Translated material
Law of God's Culture
The educational standard will be filled with religious spirit
State Duma deputies actually supported the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church and representatives of other major faiths who insisted on introducing the subject “Fundamentals of Orthodox (Islamic, etc.) culture” in schools. Last Friday, May 8, a bill was introduced into the lower house suggesting the possibility of including such a discipline in the state educational standard.Generally speaking, this framework document, which amends the law “On Basic Guarantees of the Rights of the Child” and other “legislative acts guaranteeing the right of children to proper upbringing,” mainly deals with the introduction or tightening of liability (including administrative) for violations children's rights. However, the authors of the bill (note that the heads of several Duma committees took part in its development: Elena Mizulina, Vladimir Pligin, Andrei Isaev and Vladimir Vasilyev, as well as Vice-Speaker Oleg Morozov), among other things, emphasized the desirability of introducing defense education and similar subjects in schools. This, according to deputies, should instill in children “respect for the culture and national values of the country.” “The current law “On Education”... establishes an impersonal norm of love for the motherland, and not for Russia as the child’s country of residence, and there are no norms guaranteeing the upbringing of children in Russian schools on the basis of domestic traditions, ethics and culture of behavior.” , - this is how the deputies explain their position in the note attached to the bill.
The current state of affairs, according to legislators, contradicts the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, “which provides for the duty of the state to provide the child with an education that is based on instilling respect for the culture and national values of the country in which the child lives.” In order to instill in young Russians knowledge of the fundamentals of religious culture and at the same time take into account the “diversity of cultures of the peoples of the Russian Federation,” it is proposed to include in the educational standard “the study of the fundamentals of Orthodox, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or Judaic culture.” Note that the separation of “Orthodox” and “Christian” cultures looks rather strange, given the obvious fact that Orthodoxy is a Christian denomination.
According to one of the main developers of the bill, Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Family, Women and Children Elena Mizulina, we are not necessarily talking about introducing a separate subject “Fundamentals of Orthodox (or, for example, Muslim) culture.” “It is assumed that some module or section may be introduced as part of teaching a course in the history of Russia or social science disciplines,” Ms. Mizulina explained to Vremya Novostei. “I would like to emphasize that this means teaching on the basis of voluntary choice and not the foundations of religion, but the foundations of religious culture—these are somewhat different things.” True, according to the deputy, the approach to the study of religious culture in school should not be strictly atheistic: a student may be an unbeliever, but this will not prevent him from becoming familiar with the “spiritual and moral tradition of Orthodoxy and other traditional faiths.”
Deputies who are members of the State Duma Committee on Education, headed by Grigory Balykhin, did not take part in the development of the bill. But, as Ms. Mizulina emphasized, the working group that prepared the document included representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science and the Russian Academy of Education, on the one hand, and representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church and other faiths, on the other.
The “Federal State Standard of General Education of the Second Generation,” the need for implementation of which has been repeatedly spoken about by the leadership of the Ministry of Education and Science and the Russian Academy of Education, is now under development. The church's interest in this process is obvious - on March 26 last year, the then primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexy II, sent out a circular letter ordering the initiation of a church-public discussion of the draft new state standard. For now, it can be stated that its current version causes criticism among the church hierarchs and the Orthodox community. For example, at the XVII Christmas educational readings held under the auspices of the Patriarchate, it was stated that “RAO has not yet organized work to include the subject “Orthodox Culture” in the new generation of state standards for general secondary education.” As for the claims against Andrei Fursenko’s department, they were formulated in the final document of the readings: “Attempts continue to replace the teaching of the academic subject “Orthodox Culture” on a voluntary basis with a mandatory secular course on the history of religions under different names, which is categorically unacceptable for Orthodox Christians.”
Last week, the head of the Moscow branch of the Union of Orthodox Citizens, Kirill Frolov, promised that “Patriarch Kirill’s actions to save the “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture” will be based on the unconditional support of the Orthodox majority of Russian citizens,” and added that laity and clergy “have every reason to believe that this problem will find understanding with President Dmitry Medvedev.” As for the official position of the Russian Orthodox Church, the recently appointed head of the department for external church relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Archbishop Hilarion, said on May 4: “We can jointly create an education system that would allow children from religious families to learn the foundations of their religious tradition at school.” “Moreover,” Bishop Hilarion emphasized, “this should not be done on an optional basis, because an optional course is the same as a drawing group or a burning group.”