Unconstitutional and anti-Christian

There has been talk about this law since the end of last year. And now its first reading took place in the State Duma. Even without having the exact text of the bill in hand, I think we can speak with all confidence about its conceptual destructiveness. Both social and moral-spiritual.

This bill, I believe, is unconstitutional.

He identifies citizens of the Russian Federation who are “religious believers” as a separate privileged group.

Which, of course, undermines the fundamental provisions of the constitutional system enshrined in the text of the Basic Law of the Russian Federation.

It contradicts Article 14, which states that Russia is a secular state.

It contradicts Article 19, which proclaims the equality of all citizens of the Russian Federation before the Law.

It contradicts Article 28, which protects the freedom to profess ANY worldview. And religious, and atheistic, and materialistic, etc. And its free DISTRIBUTION, despite the “feelings” of citizens who may “offend themselves” from this spread.

In essence, the bill divides citizens into several “classes”

The first includes religious believers, whose feelings and beliefs are protected by the law.

The second “grade” is “rabble”. These are atheists and materialists who are automatically disenfranchised.

And the third group as a result of the enforcement of the law, as you might guess, will be “outcasts”, representatives of the so-called. non-traditional religions of the Russian Federation (the so-called “sectarians”), which I will persecute in every possible way for their “non-traditionality”, “non-Russianness” and “destructiveness”.

I believe that the bill “on religious feelings”, which provides for huge fines and up to 3 years in prison as punishment for insulting the religious feelings and beliefs of people (primarily Orthodox Christians as the largest religious group in the Russian Federation), is deeply anti-Christian.

To be persecuted for one's Christian feelings and beliefs is natural for a Christian. This is the realization of the prophecy of the God-man Lord Jesus Christ “You will be persecuted for My Name’s sake,” “hated,” “judged.” (Luke 21:12-17; Matt. 10: 18-22; 24.9; Mark 13:13) “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33). But “Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and slander you in every way unjustly because of Me. Rejoice and be glad , for great is your reward in heaven ” (Matthew 5:11-12). Now the law invites Christians not to “rejoice and be merry,” but, like Saul, to drag people who have offended their religious beliefs to a “procurator’s court” and impose fines on them and rot them in prisons. And all for the sake of Christ! Absurd. A persecuted Christian is natural, but one who persecutes is vile.

It seems to me that this bill was actually invented by some hidden enemies of the Orthodox Church who want to completely discredit it. After all, the very first real multi-thousand-dollar fines or real imprisonments for insulting Orthodox Christians will be perceived as political persecution of dissidents, like a new Inquisition (subject to the courts rejecting similar statements from offended “sectarians”) and can turn the Russian intelligentsia against the Orthodox Church in a way that they could not do 100,000 Enteo. It's called "hello, new 17th year"!

In general, it is difficult to imagine what, for example, it will be necessary to do with such a discipline as “Comparative Theology,” taught in hundreds of Orthodox theological educational institutions. After all, this discipline claims that only Orthodoxy contains the fullness of the Truth. And he examines in detail all the “misconceptions” of the Catholic and Protestant churches that have fallen away from the Truth.

I'm not even talking about the Orthodox "Sect Studies", which sometimes sneeringly, deliberately mockingly talks about the so-called. totalitarian sects and cults, their religious practices, founders and teachings. Here you can see the “three-three mark”...

It seems to me that this law can inflame the social situation in Russia to the limit. To intensify relations between atheists and believers, between orthodox Muslims and conservative Orthodox Christians, between the so-called. new religious movements (NRM) and the Russian Orthodox Church, between the intelligentsia of capitals and cities with a population of over a million and traditional confessions. Therefore, I believe that this bill is provocative (extremist) in its internal destructive power.

Even if the deputies soften something in the text by the third reading, the very concept of this law will not allow it to cease to be unconstitutional, anti-Christian and extremist.