them to their faith, in the end deceiving more than 100 persons," the conviction indicates. "They preached their doctrine as a means of cleansing from sins and accompanied this with immersion in the Kizketken river." The sentence lists numerous books, brochures, videos, audiocassettes, and a church charter, which were confiscated by police at the time of the search on 21 February. This list also includes three packets of drugs of a total weight of 2.3 grams. After two days, on 24 February, at the time of a search of Yangibaev's home, police discovered hundreds more of the named Christian literature as well, they report, as 2.7 grams of drugs and a pistol holster. Drugs also were found at the homes of Tanishiev and Numanov. A week before the trial of the members of the Church of the Full Gospel in Nukus, another Evangelical Christian was arrested.
Compass Direct News Service reported that on 3 June 1999 Lt. Sergei Danilenko was arrested because at the time of his stop at the Nukus airport he distributed to soldiers brochures in the Karakalpak language. The airplane traveling to Fergana on which Danilenko was riding received orders to return to Nukus after it already had taken off. Immediately upon arrival local authorities searched Danilenko and found around ten Christian books in the Karakalpak language. Danilenko was arrested and, apparently, to the present day remains under arrest.
All religious groups existing today in Uzbekistan have been subjected to strict limitation under pertinent new legislation and amendments to the criminal code adopted in May 1998. This has enormously complicated registration of religious societies and makes illegal any religious activity of unregistered groups. Punishment for participation in religious activity of unregistered societies has been severe under the new amendments to the criminal code produced in April 1999. (tr. by PDS)
(posted 14 August 1999)
"Shocking ecclesiastical illiteracy," Archimandrite Afanail, the vicar of the Kazan cathedral church in Volgograd, called the attempt of several local residents arbitrarily to enrol the late Lev Rokhlin in the canon of saints. The "canonizers" are participants in the so-called "Patriarchal Fund" which operates in their city. Its director is Andrei Bakhman, who is a rather questionable character. For example, although he has not been ordained, he has dressed up in clerical robes, worn a cross, and he calls himself Father Sergei. A consultant of the press service of the local administration, Olga Trofimova, informed "Trud": "A report about the canonization of Rokhlin has appeared in the local mass media as if it were a virtually accomplished matter. It is also claimed that this has received the blessing of His Holiness, the patriarch."
However, very quickly, it transpired from a letter sent by the primate himself to the administration of Volgograd province that no blessing for the creation of the 'Patriarchal Fund' had been given. The same is true regarding the canonization of Lev Rokhlin.
Canonization is an extremely complex procedure. The proposed candidate not only much conduct a devout and Christian manner of life, but his good deeds and miracles must be established by documentation and confirmed by eyewitnesses. Only the Synodal Commission on Canonization of Saints can make a decision on his canonization after study of the collected facts. Archimandrite Afanail considers the attempts of people who are ignorant of church canons to interfere in matters of religion to be an extremely dangerous phenomenon. (tr. by PDS)
(posted 14 August 1999)
A bomb is discovered at a Moscow synagogue where 200 people had gathered for a religious ceremony, in one of more than half a dozen arson or bomb incidents in recent months.
Six graves in the Jewish cemetery in Tomsk, Siberia, were defiled earlier this month. In July, a Russian Jewish leader was stabbed inside a Moscow synagogue by a man with a swastika tatoo. Among many Communist politicians, a pejorative term for "Jew" is back in fashion, as is blaming Jews for the country's economic woes.
Meanwhile, unrest in Dagestan on top of years of strife in Chechnya have given Russian militias an excuse to harass, beat, or detain anyone whose darker skin might indicate a Caucasus origin.
Welcome to Russia at the end of the millenium - a place that is striving to be a civil society but remains marked by hints of historic pogroms.
"Nationalist extremism is increasing in our country," said Vladimir Kartashkin, chairman of the Presidential Commission for Human Rights, at a June 16 conference on the topic in Moscow. "We should nip this danger in the bud."
Old ethnic hatreds have reemerged and new ones have appeared as frustrations over the collapse of the Soviet Union eight years ago and the disintegration of the economy have found a focus: ethnic minorities.
Communist and ultranationalist politicians are stirring up this nasty brew ahead of December's parliamentary elections and the presidential poll due six months later.
