APPEARANCE OF ORTHODOX TERRORISM (#1)
Radicals set fires and threatened their opponents
Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 28 December 2017
In connection with the campaign against Aleksei Uchitel's film "Matilda" extremist groupings with Orthodox self-identification manifested themselves. Radicals managed to conduct several actions of intimidation, including the use of explosive and flammable substances. Authorities managed to put a stop to their illegal activity relatively quickly, arresting members of the so-called movement "Christian State—Sacred Rus."
Throughout 2017 the "Christian State" threatened that it will deal with movie theaters where the "blasphemous" film depicting the love affair of the future emperor Nicholas II with ballerina Matilda Kshensinskaya will be shown. Introducing himself as "Father Mikhail," an activist of the group "issued an anathema" against the creators of "Matilda," actors starring in the film, sponsors, distributors, and viewers. Letters with threats were sent to movie theaters.
Then the extremists moved from threats to actions. On 31 August, unidentified persons threw bottles with a flammable mixture at a building in St. Petersburg where Aleksei Uchitel's studio is located. On 4 September, a van loaded with cartridges of gas, gasoline and firewood rammed the Kosmos movie theater in Ekaterinburg. Exiting the vehicle, the driver threw a Molotov cocktail into the theater and then ran away. Fire erupted. A thirty-eight-year-old resident of Irbit, Denis Murashov, set fire to the theater. Murashov chose the Kosmos as the object for attack for two reasons: the theater is located not far from the Church on the Blood, built on the site of the shooting of Nicholas II's family, and besides two days before the incident a cinema festival opened in the Kosmos. Murashov claimed that before the "cinema terrorism act" he spent 24 hours in the Church on the Blood. Relatives of Murashov told investigators that in the recent past the "Orthodox terrorist" joined the sect of admirers of the "boy Viacheslav Chebarkulsky." Members of this sect consider Nicholas II as "the redeemer of the sins of the Russian people." Psychiatric expert analysis found Murashov to be insane and on the basis of a court decision on 18 December he was sent for involuntary treatment.
Early in the morning of 11 September two cars parked near the Moscow office of Aleksei Uchitel's lawyer, Konstantin Dobrynin, were set ablaze. Near them investigators found leaflets with the inscription "Burn for Matilda."
On 13 September the leader of the "Christian State," Alexander Kalinin, wrote on a social network: the telephone terrorism shaking all of Russia in the autumn of this year resulting in the evacuation of schools, shopping centers, and other institutions throughout Russia is part of the public campaign against "Matilda."
On 19 September, the core group of "Christian State" was neutralized by the police. In a private house in Lipetsk province in a special operation Alexander Kalinin, Alexander Bayanov, and Denis Mantalutsa (who was wanted on suspicion of setting fire to the vehicle near Dobrynin's office) were arrested. The detainees acknowledged that they set fire to the vehicle near Dobrinin's office and committed acts of telephone terrorism in various Russian cities "so that the film would not be shown." All of the detainees were transported to Moscow. A trial of the core group of "Christian State" should be held in January or February 2018. (tr. by PDS, posted 2 January 2018)
RALLIES OF MUSLIMS IN MOSCOW AND NORTH CAUCASUS (#2)
Fate of Rohingya people became a factor of domestic politics of Russia
Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 28 December 2017
On 3 September at the embassy of Myanmar in Moscow, a rally was held in support of Muslim Rohingya, who are experiencing persecution on the part of the military of this South Asian country. The unsanctioned mass action gathered, according to information of the participants themselves, 2,000 people. The protestors chanted: "Buddhists are terrorists!" and accused Russian authorities of indifference to the fate of Muslims in Myanmar. One activist declared that Russian Muslims will go on "jihad" in Southeast Asia.
Despite the fact that the event was not sanctioned, the police did not intervene. The protestors delivered to the embassy a petition with a condemnation of Myanmar authorities. A State Duma deputy from Chechnya, Adam Delimkhanov, and a mufti, Nafigulla Ashiron, arrived at the rally. Only thanks to the intervention of representatives of the Chechen republic were the passions of the protestors successfully calmed.
On the same day, 200 persons conducted a march of solidarity with Muslims in Makhachkala.
On 4 September a rally of many thousands was held in support of the Rohingya on a square near the "Heart of Chechnya" mosque in Grozny. Addressing this rally, Ramzan Kadyrov called what is happening to the Rohingya "a crime against humanity" and he compared the military of Myanmar with guards in Nazi death camps. Kadyrov called the international community to punish those guilty of genocide of the Rohingya and he demanded that countries neighboring Myanmar be held accountable for closing their borders to refugees, by which, in Kadyrov's words, they doomed Muslims to mass destruction. At this rally, Buddhists were not accused of xenophobia, as they were the day before in Moscow.
