c. 1998 Religion News Service
MOSCOW _ In the first significant legal challenge to Russia’s controversial new law on religion, a group of lawyers representing four Protestant congregations have filed a complaint in the country’s highest court.
The long-awaited suit, submitted June 10, takes issue primarily with the part of the law denying religious groups in existence less than 15 years the right to do things such as distribute literature or hold services in hospitals, said Vladimir Ryakhovsky, a lawyer with the Moscow-based Christian Legal Center who helped draft the complaint.
The law requires the reregistration of religious institutions in Russia. Those institutions that cannot prove they have operated legally in Russia for 15 years are denied the right to reregister under the law. “We are going after the constitutionality of the law,”said Ryakhovsky,referring to freedom of conscience guarantees in the Russian constitution.”It is hard to say when the first hearing will be. My guess is sometime in October. The most important thing right now is that we become one of 500 cases that they consider out of the 10,000 which are submitted every year.” If the complaint _ filed by two Pentecostal, one Presbyterian and one Lutheran congregation _ does make it that far, Ryakhovsky said he is confident the court would undo the work of the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament.”The Duma is a political body. They didn’t have to take things like the constitution into account,”said Ryakhovsky.”They can pass a law saying that white is black and black is white.” Advocates of the law, which was signed by President Boris Yeltsin last year, say it is a necessary measure to thwart the spread of foreign-based sects and dangerous cults. They claim it is less restrictive than similar religion laws in other European countries.
The Russian Orthodox Church, to which 45 percent of Russia’s 148 million people claim loyalty, pushed hard for adoption of the law. At one point during last summer’s debate, Patriarch Alexii II compared the presence of foreign missionaries on what the church considers its”canonical territory”to the eastward expansion of NATO.
The court challenge by the individual congregations in the provinces comes at a time when, on the national level, some of the denominations that had been most fearful of the law have in recent weeks cleared the first big hurdles toward attaining legal status.
Most recently, in a meeting in early June, the head of the Roman Catholic Church’s Latin-rite Apostolic Administration for European Russia obtained re-registration from Russia’s newly appointed Justice Minister Pavel Krashenninikov.”I was very, very grateful,”said Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, the apostolic administrator. Kondrusiewicz said the reregistration effectively clears the way for the Siberian and other Catholic administrative units _ such as monastic orders, a fledgling seminary in St. Petersburg and the charity Caritas _ serving some 400,000 Catholics in Russia.
Catholic and other religious leaders have predicted the process in the hinterlands will proceed more slowly because of conflicting provincial laws and local officials who are sometimes hostile or ignorant of the federal law. Such alleged discrimination on the local level provoked the current suit.
Under the law, all those religious groups wishing to enjoy full legal rights, including the authority to hire employees and conduct religious education, must reregister by the end of next year. Critics of the law,including religious freedom advocates, the U.S. government and the Vatican, say it leaves minority and foreign-based faiths vulnerable to discrimination.
At least on the federal level, early indications are that the worst fears have not been realized. Since March, the Russian Ministry of Justice has granted the coveted”centralized religious organization”status to two large Pentecostal groups, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), a union of charismatic churches, Kondrusiewicz’s group and 17 other mostly Protestant entities, according to Alexander Kudryavtsev, head of the Justice Ministry’s department for the registration of religious associations.
Kudryavtsev said he expects several hundred groups to eventually register on the federal level. No application has been rejected so far, he added, although several have been sent back for reworking. He refused to say if any groups are likely to be rejected for federal status.”Life will show,”Kudryavtsev said.”I’m not ready to make a prediction.” The leader of Russia’s 2,000-member Unification Church, Konstantin Krylov,said he has no doubt his group, known as the Moonies, will be rejected by the Justice Ministry.”We are not expecting to be approved,”said Krylov. He predicted the government will invoke clauses against his church denying registration to newly arrived groups and those deemed harmful or that use threats or force to keep members. Krylov denied the Unification Church is harmful or keeps members through threats or force.
One of the most informed monitors of the law, Lawrence Uzzell of the Oxford, England-based Keston Institute, said in the case of the Roman Catholic Church, for example, the Justice Ministry is”interpreting the law liberally in their favor.” He stressed, however, the law appears to be applied differently to minority faiths, especially those without political clout.
For those religious groups that are politically weak and are banking on the government’s judicial branch taking action, Uzzell said Ryakhovsky’s suit is the one with”the best chance of succeeding and with the best legal talent going into it.” Uzzell said some within Yeltsin’s administration might see the legal challenge as an opportunity.”If several of the articles were overruled it would take a lot of pressure off them from abroad,”he said.
DEA END BROWN
