WORLD UNION OF OLD
BELIEVERS URGES
GIVING CITIZENSHIP TO ALL OLD BELIEVERS WHOSE ANCESTORS WERE
FORCED TO FLEE
RUSSIA
Interfax-Religiia,
18 October 2019
Eight heads of
communities of Old
Believers from Brazil, Bolivia, and the U.S.A. will soon receive
Russian
citizenship, the head of the World Union of Old Believers,
Leonid Sevastianov,
told Interfax on Friday.
He said the decision
regarding this was
made days ago in Moscow at a session of the Commission on
Citizenship under the
president of the RF.
"This is the first case
when
citizenship is being granted to people who left Russia more than
100 years ago.
We urge giving citizenship to all Old Believers whose ancestors
at some time
left Russia by reason of persecution," Sevastianov said.
He noted that work in
support of Old
Believer resettlers is being conducted pursuant to the order of
Vladimir Putin
on 17 May 2017, for which a special working group was formed
under the
Presidential Administration. As of today, Old Believers are
selecting regions
of the Far East for resettlement.
Sevastianov recalled that
modern Old
Believers in countries of the far abroad are children and
grandchildren of Old
Believers who were repressed by soviet authorities from the
territory of
Transbaikal and Cisamur, who made their way through China and
with the support
of the Red Cross in 19545-1956 went from Hong Kong to new
territories across
the Pacific Ocean. The greater part arrived in Brazil and the
lesser, in
Australia.
"With the support of
Brazilian
authorities, the Old Believers, thanks to prayer and labor, were
able to sow on
tens of thousands of hectares of nonarable lands (red soil)
soybeans, corn, and
other crops. Today Brazil occupies second place in the world in
soybean
cultivation and it is a leading agricultural country,"
Sevastianov noted.
He said that in this way
the prosperity
of many Old Believer families grew, who began resettling
throughout the world.
As of the present, Old Believers number from 5 to 7 thousand
persons in
Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Canada, New Zealand, the
U.S.A. (states
of Alaska and Oregon), and Uruguay. (tr. by PDS, posted 18
October 2019)
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