c. 1999 Religion News Service

MOSCOW – When it comes to religious freedom in Russia, the world’s attention is usually focused on government restrictions on minority faiths. But in volatile and lawless southern Russia, threats to religious freedom take the much more brutal form of murder and kidnapping.

In the Russian Caucasus, for example, Baptist presbyter Alexander Samoshkin said he has essentially given up one congregation where in the space of six months one pastor was beheaded and another kidnapped. “I can’t even go there myself. They would grab me right away,”said Samoshkin of the 100-member Baptist church in Grozny, capital of Russia’s breakaway republic of Chechnya.

The last pastor in Grozny was Alexander Kulakov. About a week after he was kidnapped in mid-March, a member of his congregation saw Kulakov’s severed head on display at the city’s market. Kulakov had taken over leadership of the Grozny Baptist Church from Alexii Sitnikov after Sitnikov was kidnapped in October. Sitnikov’s abductors have kept silent and it is not known if he is alive.

Samoshkin said he was at a loss to explain the abductions but dismissed ransom as a motive since no such demands were made. One explanation, Samoshkin said, is that the two pastors were targeted by extremist Wahhabis _ puritanical, ultra-conservative Muslims who are often blamed for terrorist acts in Chechnya. “If the Wahabbis did it, it is because they don’t want other faiths in Chechnya,”said Samoshkin of the predominantly Muslim republic of 1 million people which has adopted sharia (Islamic) law.

Although Chechnya is by far the most chaotic and lawless part of the Russian Caucasus, other regions, too, are dangerous for religious workers whose families are sometimes perceived as reliable ransom payers. In Samoshkin’s home congregation, the 600-member Central Baptist Church in Vladikavkaz, the youth leader, Vladimir Kartiyev, was kidnapped. His abductors recently sent his mother a videotape of her son and a demand for a $100,000 ransom, Samoshkin said. “There is no way we will find that money,”said Samoshkin.

Other Christian denominations have also suffered in the wave of kidnappings that has swept up businesspeople and government officials as well. Over a two-day period in late March, two elderly Russian Orthodox priests serving in the republic of Ingushetia were kidnapped from their parishes, one in the midst of leading a service. No ransom demands have been made for either man, leaving church officials perplexed. “If the reason was ransom, it is odd, because these priests are old and poor. One is 73 and the other is 69,”said Yevgeny Bronsky, spokesman for the southern Russian diocese where the kidnappings occurred.”We think they were kidnapped as part of some sort of provocation. I don’t see a religious reason. It is either politics or banditry.” After the double kidnapping, two more Russian Orthodox priests were dispatched to the area. On April 6 one of them was kidnapped, Bronsky said. The other priest continues to work in the area but has police bodyguards.

Bronsky said that while there are no plans to send another priest to replace the most recent abductee, the church was committed to maintaining a presence in the region and encouraged parishioners to continue getting together and praying. “The question of closing churches or the deanery is not open,”Bronsky said, adding that finding clergy to serve in dangerous areas was difficult but not impossible.

While the 80-million-member Russian Orthodox Church is by far Russia’s most powerful and privileged, in the predominantly Muslim and strongly independent Caucasus area it is sometimes perceived as a tool for Moscow to maintain control over the region through ethnic Russian communities. During Chechnya’s war to gain independence from Russia, said Baptist presbyter Samoshkin, the Orthodox Church was frequently vilified by separatist leaders. “The Chechens would treat us Baptists much better than the Orthodox during the war,”Samoshkin recalled of the conflict that claimed tens of thousands of lives and destabilized the entire Caucasus region.”The Chechens called the Orthodox devil worshippers because they claimed the priests were blessing the war.” While few and far between, foreign missionaries in the Caucasus are easy targets for kidnappers both because they stand out and are much more likely to yield hefty ransoms than their Russian counterparts.

In the Russian republic of Dagestan, three Western missionaries were taken last year from the capital, Makhachkala. First, in January, a Swedish Pentecostal couple, Daniel and Paulina Brolin, were abducted as they walked along a city street. They spent six months in captivity in neighboring Chechnya, where many kidnap gangs are based, before being released following intensive negotiations by the Swedish government, which has refused to say if a ransom was paid.

In November, American missionary Herb Gregg was snatched from a Makhachkala playground. Officials with Gregg’s missionary organization, The Evangelical Alliance Mission, or TEAM, said in April that Gregg was still alive and that negotiations were continuing. He had been working in the area for three years teaching English with his wife, Linda, who left following his abduction.

DEA END BROWN