NEWS STORY: Russia’s religious minorities give mixed reaction on U.S. persecution law

c. 1998 Religion News Service MOSCOW – A new U.S. law aimed at punishing governments which restrict religious freedom has met with a mixed response from leaders of minority faiths in Russia. “Our feeling is that it is better to work quietly in the background with influential thinkers and opinion makers and help them understand […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

MOSCOW – A new U.S. law aimed at punishing governments which restrict religious freedom has met with a mixed response from leaders of minority faiths in Russia. “Our feeling is that it is better to work quietly in the background with influential thinkers and opinion makers and help them understand the value of religious freedom rather than beating them over the head with the threat of taking away aid,”said Donald Jarvis, who heads the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ mission in the Russian region of Yekaterinburg.

The International Religious Freedom Act, recently signed by President Clinton, includes a range of possible actions, including economic sanctions, on countries found to be oppressing religious expression.


In Russia, minority religions are especially vulnerable after last year’s enactment of a religion law that has the potential to severely restrict their activities. To date, that has not happened, but some religious leaders fear the ongoing crisis and the new political influence of old Communists and nationalists could lead to less tolerance of non-traditional faiths.”The movement toward more of a red-brown (communist-fascist) kind of coalition in the Duma (parliament) means that the religious situation may be more difficult in the future,”said George Law, the Moscow-based American president of the Association for Spiritual Renewal, a Protestant missionary organization that has helped start over 500 churches in the former Soviet Union.”I have noticed in the regions recently, newspaper articles lambasting evangelicals and Protestants with a lot of twisted presuppositions,”he added.

The U.S. law, the International Religious Freedom Act, also establishes a 10-member Commission on International Religious Liberty to investigate incidents and mandates the creation of an ambassador-level post in the State Department for monitoring religious freedom. A yearly, country-by-country report will require more detailed assessments by U.S. embassies around the world.

This bureaucratic enshrinement, one Western diplomat in Moscow who specializes in religious affairs said, means that the religious freedom issue will develop a staying power it never previously had. “Just like the (U.S. State Department’s) human rights report has become an institution and it is recognized as one of the most important human rights documents to come out every year, I would expect the same thing could happen with religious freedom,”said the diplomat, who asked not to be named.”Every year that report generates attention, news stories.” Among U.S. supporters of the new law were Jewish groups, the U.S. Catholic Conference and the Christian Coalition.

Because Judaism is defined as one of four”traditional”religions in Russia _ the other three are the Russian Orthodox Church, Buddhism and Islam _ the country’s 500,000 Jews rarely encounter legal obstacles to religious expression although widespread anti-Semitism certainly has a dampening effect.

Russia’s Roman Catholic and evangelical Protestant communities, who are dwarfed by the dominant Russian Orthodox Church, are considered non-traditional faiths and face legal hurdles erected by Russia’s new law on religion.

The secretary at the Holy See’s diplomatic representation in Moscow, the Rev. Marek Solczynski, said he was not optimistic the U.S. law would have much of an impact on protecting the rights of Catholics in Russia. “What can the U.S. do? They can pass that kind of law and then curtail aid,”said Solczynski, a Polish citizen.”But often, like in China, they consider the business interests first. A law is only a law and then there are the politics.” Solczynski said he expects Catholicism in Russia to have more political muscle when a first-ever Russian Catholic Bishop’s Conference is formed sometime next year.

While the move may give Catholics a louder voice, it may also antagonize the 80 million-member Russian Orthodox Church, which in the past has objected to Catholic expansion on what it considers to be its own”canonical territory.” The role of the Russian Orthodox Church in determining the shape of the country’s religious landscape may well become more important in the wake of the economic crisis which has caused many people to turn away from the West for solutions and look for more homegrown answers.


In such an environment, the new American law’s most effective provision is likely to be the threat of economic sanctions. “Talking with my Russian friends in the past about this sort of thing, the consistent opinion was that the efforts by the U.S. government to effect this sort of policy has a negative effect on the parliament and a positive effect on the executive,”said Larry Uzzell, director designate of the Oxford, England-based Keston Institute, which monitors religious freedom issues.”Right now, it is in the hands of the executive branch, not the parliament.” Uzzell, who headed Keston’s Moscow bureau for several years, said the economic crisis may offer a respite. “In the short run, some people have said the situation is a bit better than it was a few months ago,”Uzzell said.”It tends to distract people. Government officials are too worried about the crisis to go around harassing minority religions.”

DEA END BROWN

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!