Prejudice is particularly severe in Krasnodar, a stridently Communist region 500 miles south of Moscow. For centuries this was the stronghold of Cossack horsemen who defended the czar and carried out pogroms. Today, Krasnodar Governor Nikolai Kondratenko fuels anti-Semitism with harsh rhetoric and by permitting Cossack paramilitary organizations to intimidate minorities.
"They circle us on the streets and shout insults and demand money. No one helps us," says an Armenian woman who asked to be identified only as Irina.
The region's tiny Jewish community of 3,000 worships discreetly in a scientists' club rather than in a synagogue, which members worry would attract too much attention. Elders lock the 200-year-old Torah, their scripture, in a safe at night to guard against theft or desecration.
Russia's nationalists see themselves as defenders of a Slav majority under assault. Among them is Vyacheslav Ilunchev, who heads a security company and a Cossack social group here in Krasnodar. Mr. Ilunchev complains that many good jobs are held by Jews. He says Chechens fleeing the violence since a 1994-96 independence bid in their nearby republic are murderers and thieves.
"Slavs don't have money, but refugees and other people have it," he says.
Krasnodar does not have a monopoly on intimidating minorities. Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov robustly condemns anti-Semitism and has banned demonstrations by neofascists. But his city government has implemented a Soviet-style registration program aimed at cracking down on migrants from the Caucasus.
President Boris Yeltsin also regularly denounces anti-Semitism. But human rights advocates say ethnic hatred is too deeply rooted to be eradicated by declarations.
"The basic problem is the economic situation," says Adolf Shayevich, Russia's chief rabbi. "People have no work and no prospects. Historically, that's when Russians look for scapegoats."
In the past, these scapegoats often have been Jews. Pogroms during czarist times sent thousands fleeing to America. Later, the Soviets internally deported entire communities of other ethnic minorities.
Today, popular anger at the growing polarity between the ultrarich and abject poor often finds easy targets in prominent bankers or politicians perceived as Jewish. The most notable person to be labeled a "bad Jew" is the tycoon Boris Berezovsky, an adviser to the Yeltsin clan.
At the international conference on extremism in June, participants concluded that authorities took too little action to crack down on ethnic discrimination. Name-calling and harassment were only expected to increase as campaigning politicians exploit the nationalist tide.
"The major part of the population believes they have been impoverished at the expense of rich Jews," says Sergei Grigoriants, chairman of the Glasnost Public Foundation in Moscow. "I fear that before and after the elections intolerance will increase."
(posted 13 August 1999)
The Orthodox brotherhood of the Presentation and Transfiguration, which is a broad church and public movement for the regeneration of genuine spiritual life in the church and society was founded by Fr Georgy Kochetkov. It will hold its tenth anniversary meeting of the "Transfiguration Gathering." Usually around 700-800 persons from Moscow and other cities of Russia and the countries of the near abroad attend this gathering.
The brotherhood, created in August 1990, has opened five previously closed churches in Moscow and the suburbs. It carries on active Orthodox evangelistic activity, following its goal of a conscientious inclusion of our contemporaries in the church. To achieve this the brotherhood created a tuition-free evangelistic, catechetical institute, the Saint Filaret's Advanced Orthodox Christian School of Moscow, which has both church and state licenses, and it has published the magazine Pravoslavnaia Obshchina regularly since 1990, with a circulation of 3,000.
The brotherhood strives for a maximal exposure of the personality of each person to the church. It recognizes the enormous importance of the restoration of parish life in the church and opposes a spirit of closedness and sectarianism in any of its manifestations. The brotherhood support the translation of the divine liturgy into national languages, first of all into Russian. Appealing to the words of one of the fathers of the church, the blessed Augustine, "In the main things, unity; in disputed things, freedom; in everything, love," the brotherhood considers the existence of disagreement within the church normal. Members of the brotherhood expressed respect and love for all manifestations of the truth and righteousness even beyond the canonical and juridical boundaries of the church. The brotherhood opposed the politicization of the church and the use of Orthodoxy as a national and state ideology. In conducting the gathering, the brotherhood pursues its goal of open dialogue dealing with the most acute church and public problems and it invites reporters to this dialogue.
