In Tomsk, an educational program is accused of promoting the occult

In Tomsk, a conflict arose around the children's newspaper Dobryata. Its authors are younger students. The educational program, in which elementary school students are taught the basics of journalism, is called "Serving the Fatherland with a Pen."

The mother of one of the students, Ekaterina Semenova, was outraged that the children in the lessons “bow to the sun,” and the manual tells in detail about the pagan gods: “Here, for example, there is, for example, about the sun god Ra. "rainbow", "mind", "plants", "dawn" come from the name of this god Ra".

Priest Andrey Noskov, a lecturer at the Tomsk Theological Seminary, saw propaganda of the Roerichs' teachings in the Dobryata newspaper. The publisher of the newspaper is one of the ideologists of this doctrine, Gennady Gorchakov. He himself claims that he only helped to register the newspaper, but has nothing to do with the educational program.

Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church sent a letter to the city department of education asking them to deal with the suspicious program. Department employees replied that the program had passed the appropriate certification and did not contain anything unacceptable. "This is a normal program," said Victor Kashpur, deputy head of the education department. "I know about the anxiety of some parents, but these are additional classes."

However, in many schools, journalism classes are scheduled as the second or third lesson.

The conflict attracted the attention of the local Public Chamber. Sergei Avanesov, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy of Tomsk State University, who studied the controversial program, came to the following conclusion: "The propaganda of the occult under the name of science. The doctrine of the spiritual basis of the world, which is understood in a peculiar way - in a religious and occultist key sense: veneration of natural forces personified, worship of these forces.

Meanwhile, not all parents are dissatisfied with the program. The Tomsk TV program "Rush Hour" cites the opinion of the mother of a schoolboy, Yulia Emmer: "The fact that they greet the sun ... Well, I don't see anything seditious in this. Because then let's close all the folklore groups, because they also have choruses and carols".

A special commission has been set up in the Tomsk mayor's office to study the conflict situation.

Sources

• Voronin M. "Kind". School elective or sect? The program "I serve the Fatherland with a pen" and its opponents // Peak hour. Tomsk. 2008. January 19.