Mikhail Zherebyatyev - on amendments limiting missionary activity

Religious scholar, candidate of philosophy Sciences, expert of the International Institute for Humanitarian and Political Studies Mikhail Zherebyatiev commented for the SOVA Center on missionary amendments provided for by the bill of deputies Viktor Ozerov and Irina Yarovaya on strengthening anti-terrorist measures.

Initiative of State Duma deputies Yarovaya and Ozerov, related to the regulation of missionary work, and in fact its prohibition, threatens the collapse of the entire structure of the civil domestic religion legislation. With the help of transcendent regulation-missionary amendments, it is automatically translated into a type of specialized security (anti-extremist) laws. Corrected in its most controversial fragments by the Supreme and The Constitutional Courts showed an enviable example of longevity. Its basic concept, despite the subsequent changes, associated with the emergence of a bloc of anti-terrorist and anti-extremist legislation remains unchanged: about three-quarters of its text in one way or another otherwise refers to the issues of obtaining and losing the rights of a legal entity. For a long time, the law on freedom of conscience suited both the main participants religious process, and the state: all interested parties they were wary of the shifts associated with the regulation of this delicate area.

In the event that the Yarovaya-Ozerov amendments come into force registration will no longer be a voluntary procedure in order to obtain status legal entity (and this is the cornerstone in the concept of the still existing law!) and become the duty of the faithful. Without registration documents it will be impossible for believers to take a step without being among the violators law. It seems that the proposed anti-missionary measures generally did not agree with the previous additions to the law, after all permitting religious gatherings in the apartments of believers. In the same version anti-missionary amendments are prohibited, following the proposed formulation of missionary work, because among its signs is called carrying out services. I would like to ask if this is a large family gathered for dining table, starts the meal with a prayer, it's a hot summer, the windows are open wide open, someone from the street heard and told where to go ... Will there be such a purely Is Family Prayer Considered Missionary? In other words, someone will have an extra temptation to settle scores, complicate the life of respectable citizens.

Further, what legal force for the authorities will a certificate confirming the status of a missionary, which was issued by a religious organization, and even more so as a group? (In order of information: in recent years even a number of dioceses of the ROC MP have limited the growth in the number of legal entities due to legislative innovations of incredible difficulties in their maintenance).

In practical application, the provision of anti-missionary amendments to the certificates of missionaries goes beyond the interpretation of the secular of the state by the Constitution of the Russian Federation regarding the non-fulfillment of functions by religious organizations state and municipal authorities. And that's how it will stand question, since some people in law enforcement are 100% trusted (which means in fact, equate their documents to state ones), relative to other have great doubts, they do not recognize the third at all. Also, don't forget and about documents that are not equivalent to diplomas of state universities confessional educational institutions. A phenomenon that is clearly related to the same semantic series as the proposed innovation - "missionary certificate".

In addition, they are still alive in the memory of the folk history of the free dealing with registration certificates from internal migrants and foreign guest workers, when the guards simply destroyed them before our eyes astonished people, declaring the forgery of the forms (and why did you destroy if it is material evidence that will have weight in the courts?). It's not hard to imagine what a nightmare the undertaking with the missionaries' certificates will turn into ...

Even in the anti-missionary amendments are listed practices that are perceived in the mass consciousness as "spiritual healing." It has absolutely nothing to do with religion in general and traditions of specific faiths, in particular. Rather, on the contrary, most religious movements either distance themselves from it or seek to put under control. But in accordance with the anti-missitner amendments, the entire an array of "spiritual healing" (this concept can easily be extended to the entire "non-traditional medicine") will actually be attributed to religious practices, which is logical demand to “modernize” the law “On freedom of conscience…” once again. In anti-missionary amendments, for the time being, the enumeration is given using the widest possible formulations of signs of the consequences of the application of spiritual practices: “an encroachment on the personality, rights and freedoms of citizens, infliction of the established in accordance with the law of damage to morality, health. Only specifically named hypnosis technique.

Taking into account the country's titular church being discussed "threat" of neo-paganism, it is likely that the next step in the legislative regulation will already be the total registration of all "spiritual practices". With such offer in the mid-1990s. before the adoption of the federal law in 1997, she acted The Voronezh diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, motivating such actions is the need to explain to people "who is who". Moreover, she insisted on the recognition of public structures by organizations conducting religious activities. 20 subsequent years prepared a legal basis for such a decision.

In the current history with anti-missionary amendments The ROC MP keeps deathly silence: neither "yes" nor "no". Are you so carried away conciliar matters, or have the deputies stopped asking questions at all?