The street passions in connection with the alleged genocide of Rohingya were accompanied by an echo evoked by notes of Ramzan Kadyrov on Instagram. "Even if Russia were to support those devils [shaitans] who are committing crimes today, I oppose Russia's position, because I have my own vision and my own position," the Chechen leader wrote in a pique of emotion. However he quickly corrected his position. "I thank Russian President Vladimir Putin, who condemned violence against Muslims and called Myanmar authorities to take control of the situation. I have frequently declared that I am a loyal foot soldier of our president and I am ready to fulfill the orders of any complexity of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and to give my life. And those who interpret my words and scoff at the murder of innocent people are in a deep moral pit," a note on the same social network declared, which was made at the conclusion of the rally in Grozny.
On 10 September, police prevented an unsanctioned rally in support of the Rohingya on Palace Square in St. Petersburg. After this incident, Kadyrov urged helping Rohingya only materially. In early October, the Akhmat Kadyrov Fund allocated about one million dollars for this purpose.
At the same time, Muslim authorities of Syria declared that the situation of the Rohingya was allegedly an information war against Myanmar authorities overblown by Turkey and Saudi Arabia. (tr. by PDS, posted 2 January 2018)
BAN OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES IN THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION (#3)
Watchtower Society ruled to be extremist grouping
Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 28 December 2017
Early in 2017 the Russian Ministry of Justice conducted an unscheduled inspection of the "Administrative Center of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia," the chief organization located in St. Petersburg of the movement, which coordinated the activity of all regional affiliates. The ministry discovered violations by the religious organization of its charter and of Russian legislation, including the law "On combating extremist activity."
On 23 March, lawyers of the Ministry of Justice sent to the Russian Supreme Court a lawsuit for finding the Jehovah's Witnesses to be an extremist organization, liquidating all offices of the movement, and banning their activity in Russia. On 20 April, the Supreme Court ordered the liquidation of the chief organization of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia as extremist, the prohibition of its activity, and the confiscation of all of its property in favor of the state. A month later, the Soviet district court of the city of Orel presented a charge on the basis of article 282.2 of the Criminal Code of the RF (creation of an extremist organization) against Danish citizen Dennis Christensen, a founder of the cell of Witnesses in Orel that was liquidated in the past year.
An appeal of the actions of the authorities was filed by lawyers of the religious movement in the Appellate College of the Supreme Court. The appeal maintained: the ban of the Witnesses was not made by the court on the basis of a comprehensive examination of the facts of the activity of the organization but on a "presumption of guilt." The appeal said that the Supreme Court's decision "does not comport with the constitution of the RF, generally accepted principles and norms of international law, and international agreements of the Russian federation." On 17 July, the Supreme Court, after reviewing the appeal, left it without satisfaction.
"The incorrectness of the decision is so obvious that even sincere opponents of Jehovah's Witnesses admit it," a document prepared by the banned religious organization says. And really, for example, Orthodox evangelist and publicist Archdeacon Andrei Kuraev declared in one interview that the ban of this religious movement and its structure "destabilizes conditions in the country," and "presents the government in an evil and unpredictable image and thereby creates needless distrust and concern in society."
Meanwhile pressure on the religious movement that is deprived to the present of legitimate status has continued. On 17 August, a Vyborg court in Leningrad province ruled a translation of the Bible called "Sacred Scripture—New World Translation," published by the Witnesses, to be extremist material. On 7 December, by court order, real estate in the village of Solnechnoe in St. Petersburg was confiscated from the Witnesses. On 14 December police sealed the Jehovah's Witnesses' Hall of Congresses on Kolomyazh Prospect of the northern capital.
Jehovah's Witnesses are continuing to pursue their goal on the level of international structures. Lawyers for the movement have filed an appeal against the action of Russian authorities in the European Court of Human Rights. On 18 September the ECHR accepted a lawsuit from the Jehovah's Witnesses and on 1 December it prescribed for the authorities of Russia to present an explanation about the lawsuit from the Witnesses by 23 March 2018. Judging by actions of law enforcement agencies late in the year, the authorities do not intend to reconsider their attitude toward the banned religious organization. (tr. by PDS, posted 2 January 2018)
DEFENSE OF THE FIRST DISSERTATION IN THEOLOGY IN RUSSIAN HISTORY (#4)
Ministry of Education paid no attention to protests by scholars
Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 28 December 2017
On 1 June, Archpriest Pavel Khondzinsky successfully defended a kandidat's dissertation in the specialty of theology on the topic "Resolution of problems of Russian theology of the 18th century in the synthesis of Holy Prelate Filaret, Metropolitan of Moscow," and two weeks later an order confirming the scientific degree in theology was signed by the Ministry of Justice. The history of Russian academic theology in the 21st century began with a protest by scholars who refused to recognize the theological method of the priest who received the degree as scientific.
