On January 15, Metropolitan Kirill (Gundyaev) of Smolensk and Kaliningrad received the confessor of the Catholic organization "Community of St. Egidius" Bishop Vincenzo Paglia. During the meeting, issues of European integration and joint social service were discussed. Sources Questions of European integration were discussed at a meeting in Moscow by the confessor of the Catholic "community of St. Egidius" and the chairman of the DECR MP // Portal-credo.ru. News. 01/16/2003

On January 16, the "Agreement on Socio-Political Accord and Social Partnership in the Saratov Region", promulgated in November 2002, was signed by the representative of the Diocesan Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Saratov Region, Priest Alexei Abramov, the Chairman of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Volga Region Mukaddas Bibarsov and the Chief Rabbi of the Saratov Central Synagogue Michael Frumen.

On January 16, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov signed a decree on the construction of a Jewish cemetery with a ritual complex in Moscow at the expense of the city budget and instructed the department of the consumer market and services of the capital to hold a competition until March 1, 2003 to select an organization that would design the cemetery, and then organize a competition for construction. Sources Jewish cemetery to be created in Moscow // Portal-credo.ru. News. 01/16/2003

On January 16, in Moscow, in the Danilovsky Monastery, parliamentary hearings on the topic "Religion and Health" were held, organized by the State Duma Committee on Health and Sports and the DECR. The State Duma was represented by members of the deputy group "People's Deputy" (with the exception of Alevtina Aparina, who represented the Communist Party).

On January 16-25, 2003, the American Commission on International Religious Freedom worked in Moscow.

OVD "Presnensky" opened a criminal case, Part 2 of Art. 129 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (libel contained in the media) in relation to the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, where on October 7, 2002 an article was published "The Moscow monastery turned out to be a brothel", insulting representatives of the Moscow community of Franciscan monks. The Moscow prosecutor's office took control of the investigation of the case.

On January 16, a meeting of the Interreligious Council of Russia was held, devoted to the problems of teaching religion in public schools, in particular, an attempt to introduce a course of the OPK. On this issue, the Council of Muftis addressed the Interreligious Council.

held in Moscow At the parliamentary hearings on the topic "Religion and Health", State Duma deputy Valentina Aparina (KPRF) came up with the initiative to create a commission on ethics on television. Sources Tulsky M. Religions about health: AIDS is a sign of God, and traffic jams on the Garden Ring are a dead end of civilization // Portal-credo.ru. 17.01.03

Dissatisfaction with the existing legislation in the field of freedom of conscience and religion was expressed by the head of the department for nationalities and religions in Omsk Alexander Remizov.