Russkaia mysl 6feb97

ARE ALL SECTS TOTALITARIAN?
by Mikhail Gokhman

Russkaia mysl 6 February 1997

The last issue of the "Church-Public Messenger" published an article by M. Sitnikov about the legal suit brought by the Public Committee for the Defense of Freedom of Conscience against A. Dvorkin, the author of a brochure about nontraditional religious organizations, "Ten Questions for the Obtrusive Stranger, or Handbook for Those Who do not Want to be Taken In." This brochure is devoted to the activity of new religious movements. There are many such movements nowadays. Preachers wander Moscow streets and invite youth into clubs and concert halls and they conduct seminars.

There are various attitudes towards these organizations. Dvorkin has his own opinion and he designates the newly created teachings "Totalitarian Sects" and "Destructive Cults." These include the society "Krishna Consciousness," "Church of Unification," church of scientology, "Mother of God Center," and other nontraditional religious organizations, all lumped into one ball.

It is not known whether this book has helped any of the young people reading it to escape the nets of the sectarians. But it has been read carefully by the Public Committee for the Defense of Freedom of Conscience, headed by rights defender Gleb Yakunin.

Father Gleb considered this work slanderous for religious organizations that are registered with the ministry of justice and operate legally on the territory of our country. The committee decided to appeal to the Khoroshevsky Intermunicipal People's Court of Moscow with a suit "for the defense of the honor, dignity, and reputation of a number of religious organizations and for the determination that the information disseminated by A.L. Dvorkin defaming these organizations does not conform to reality."

Actually the author of the brochure maintains that all these religious organizations deprive people of material worth ("Incidentally, without this the sects could never survive," he writes). However there are no known cases of legal action against members or leaders of these religious organizations for crimes against property.

Dvorkin accuses all these organizations of force, beating and violence against members. In his accusations he goes even further: "The goal of all totalitarian sects is to win power. . . They amass means, increase their influence, and are preparing to seize power." They "will not hesitate to use force against a person or group of persons who are inconvenient to them. In essence we are dealing with a mafia-like structure."

Whether all these accusations by Dvorkin apply to sects is not proved; but all of them easily apply to the Communist party. However, there is nothing in the book about this sect. Why? That becomes clear a bit later.

Understanding quite well that he is not likely to win his case, the author of the brochure decided to go another route. On 31 January in the Marble Hall of the Central House of Journalists there was a press conference: "The Moscow Patriarchate: Reply to the Insinuations of Gleb Yakunin."

"Yakunin and Totalitarian Sects Against Moscow Patriarchate" was the title of the press release distributed to the reporters.

This writer cannot remember such security in the House of Journalists, even though press conferences have been held there by more important persons than the American missionary Dvorkin. Three times in the space of twenty meters from the entrance hefty young people demanded documents from reporters. In the crowd a mighty man with a round face and complex past, priest Oleg Steniaev, was distinguished. He quite recently won fame as a specialist in exorcising demons and converting sectarians, before which he basically showed up at various political demonstrations and actions, from "Pamiat" to "Democratic Russia."

Dvorkin's press conference was sanctioned by the presence of the director of the Publishing Department of the Moscow patriarchate, Bishop Tikhon Emilianov of Bronnitsy and Archpriest Dimitry Smirnov, dean of the Orthodox faculty of the Military Academy of Strategic Missile Forces, and also Fedor Viktorovich Kondratiev, a professor of the infamous Serbsky Institute. Incidentally, the latter was not so long ago accused of persecuting political prisoners. The professor, however, denied these charges: "I never was an expert witness for those who were charged on so-called political articles but I always was concerned with this problem," Kondratiev declared. "I can firmly maintain that the opinions spread in those year that psychiatric terror existed in our country and that there was a punitive psychiatry are the fabrication of those people who now are defending the totalitarian sects. This is slander which was used for antisoviet purposes and now is used for anti-Russian goals."

Bishop Tikhon declared that with the blessing of the patriarch, the publishing department of the Moscow patriarchate will join the Dvorkin case as a third party on the side of the defendant.

The participants in the affair were adamant. If the case is lost "the further collapse of Russia" will follow, according the Professor Kondratiev.

Drawing preliminary conclusions, Father Gleb Yakunin said: "It is not surprising that such a fuss is being raised when the date of the trial has not been set and there is no assurance that there will be a trial. Such a hysterical reaction speaks about the weakness of Dvorkin's position. It is no accident that this slander emerged at the same time as the launching of the attack on the existing law of 1990 (which I also worked out as a member of the committee on freedom of conscience). It is natural that communists and supporters of Zhirinovsky are leading the attack on religious minorities." (trans. by PDS)