The website "State and Religion in Russia" published the Expert Opinion of the Foundation for the Development of Parliamentarism in Russia prepared in June 2003 on the draft federal laws "On Traditional Religious Organizations in Russia" (authors - V.U. Kornienko, V.A. Lisichkin and V. I. shandybin, the bill was introduced on May 12, 1999) and "On social partnership between the state and traditional religious organizations in the Russian Federation" (author - A.V.

Damaged by a fire on the night of December 10, 2003, the temple in the name of the Ascension of the Lord in Magnitogorsk will be repaired at the expense of the regional budget. In the near future, an estimate of the restoration work will be presented to the Governor of the Chelyabinsk Region, Petr Sumin. As a result of the fire, the exterior of the temple was almost not damaged, but serious damage was done to the interior decoration.

On December 10, an agreement on cooperation between the local diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ministry of Health of the region was signed in Rostov-on-Don. Under the terms of the agreement, Orthodox prayer rooms will be set up in the largest hospitals in the region, where priests from nearby churches will come.

On December 10, at a round table at the Panorama Center dedicated to the election results, Boris Nadezhdin said that the Kremlin (it was not specified who exactly in the Kremlin - ed.) has two different projects for creating a controlled right-wing force. The first is to create a deputy group of deputies from the Union of Right Forces, Yabloko, some independents and “seconded” from United Russia. The second project is to create, with the participation of G.

About 300 parishioners of the St. Pafnutiev Borovsky Monastery appealed to the President of the Russian Federation and Patriarch Alexy II with a request not to allow the construction of a tobacco factory near the monastery. The authors of the appeal motivate their request with both moral and environmental considerations. "Folk wisdom," the appeal says, "says: to smoke is to incense for demons.

On October 9 at the DECR MP seminar "External Service of the Russian Orthodox Church in the First Decade of the 21st Century: Tasks and Priorities" the problem of the ROC's information policy was touched upon. columnist for the portal "Religion and Mass Media" , based on what he heard at the seminar, expressed a number of considerations on this issue.

According to the website of the Orthodox Society (Brotherhood) "Radonezh" (with reference to "Interfax"), on December 11, a group of more than 40 deputies of the State Duma (including the leader of the Motherland bloc Sergei Glazyev, his colleague Alexander Chuev, first deputy chairman of the People's Party Valery Galchenko and others) sent a written request to the Minister of Education of the Russian Federation V. Filippov and the Mayor of Moscow Yu.

On December 8, the All-Diaspora Pastoral Conference of the ROCOR opened in Nyack (USA), in which over 150 clergy from all dioceses of the Church Abroad, as well as from Russia and Ukraine, gathered to participate. They discussed the issue of reunification with the Russian Orthodox Church, whose representatives also took part in the meeting.

On December 9, the DECR MP hosted a seminar on "External Service to the Russian Orthodox Church in the First Decade of the 21st Century: Tasks and Priorities." In addition to representatives of the Church itself, it was also attended by public figures, scientists, and journalists. During the seminar, the head of the DECR, Metropolitan Kirill, spoke about the current areas of "external service" of the ROC.

"Portal-Credo.ru" , commenting on the results of the just held elections to the State Duma, notes that the distribution of Orthodox candidates by electoral blocs and parties is rather confusing, but almost all of them are somehow connected with each other: "When analyzing Rodina's ties with Orthodox-patriotic organizations, one comes across a strange collision.

On December 10, the 1st Congress of Orthodox Youth of the South of Russia opened in Stavropol, organized with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus' by the Stavropol diocese and the Department of Youth Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church with the participation of the Southern Federal District.

The portal "NEWSru.com" (with reference to "Interfax-AVN") provides data from sociological studies on the number of religious servicemen in the Russian Armed Forces. According to a spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, "the results of military sociological research on the study and assessment of the religious situation in the RF Armed Forces have shown that from 2000 to the present, the number of religious servicemen has grown from 36% to 43%." A similar surge was previously noted in 1997.

On December 10, an agreement on cooperation between the State Drug Control Service and the Russian Orthodox Church was signed in Krasnodar. This is the first time such an agreement has been signed in the Kuban. The Church and the law enforcement agencies intend to join their efforts in the fight against drug addiction. Sources Krasnodar region. State drug control and the Orthodox Church will join forces in the fight against drug addiction // Regions.ru. 2003. December 11th.

On December 9, a group of clerics and Orthodox activists of the Yekaterinburg diocese, headed by acting. Rector of the Exaltation of the Cross Monastery, Assistant Dean of the Central Church District, Hieromonk Flavian (Matveev), Head of the Missionary and Catechism Departments of the Diocese, Priest Vladimir Zaitsev, and Chairman of the Regional Public Organization "Orthodox Student Brotherhood in the Name of Sts.