Events of the celebration include a general meeting of the gathering's participants in the Kinocentre on Druzhininikov street on 19 August, at 14.00; round tables on various topics on 20 August, from 10.00 to 18.00, followed at 19.00 by an Open House of the Saint Filaret's Advanced Orthodox Christian School of Moscow, on Pokrovka street; and a readers' conference of the Pravoslavnaia Obshchina magazine on 21 August at 10.00, with the conclusion of the gathering at 14.00. (tr. and ed. by PDS from electronic message received from St. Filaret's, "stphilaret@glasnet,ru" 13 August 1999)
(posted 13 August 1999)
On Saturday, 7 August, the glorification of the righteous Vasily Griaznov (1816-1869) as a locally venerated saint took place in the Saint Vasily Protection monastery in Pavlovsky Posad [Moscow province]. The ceremony was led by Metropolitan Yuvenaly of Krutitsy and Kolomna and Metropolitan Sergius of Solnechnogorsk. Archbishop Grigory of Mozhaisk and Bishop Ilian concelebrated. Many Orthodox residents of Pavlovsky Posad have venerated Vasily Griaznov by asking his mediation in prayer and keeping his portraits in their homes. In the spring of 1999 the holy remains of the saint were discovered undecayed and translated into the upper church of the Protection. Now they are open to all believers for veneration. The date of his death, 16 February (1 March), was established as the day of Saint Vasily the Righteous. (tr. by PDS)
Russian text at Informatsionnoe agentstvo russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi
(posted 13 August 1999)
Today, at the monastery of Saint Daniel, the work of the Synodal Bible Commission was resumed under the chairmanship of His Holiness Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow and all-Rus. In opening the session Patriarch Alexis expressed concern about the problem of the correspondence between new translations of the holy scriptures and the Orthodox spiritual tradition. In the run-up to the bimillennium of the birth of Christ, many new editions have appeared on the book market, which are either inexact or divergent from the Orthodox understanding of holy scripture. Various organizations, both Russian and international, now are engaged in the publication of the Bible. The commission, according to the patriarch, is called to coordinate this work.
"As in the past, before us stands the task entailing the distribution of holy scripture among the flock which is multilingual and attached to various national traditions," the patriarch stressed. In particular, this task pertains to the publication of translations of holy scripture that are accurate both from theological and from historical and philological points of view. And no less important is the reverent preservation of scripture in its undistorted form in full conformity with the Orthodox faith. This pertains in the first place to translation of holy scripture into the national languages of peoples who live within the boundaries to which the Russian Orthodox church ministers.
The patriarch recalled that the first experience of such translations took place back in the synodal period. Several of the texts which have been preserved can be used today, but after substantial editorial revision. "The task of the commission is to give the word of God to peoples in their native language," the patriarch noted. For example, only one copy of the New Testaments is extant in the Yakut language.
The new membership of the commission includes Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk, Bishop Evgeny of Vereia, and a number of other clerical and lay persons. Archpriest Boris Danilenko, director of the synodal library of the Moscow patriarchate, was appointed secretary of the Synodal Biblical Commission. (tr. by PDS)
Russian text at Informatsionnoe agentstvo russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi
(posted 13 August 1999)
Church ceremonies in honor of the Smolensk Mother of God icon, which is called the "pointing Mother of God" (Odigitria), are being conducted today in the Novodevichy monastery in Moscow. Last night His Holiness Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow and all-Rus performed here along with a group of bishops an all-night vigil.
Today, on the day of the icon, the promate led a divine liturgy and a procession of the cross around the cloister. The image of the Smolensk Mother of God icon is one of the most revered in Rus. The miracle working icon, which according to tradition traveled to Rus from Byzantium along with Princess Anna, daughter of Emperor Constantine Porphygenesis, who was married in 1046 to Chernigov Prince Vsevolod, has also led the Russian people in many events of the history of our fatherland. The revered copy of the icon is located in the Novodevichy monastery.
