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Russian President Boris Yeltsin Signs a Bill Limiting Religious Freedom in Russia, September 26, 1997

Дата публикации: 04 сентября 2007
Публикатор: Научная библиотека Порталус
Рубрика: RUSSIA (TOPICS) RELIGION →
Источник: (c) http://russia.by
Номер публикации: №1188907200


After receiving entreaties from the Vatican, U.S. leaders, and human-rights groups, Russian president Boris Yeltsin in July 1997 rejected a bill that would limit religious freedom in Russia. Then, in September, he stunned foreign observers by signing the legislation, which recognized only the "traditional religions" of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism. Wholeheartedly supported by the Russian Orthodox Church and the heavily nationalist Duma, Russia's ruling legislative body, the law was supposedly instituted to protect against dangerous cults. It would also allegedly protect the religious freedoms of non-Orthodox Christians, but many critics maintained that its purpose was to consolidate the power of what was once Russia's state church.

Orthodox Christianity in Russia has had a powerfully political component since the time of its adoption by Vladimir the Great, grand prince of Kiev, following his marriage to the Greek empress Anne in 987. Acceptance of Orthodoxy solidified Russian ties with what historians call the Byzantine empire, but which the Byzantine Greeks themselves called the Roman empire. (It was in fact the Eastern Roman Empire, founded by Constantine in A.D. 330.) A century after the fall of the Byzantine empire in 1453, Ivan the Terrible adopted the Roman title of caesar--czar in Russian--and appropriated the Byzantine two-headed eagle as the symbol of Russian royalty. Thenceforth the Russian rulers would see their land as the "Third Rome," and their church as the true bearer of the Christian faith handed down from Constantine twelve centuries earlier.

The Russian Orthodox Church was therefore closely aligned with the country's power structure. Therefore the radical political movements that proliferated in Russia during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century saw Orthodoxy as synonymous with czarist repression. Among these radicals were the communist Bolsheviks, who, after they seized power in 1917, attacked the church severely. This repression continued under the dictatorship of Josef Stalin in the 1930s. However, after the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Stalin recognized the propaganda value of embracing traditional Russian symbols, and the church was hastily rehabilitated. Though other forms of Christianity would remain under persecution in the Soviet Union during the next half-century, by the time the Soviet government collapsed in 1991, Orthodoxy had virtually reassumed its position as Russia's state religion.

In 1993, the new and supposedly democratic Russian Federation adopted a constitution defining it as a secular state in which all religions would be allowed to operate with equal freedom. There followed an explosion of religious activity, particularly on the part of non-Orthodox Christians such as Roman Catholics, Seventh-Day Adventists, Pentecostals, and various denominations of evangelical Protestants. Additionally, Mormon missionary activity was prevalent in Russia during the 1990s.

Then, in July 1997, the Duma passed "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations," a bill that recognized the four "traditional" religions. The law also stipulated that a religious group must be present in Russia for 15 years before its members could legally publish and distribute religious literature, or invite visiting ministers from foreign countries. This measure effectively limited freedoms to the four religions permitted under the communist government that had ruled 15 years earlier: Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity. However, since the Soviet regime had not permitted all forms of Christianity to operate freely, the word "Christianity" in the law actually meant "Russian Orthodoxy." Thus, the law provided a legal basis to keep away all competing Christian sects, as well as quasi-Christian groups such as the Mormons.

Supporters of the law claimed that it would protect Russia against dangerous cults such as Aum Shinrikyo, which had launched a nerve-gas attack in a Tokyo subway in 1995, or Heaven's Gate, whose members committed a mass suicide in California two years later. However, many critics, including representatives of other Christian groups in Russia, maintained that the legislation would make it possible for the Orthodox Church to strengthen its hold on Russia, and would even enable church leaders to seize property belonging to rival groups.

Pope John Paul II condemned the law, as did a number of international human-rights groups. President Bill Clinton, as well as Vice President Al Gore, expressed grave concerns to Yeltsin and foreign minister Yevgeny M. Primakov, and after the U.S. Senate threatened to block $200 million in aid, Yeltsin vetoed the bill. However, in the face of pressure from powerful forces in the Duma and the Orthodox Church, he signed a very slightly modified version of the bill on September 26, 1997. In the years that followed, reports of repressive activities in Russia targeting religious groups--particularly Protestant ones--became increasingly more frequent.

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FURTHER READINGS

"Blow to Religious Freedom." Los Angeles Times, September 23, 1997, p. 6.

Corley, Felix, and Lawrence Uzzell. "Stalin- Like Persecution of Faith." Christian Science Monitor, December 23, 1999, p. 9:1.

Filipov, David. "Yeltsin Signs Law Restricting Some Religions." Boston Globe, September 27, 1997, p. A-2.

Holmes, Charles. "Yeltsin OKs Restricting Some Faiths." Atlanta Journal-Constitution, September 27, 1997, p. A-3.

Nickles, Beverly. "Religious Freedom Faces Cutback." Christianity Today, August 11, 1997, p. 61.

Uzzell, Lawrence. "Russia's Growing Religious Repression." Washington Post, May 5, 2002, p. B-7.

Опубликовано на Порталусе 04 сентября 2007 года

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