Who will decide whether the feelings of believers are offended?

We are publishing a commentary by Ksenia Sergazina dedicated to protecting the feelings of believers in Russia.

In connection with the premiere of the film “Matilda” and the renewed talk in society about “feelings of believers” and “religious censorship”, I would like to see how the law “on the feelings of believers” “works” today - who is condemned and for what under Art. 148 of the Criminal Code (violation of the right to freedom of conscience and religion).

If you turn to the database of the SOVA Center, you can see that under Art. 148 of the Criminal Code, 11 people were convicted: Khabarovsk flayers , a voodoo master who sprinkled the blood of a sacrificial rooster on an Orthodox cross and a funeral shroud, a Dagestani athlete who relieved himself in a Buddhist temple andkicked a Buddha statue in the nose, a girl who posted a photo online in which she allegedly lit a cigarette from a candle in the temple, men who hung a homemade effigy on a worship cross, Sergei Lazarov , who published the article “Evil Christ” and discussed the image of God from the position of Gnosticism, blogger Ruslan Sokolovsky , known as the “ Pokémon catcher ,” and several other bloggers who hung in On the Internet, indecent pictures with indecent inscriptions. Adjacent to them is a church worker who has not been paid his fee. Outraged, he went to demand money from the priest right at the service, for which he was fined 15 thousand rubles.

A criminal case was also opened againsta girl who threw her leg (or arm?) on a prayer wheel in Tuva.

In addition, Viktor Krasnov was accused under the same article, who left several comments on VKontakte, including anti-Semitic ones, in which he made fun of his interlocutor, mocked biblical quotes and eventually said that “There is no God!” (the case was dismissed due to the expiration of the statute of limitations).

From this list it is clear that in only one case we are dealing with an act that clearly requires public condemnation: urinating in a temple and kicking statues is not accepted. In other cases, it is still not about real actions, but about creating some image of protest behavior (the girl did not light a cigarette from a candle, but wanted to show her friends that she was capable of this), Roman Sokolovsky quietly caught Pokemon on his phone, but promoted There’s a whole story about this on the internet, in Tuva a girl took a photo in front of a drum, touching it without prayer, because it means nothing to her - it’s not a sacred object in her life world. The voodoo master, however, shed the blood of a rooster on Christian symbols, but he did this not with the aim of offending Christians, but as a rite of his religion, in which the cross and burial shroud are apparently just as sacred, but the attitude towards blood and sacrificial animals other.

The large percentage of sentences under this article for statements, and statements on the Internet, once again proves how vague its wording is and how widely it can be applied.

Part one of Article 148 requires the commission of “public actions expressing clear disrespect for society and committed with the aim of insulting the religious feelings of believers.” Only the space that is clearly defined here is public (and in the second part of the article - “specially designed for worship,” that is, temple, liturgical, sacred). The rest of the article is vague and subjective: both “respect for society” and “feelings of believers.” The subjective could be resolved privately by filing a civil lawsuit or otherwise, rather than leading to actual deadlines.

Another interesting point. Here, "Matilda". A film in the center of which is the story of several months in the life of Tsarevich Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov, the future emperor and Orthodox saint. People, having not yet seen the film, are outraged: they show a saint on the screen, weak and insecure, shooting at crows, in piquant scenes with a ballerina. He is outraged – and appeals precisely to the feelings of believers. And how many real statements do we see to the prosecutor’s office? No. We see something else - pogroms , arson andreligious processions , discussion in the media, closed screenings of the film to deputies with subsequent discussions, hysteriaof the Minister of Culture , as well as appeals to the president from representatives of the conservative Orthodox community demanding that a case be opened under Article 148 (among the authors of the letter is the president of the foundation “Russian Heir” Irina Volina, President of the Russian Cultural and Educational Foundation named after St. Basil the Great Vasily Boyko-Velikiy, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for erecting the monument to Patriarch Hermogenes Galina Ananyina, Director of the International Foundation of Slavic Literature and Culture Alexander Bochkarev and President of the Russian Knight Foundation Dmitry Lysenkov). In other words, we do not see any legal attempts to resolve this specific issue: does the director offend the feelings of believers with his film or not, is there disrespect for society and actions committed with the aim of insulting the religious feelings of believers, that is, corpus delicti?

The issue is being resolved not legally, but practically, de facto: the film was released, everyone saw on the screen that it was made with the support of the Ministry of Culture (and, probably, with state money), the Orthodox pogromists were arrested, the topic is closed.

The “Matilda” case shows that Russian society and the Russian state can perfectly resolve the issue of the feelings of believers without the believers themselves, and both raise this issue and close it.

And therein lies a considerable danger: they increasingly want to play on feelings precisely when it is necessary to discredit an ideological enemy by any means: be it the defenders of St. Isaac's Cathedral, Peat Park, Matilda or Tannhäuser.