Council and resistance

Orthodox Christians are fighting for the defense industry, “non-believers” are suing the authorities

Today the Russian Orthodox Church will demonstrate its openness to society and its readiness to engage in dialogue with the state. The largest church and public forum - the XII World Russian People's Council - begins its work in the State Kremlin Palace. And if last year at a similar forum the church initiated a discussion about wealth, poverty and a socially oriented economy, then this time the participants of the cathedral are going to discuss the problem of fathers and sons. As the head of the Department for External Church Relations, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, noted yesterday at a press conference, today’s youth “do not renounce their religious roots, but at the same time they are not churched.” So it is possible that at the council they will again talk about the topic that has caused so much controversy in recent years - about teaching the fundamentals of religion in school.

On the eve of the council, human rights activists expressed their point of view on the situation with freedom of conscience in Russia. The report, which was presented to journalists yesterday by experts from the SOVA Information and Analytical Center, also discussed the relationship between religious communities and the state and the fate of the long-suffering course “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture.”

“ Teaching military-industrial complex is an eternal topic. Apparently, the concept proposed by the Russian Orthodox Church to the leadership of the Ministry of Education and Science is unlikely to be accepted in its current version,” said Alexander Verkhovsky, director of the SOVA Center, in a conversation with a Vremya Novostei correspondent. At the same time, he admitted that the church in this matter undoubtedly met the wishes of the teachers. “When legislators decided to cancel the regional components of the educational program (within the framework of which the defense-industrial complex was taught in some regions of central Russia), this was a rather unexpected blow for the church,” recalled Mr. Verkhovsky. The current option, voiced by Metropolitan Kliment of Kaluga and Borovsk, is the variable teaching of a block of subjects related to “spiritual and moral education,” according to human rights activists, formulated quite politically correct: “Everything is variable and voluntary, you can choose to study the foundations of any religion without dividing into traditional and non-traditional. It is enough that there are 12 people in the class professing a certain faith.”

At the same time, the expert notes, this block of subjects will occupy a place in the school curriculum and by this very fact will displace any other teaching of knowledge about religion. “For example, the current alternative in the form of a course in religious studies, which neutrally, from a secular perspective, talks about different beliefs, suits many parents,” says Alexander Verkhovsky. “But this subject will not fit into the proposed block simply due to the fact that it is not aimed at instilling morality, and the school curriculum will not support two subjects “about religion.” According to the interlocutor of Vremya Novostei, apparently, the academicians of the Russian Academy of Education do not fully approve of the option proposed by the church. This may explain why the academic examination dragged on for several months. “Although the subject should be introduced at the beginning of the new school year, there are still no textbooks or methods of teaching it. The situation cannot be called anything other than an emergency,” sums up Mr. Verkhovsky.

While the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church on public and state institutions is undoubtedly increasing, other faiths, according to the human rights activist, are, on the contrary, experiencing pressure from officials. “New problems are emerging,” notes the head of the SOVA center. “For example, due to the activity of the Federal Registration Service, a large number of religious organizations were closed.” Many organizations are liquidated due to “failure to submit reports.” For example, during 2007 in the Tyumen region, at the request of the regional department of Rosregistration, about 30 religious organizations were closed, of which 25 were Muslim. In the Nizhny Novgorod region, the Federal Reserve issued a warning to 55 organizations. Alexander Verkhovsky emphasized that some organizations, according to him, are liquidated in absentia, without warning of violations. “As a rule, small organizations become the target of harassment. This mainly concerns small Muslim groups that are not members of large muftiates,” the human rights activist stated.

It must be said that in the capital this year there are no problems with the legal registration of the activities of religious organizations. “Even the ill-fated Hare Krishnas received permission to build their religious building,” noted Mr. Verkhovsky. Religious organizations, as well as “secular” NGOs, can solve problems only through the courts, while simultaneously attracting the attention of the international community, the expert believes. The trend in recent months is that high-profile legal proceedings initiated by religious organizations usually end in a compromise with the authorities. “So, Russian Baptists abandoned attempts to reach an amicable agreement and “went on the warpath” with officials - for example, they published an annual report on how hard they had it in different regions,” says Mr. Verkhovsky. Over the past year, religious organizations won cases against Russia three times in the European Court of Human Rights. In at least one case out of three, the appeal to Strasbourg bore fruit: the Astrakhan authorities abandoned plans to demolish a mosque built on the initiative of the local Muslim community.

Mikhail MOSHKIN