ASTRAKHAN
YOUTH
AGAINST NONTRADITIONAL RELIGIOUS CELLS
Russia
Television
and Radio, Astrakhan, 5 February 2018
This
also has
become the occasion for a protest demonstration of young pickets
of an
Astrakhan volunteer movement.
"Take
the
camera away. We will not talk with you. You write all this tripe
and you
display it and people are fined because they preach the Word of
God."
In
this way a
film crew was met near a house of worship in the Lenin district
of Astrakhan.
Young pickets were standing there already.
"They
think
that sin is a disease that is inherited. I do not think so. They
do not wear
crosses, since this also is a sin."
"I
do not
like that they propagandize; they draw children and youth into
their
ranks."
The
volunteers
with pickets think that the activity of the religious cell is
illegal.
A
dialogue was
not achieved. They flatly refused to talk about themselves and
their
organization. I had to turn to experts.
The
specialists
explained. These are Baptist-Initsiativniki. They broke away
from the main
branch of Baptists. This happened in the 60s during the time of
the Soviet
Union. The reason was the call by Evangelical
Christians-Baptists for political
and secular loyalty, a peaceful union with the authorities, and
restraint of
evangelism.
"The
schism
occurred in accordance with a purely classical scenario. A sect
is a group that
withdraws from a main movement in disagreement and, in turn,
creates its own
separate religious organization. From this point of view they
represent a
classic example of a sectarian schism," says a historian and
religious
studies scholar, Andrei Syzranov, a teacher of the Astrakhan
State University.
According
to
experts, there are few Baptist-Initsiativniki in the country. The Astrakhan cell
also is not
numerous. There are hardly more than a hundred of them, but they
distinguish
themselves by their activism. There are very many youth.
Personnel of the
Astrakhan police say that the illegal missionary activity of the
religious cell
was terminated by an article of the revised legislation of the
"Yarovaya
Package."
"Personnel
of
the Center for Combating Extremism have conducted operations. A
number of
leaders of this cell were brought to administrative justice and
an
administrative case was opened on the basis of an article about
violation of
the law on freedom of conscience and freedom of religious
confession," the
head of the press service of the Directorate of the Ministry of
Internal
Affairs of Russia for Astrakhan oblast, Petr Rusanov, explains.
According
to
information of experts, they do not serve in the army, they
refuse to
participate in the electoral process, and for some reason they
reject
electronic passports.
The
Baptist-Initsiativniki
are not prohibited, but they are not permitted. They do
not recognize the laws, which means there is no registration or
official
recognition.
The
Baptist-Initsiativniki
say that their organization is maintained exclusively at the
expense of
donations of converts. Experts maintain that this actually is
not true.
"They
have
sources of self-financing at the expense of converts, but strong
links with
foreign sources of financing are traced back to soviet times.
According to
information from law enforcement agencies, foreign sponsors have
financed the
maintenance of youth religious camps near Tula and Viatka. All
the Russian
children there have English-sounding pseudonyms. The camps have
now been closed
because of the offense of missionary activity. (tr. by PDS,
posted 8 February
2018)
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