wfn.org | RUSSIA: ORTHODOX LEADER DEFENDS NEW LEGISLATION

[Audrey Whitefield <a.whitefield@quest.org.uk>]

Title; RUSSIA: ORTHODOX LEADER DEFENDS NEW LEGISLATION
Sept. 23, 1997 
ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
Canon Jim Rosenthal, Director of Communications
Anglican Communion Office
London,England

[97.9.3.5]

RUSSIA: ORTHODOX LEADER DEFENDS NEW LEGISLATION

(ENI)--Metropolitan Kirill, one of the Russian Orthodox Church's most
senior officials, has dismissed suggestions that controversial
legislation being considered by the Russian parliament will restrict
religious freedom in Russia.

Speaking to journalists in Geneva on 11 September, when he was attending
the central committee of the World Council of Churches, Metropolitan
Kirill claimed that if the legislation were passed, new religious
organisations - even worshippers of "arctic penguins", he added
ironically - would be able to carry out most of their religious
activities unhindered.

They would have the right "to celebrate worship, hold processions,
publish books, teach adults and children," Metropolitan Kirill said, but
for 15 years they would not be registered with the state authorities,
which would mean that they would not be able to own property in Russia.
(Critics of the proposed legislation have suggested that the
probationary period would severely limit the rights of new religious
organisations.)

"If, during 15 years, it becomes clear that penguin worshippers do not
put bombs in public palaces, do not kidnap children from their parents
and do not break up families, then they have the right to be registered
legally," he said. Metropolitan Kirill is head of the Department of
External Church Relations (DECR) of the Moscow Patriarchate of the
Russian Orthodox Church.

The original version of the bill, strongly supported by the Russian
Orthodox Church, was approved in June by an overwhelming majority in
both chambers of the Russian parliament. However, the bill was vetoed in
July by President Boris Yeltsin after widespread protests from abroad
and from minority religious organisations inside Russia who said that
the bill would restrict their activities. Last week, President Yeltsin
sent a revised version of the bill to the Duma, the lower house of the
Russian parliament.

Metropolitan Kirill said that the bill had now been revised in two main
respects. The preamble to the bill now mentioned "Christianity" rather
than simply Orthodoxy as being one of Russia's religious traditions,
alongside Buddhism, Islam and Judaism, and the provision which required
a 15-year probationary period before a new religious organisation could
be registered with the state authorities would not be applied as
rigorously to religious bodies already established in Russia, as to new
groups.

Metropolitan Kirill was strongly critical of outside intervention when
"Bill [Clinton] wrote to Boris [Yeltsin]" urging him not to sign the
original legislation which Metropolitan Kirill described as being more
"liberal" than laws governing religion in a number of other European
countries.  "The new law is so liberal it will prove to be ineffective,"
Metropolitan Kirill said, suggesting that it would "not be able to stop
anything in Russia".

Pressed by journalists to explain why the Russian Orthodox Church was
Backing "ineffective" legislation, Metropolitan Kirill said that the
proposed legislation set down criteria "to help people separate genuine
religious activity from an activity which is dangerous for society".

He pointed to the "great numbers of missionaries arriving in Russia
today" whose combined budgets amounted to US$150m a year.    This
amounted to "five times the budget of the Russian Orthodox Church",
Metropolitan Kirill said..

"They can buy everything they want. They can buy journalists who
misinform the world public opinion, buy TV time and buy property. This
law attempts to protect society from this invasion from abroad."