Yesterday, upon completion of the all-night vigil, Archimandrite Tikhon (Nedosekin) was installed as Bishop of Vidnoe, a vicariate of the Moscow diocese. Concelebrating with the most holy patriarch were Metropolitan Yuvenaly of Krutitsy and Kolomna, Metropolitan Sergius of Solnechnogorsk, Metropolitan Pitirim of Volokolamsk and Yuriev, Archbishop Grigory of Mozhaisk, Archbishop Arseny of Istra, Bishop Tikhon of Bronnitsy, Bishop Alexis of Orekhovo-Zuev, Bishop Savva of Krasnogorsk, Bishop Iosif of Uglich, and Bishop Ilian. The newly installed bishop addressed the most holy patriarch and his archpastoral brothers with words of gratitude for this high calling: "The episcopate is in the first place not power and honor but labor and a spiritual task. The call to serve Christ's church is facilitated in many ways by piety and strict upbringing in the family and years of study at the Moscow ecclesiastical schools. From my childhood I have had the possibility of seeing our church as militant. It seemed that all the powers of Hell were thrown into the struggle with it, but, staying in touch with bishops, priests, monks, and laity I always came to a single conclusion: the Orthodox faith is invincible. In the face of the great episcopal ministry and those tasks which stand before a bishop, I fell human weakness and unworthiness. I do not so much place hopes on my human strengths but I deeply and firmly believe that if my heart is completely and undividedly devoted to God, the Lord will work a miracle and will give me the courage and strength to do what is pleasing to him and what must be done in the name of the church which the people of God need." Bishop Tikhon asked the most holy patriarch and the archpastors to present prayers for him and for his new ministry in Christ's church. The newly installed bishop has been under the spiritual leadership of Metropolitan Yuvenaly for eighteen years, performing various duties. His new church duty as the vicar bishop also places him immediately subordinate to Master Yuvenaly.
On the feast day yet another important event in the life of the Moscow diocese and Novodevichy monastery is expected. After the liturgy there will be a procession of the corss and a prayer service at the grave of the first mother superior of the convent, St. Elena Devochkina (d. 1548). The with blessing of the most holy patriarch and upon petition from Metropolitan Yuvenaly and the current mother superior, Serafima, veneration of St. Elena will be revived as one of the locally venerated saints of the Moscow diocese. It is expected that at the liturgy, the corresponding patriarchal decree will be published and then for the first time after many years a prayer service to St. Elena will be performed. Her veneration was established in the Moscow diocese in the second half of the seventeenth century and continued throughout all subsequent time until the closing of Novodevichy monastery in 1922. (tr. by PDS)
Russian text at Informatsionnoe agentstvo russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi
(posted 10 August 1999)
Catholics of Siberia marked the second anniversary of the consecration of the cathedral church of the Transfiguration of the Lord in Novosibirsk. For this event the apostolic administrator in Novosibirsk, Bishop Joseph Werth, invited guests.
On 5-6 August a conference of Catholic bishop of Russia was held in the cathedral. Its participants included the apostolic administrator in Moscow and chairman of the conference, Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusievicz; vice-chairman, Bishop Joseph Werth, vicar bishop Klemens Pikkel of Saratov, and the apostolic administrator in Irkutsk, Bishop Yerzy Mazur. The representative of the Holy See in Russia, apostolic nuncio Archbishop John Bukovski, also participated. In the course of the session, questions of the work of the eight commissions of the conference were reviewed, as well as the cooperation of the Catholic church with the mass media.
On 5 August there was a meeting of the apostolic nuncio and Bishop Joseph Werth with the head of the administration of the Novosibirsk province, Vitaly Mukha, and on 7 August a meeting is planned with the mayor of Novosibirsk, Viktor Tolokonsky. On 6 August the society of the cathedral marked the feast day of the church with the bishops celebrating.
On Sunday, 8 August, there was a solemn mass on the occasion of the anniversary of the consecration of the cathedral with Joachim Maisner, prelate of Cologne of Germany, celebrating, and in the evening of the same day a service was held for the victims who died and were killed in concentration camps, the labor army, and the special settlements of Sibiria. (tr. by PDS)
Russian text at Radiotserkov
Explanatory note from Catholic World News: "An apostolic administration differs from an ordinary diocese in that it is not necessarily headed by a bishop. Ordinarily an apostolic administration is established because there would be practical difficulties involved in forming a diocese. In Russia, the main obstacle to the formation of dioceses is the fear of affronting the Russian Orthodox." 19 May 1999
(posted 9 August 1999)
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