Using the principle of "relating cultural and historical phenomena to the norm of religious consciousness formalized within the framework of a specific tradition" by Archpriest Konstantin Polskov, Khondzinsky concludes: this principle arises wherever the value of a studied phenomenon is investigated and it declares the personal presuppositions of theological knowledge. And since there is no person who does not have personal worldview convictions, then presuppositionless humanistic knowledge does not exist, and the scientific method of theology can be entirely based on "the personal experience of faith and life of the theologian." Such an argument did not at all convince everybody: of nine published reviews of the dissertation, only four were positive.
But it was not just the posited "personal character" of knowledge in the new dissertation that evoked questions by scholars. An appeal against the defense submitted on 27 July by a group of biologists pointed out a number of circumstances prompting them to challenge Khondzinsky's kandidat's degree. Thus, the order that made possible receipt of the degree "kandidat of theology" was signed only on 25 June, almost a month later than the defense, and information about its results was not published within ten days. The period for giving Khodzinsky his diploma was unusually short; he received it by 8 August, while the scholars who submitted the appeal were awaiting an answer from the ministry. The answer was negative. It said: "In view of the fact that at the time the Russian Ministry of Education and Science received the appeal, the decision to grant the diploma to P.V. Khondzinsky had already been made, the appeal for consideration was rejected."
The widely reported introduction of theology into the system of humanist science was perceived by many as a sign of the merging of the church with the state and of the loss of the independence of the scientific community. The critics thus often were fulminating not so much at the applicant for the kandidat's degree as at theological science itself, whose presence within academic knowledge was by no means unanimously accepted by scholars. (tr. by PDS, posted 2 January 2018)
500th ANNIVERSARY OF THE REFORMATION (#5)
Jubilee of the schism of western Christianity was occasion for convergence of confessions
Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 28 December 2017
On 31 October 1517, the public criticism of the practice of sale of indulgences, which the monk Martin Luther issued, gave rise not only to the new branch of western Christianity, but also to the twilight of the Middle Ages. The long-term result of the Reformation was the Europe of sovereign states, and the celebration of its 500th anniversary in the past year proceeded in an ecumenical spirit.
On the anniversary of the start of the Reformation, the papal Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity and the World Lutheran Federation published a joint communiqué in which they asked one another for forgiveness for the wounds and grievances inflicted on Christians. The Vatican acknowledged the importance of the Lutheran theological heritage and even issued a postage stamp with the kneeling Luther and his associate Philip Melanchthon at the foot of the Savior's cross. On 30 May, Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew, speaking at the celebrations in Tubingen University, declared that interest in the theological heritage of Luther is growing in Orthodoxy, primarily in his concept of liberty, which became a turning point in the history of the understanding of this word and has "epochal significance" for the dialogue of Christianity in the modern world.
The significant date was even noted in communist China. In May, a conference on the "500th Anniversary of the Reformation and the Gospel" was held in Hong Kong and in November the ideas of the Reformation were a primary topic of a conference on the history of Christianity in the Central Institute of Socialism in Beijing.
In Russia, the main event connected with the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation was the transfer to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the cathedral church of Peter and Paul in Moscow. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier participated in the ceremony.
In the homeland of the Reformation itself, this date was a national holiday. President Steinmeier and Chancellor Angela Merkel participated in the festival liturgy in Wittenberg. This day was marked for the first time in all federal lands of the country, although both protestants and Catholics and also adherents of other religions live in Germany.
However, the celebration in Europe did not get by without criticism. For many it seemed that the Christian holiday had become too German and Martin Luther appeared as a kind of German "pope" of the Reformation, eclipsing all the other of its figures. "In my view, the protestant cult of Luther is hardly different from the veneration of saints," wrote before the celebration Pastor Harman Dam of the Evangelical Church of Hessen and Nassau, as a challenge to depicting Luther in an iconographic style with a halo.
Germany actually was not the only center of the Reformation and therefore the celebrations in Prague and Geneva gave much more attention to the figures of Jan Huss and John Calvin respectively. (tr. by PDS, posted 2 January 2018)
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