c. 1998 Religion News Service
Jehovah’s Witness case in Moscow adjourned until November
(RNS) A Moscow trial closely watched as a possible barometer of how Russia’s new religion law may work has been adjourned until November.
The trial _ one of the first filed under a new law limiting free religious expression in Russia to a favored handful of faiths, chief among them being the Russian Orthodox Church _ was adjourned Thursday (Oct. 1), just two days after it opened. The trial was set to resume Nov. 17.
A Jehovah’s Witness spokesman in New York, the group’s international headquarters, said the civil case was filed after four unsuccessful criminal cases were launched against the movement, which claims more than 250,000 members in Russia.
The Moscow government hopes to ban the sect’s activities in the city. In court filings, officials accused the movement of”fomenting religious discord”and disrupting family life by claiming to be the only true religion _ a position that”cannot help but insult the sensibilities of other believers.” In Moscow, a Jehovah’s Witness representative called the accusations”absurd”and”typical religious intolerance.” Russia’s new religion law, according to many observers, is designed to protect the Russian Orthodox Church, for the most part, from other Christian and non-Christian groups that have increased their success in gaining converts in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.
In addition to Russian Orthodoxy, the new law gives favored status to”Christianity,”Judaism, Islam and Buddhism _ all of which are considered traditional Russian faiths.
Since the law’s passing last year, its enforcement has varied across Russia. Because religious tolerance is thought to be greater in Moscow than in many outlying parts of Russia, the Jehovah’s Witness case is considered by religious rights activists as an important test of the new law.
Russian patriarch calls for reform of World Council _ or else
(RNS) Patriarch Alexii II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has warned that the continued participation of his denomination in the World Council of Churches depends on the ecumenical agency’s”total reconstruction.””The Russian Orthodox Church has been and remains open to constructive dialogue with Christian denominations, and sees participation in international ecumenical organizations as a mission,”Alexii said in a lengthy interview with a Polish newspaper. The interview was reported by Ecumenical News International, the Geneva-based religious news agency.”But like most other Orthodox churches, ours has to react critically to negative tendencies _ which must be rejected categorically by Orthodoxy _ in the World Council of Churches,”he said.
The Russian Orthodox Church is the biggest of the WCC’s 330 member churches. The patriarch’s criticism follows those of other Orthodox leaders who have described the WCC as too Western and too Protestant.
In the interview, Alexii said”important theological principles and moral injunctions”had been discarded by the WCC.”This is possible because extreme liberals, without representing the majority of Christians, have gained a dominant position,”he said. “All of this has forced us to demand a total reconstruction of the World Council of Churches, so that the Orthodox churches’ opposition to such practices can be acknowledged,”he said, adding:”We are making our future participation depend on this.” A showdown between the Orthodox and other WCC member churches could come this December when the council holds its eighth assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Update: Dalai Lama group acknowledges getting CIA funds
(RNS) The Dalai Lama’s Tibetan exile organization has for the first time admitted to receiving $1.7 million annually from the Central Intelligence Agency during the 1960s.
While it’s long been known that the CIA funded Tibetan exile guerrilla operations against the Chinese during the Cold War, the Los Angeles Times recently reported details of the activities, citing previously classified documents. The operation included military training in Colorado.
The Times reported that the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled spiritual and political leader, personally received an annual CIA subsidy of $180,000. However, the Tibetan government-in-exile said in a statement Thursday (Oct. 1) that the Dalai Lama, now 63, did not personally benefit from the funds.
Instead, said the Central Tibetan Administration, the money earmarked for the Dalai Lama was spent on establishing offices in Geneva and New York and on international lobbying, according to a statement faxed to the Associated Press from the administration’s headquarters in the northern India town of Dharamsala.
The statement said the Dalai Lama’s older brother, Gyalo Thondup, reportedly did not keep his brother informed about the money.
The Dalai Lama has been based in Dharamsala since he fled Tibet following a failed uprising against Chinese occupation, which has gone on since 1950.
The funding for Tibet was cut back by the late 1960s, and dropped altogether in the 1970s after the Nixon White House’s diplomatic overtures to China.
Mandela helping to raise funds for Boesak defense
(RNS) South Africa President Nelson Mandela has told reporters he has been helping to raise funds to pay the defense costs of Allan Boesak, the former clergyman and prominent anti-apartheid campaigner now standing trial for fraud and theft.
Boesak is facing 32 counts of allegedly misappropriating nearly $173,000 from funds donated by Scandinavian church aid groups for the fight against apartheid in the late 1980s.
On Sept. 29, Mandela told reporters that he had helped raise funds for Boesak and suggested Boesak’s”other friends”do the same, said Ecumenical News International, a Geneva-based religious news agency.”All of us who are the friends of Boesak will do everything in our power to ensure that he has the resources to be defended to establish his innocence,”Mandela said.
Boesak, once a clergyman with the Dutch Reformed Mission Church who also served as president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, was a top leader of the effort to topple South Africa’s system of racial separation and was especially popular among the country’s young people.
He resigned from the clergy in 1990 after admitting that he had had an extramarital affair.
Nevertheless, in the first post-apartheid government headed by Mandela, Boesak was nominated to be the country’s ambassador to the United Nations _ a nomination that was scrapped when the funds scandal broke.
The money from the Scandinavian church groups was channeled through the now-defunct Foundation for Peace and Justice of which Boesak was director. It was intended to help victims of apartheid, especially the families of those jailed for their political activities.
Boesak has maintained his innocence from the start. Last week, Boesak said he is no longer able to pay his defense costs.
Quote of the day: State Department official Robert A. Seiple
(RNS)”I think it would be wrong to separate out any particular faith and say that we’re going to have a separate operation in the State Department to deal with that faith. It probably crosses constitutional boundaries and I think it also crosses the boundaries of common sense.” _ Robert A. Seiple, the new State Department senior adviser for International Religious Freedom and former World Vision executive, speaking on whether his office will focus on the persecution abroad of Christians. He was quoted Tuesday (Sept. 29) by Associated Baptist Press, an independent agency.
DEA END RNS
