c. 1997 Religion News Service

Clinton urged to raise Russian religion bill with Yeltsin

(RNS) Sen. Richard G. Lugar, R-Ind., has urged President Clinton to discuss the Russian parliament’s preliminary passage of a bill protecting that nation’s historical faiths at the expense of missionaries and non-traditional religions with Boris Yeltsin during the G-7 meeting this weekend in Denver.”This proposed law represents a serious step back in the direction of the restrictions of the Soviet period,”Lugar wrote Clinton in a letter released Friday (June 20).

Lugar asked Clinton to urge Yeltsin to veto the legislation, should it receive final approval in the Russian parliament. The Russian president, along with Clinton and other leaders of the world’s major economic powers, have gathered in Denver for their annual meeting, which ends Sunday.

The Duma, the communist-dominated lower chamber of parliament, voted 337-5 in favor of the bill on Wednesday (June 18). Final approval in the Duma is considered a certainty, and support for the legislation also is reported strong in the Federation Council, the Russian Parliament’s upper chamber.

The bill _ titled “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations,” _ distinguishes between”religious organizations”and”religious groups,”and only gives full rights of expression to religious organizations, such as the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, according to Ecumenical News International (ENI), the Geneva-based religious news agency.

Under the proposed law, religious conversions of children would require the consent of both parents. Religious groups would be banned from owning property, publishing religious books and manufacturing religious objects.

Religious groups can apply to become organizations under the new law, but have to wait 15 years before being eligible to apply.

Foreigners will be allowed to engaged in”professional”religious activities, such as missionary work, only if they are invited to do so by a Russian religious organization.

The Russian Orthodox Church _ as well as Muslim and Jewish leaders _ supports the bill, viewing it as protection from the many evangelical and Pentecostal Christian and non-traditional religious groups seeking converts in Russia. Such groups have flourished since passage of a 1990 law liberalizing religious freedom in what was then still the officially atheistic Soviet Union.

Archbishop Sergy of Solnechnogorsk, chancellor of the Russian Orthodox Church, said the bill would stabilize religion in Russia.”The religious and confessional pluralism that exists in the United States, and is historically justified there, should not be automatically transplanted to Russian soil, which has not had such experience,”he said.

In 1993, a similar bill to protect Russia’s historical religions passed both houses of the parliament but was vetoed by Yeltsin following great international pressure. Lugar was a leader in congressional effort to get Yeltsin to reject that bill.

Russian Protestant leaders and religious freedom advocates consider the current bill even more restrictive than the 1993 legislation, ENI said.

Update: Emory temporarily halts chapel weddings over gay issue

(RNS) Emory University, which is affiliated with the United Methodist Church, has temporarily halted all weddings at campus chapels until it sets a firm policy on homosexual”commitment ceremonies.” Emory’s decision, taken Thursday (June 19) by its Board of Trustees, follows criticism of the school’s president by the North Georgia United Methodist Conference.

When the university canceled a commitment ceremony scheduled for Emory’s Oxford College chapel, President William Chace apologized to the two men involved. That prompted the North George conference to say Chace was being disrespectful of Methodist opposition to gay marriages.

Emory trustees said they _ not church officials _ govern the university, and they instructed school chaplains to create firm guidelines to resolve the issue. The board is expected to consider whatever guidelines the chaplains submit in the late fall.

Emory’s chapels have been used for a variety of purposes, including concerts, interfaith services, Roman Catholic and Jewish worship, and weddings.

The Emory campus also has two Methodist churches, where weddings will continue, a spokeswoman told the Associated Press.

MJP END RNS