Duma Oks Restrictive Religion Bill Law Limits Activity By Missionaries, Churches In Russia

Russia’s leadership ignored a chorus of denunciations from around the world Friday when the lower house of Parliament adopted a law hobbling religious activity by foreign missionaries and Russian faiths that refused to curry favor with the atheist leaders of the Communist era.

The Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations, passed by the State Duma by an unusually cohesive 358-6 vote, was heralded by Communists and nationalists as long-sought protection for Russia’s “traditional religions” from a proselytizing onslaught of foreign churches.

But curbs on missionary work that have been condemned by the Vatican, the U.S. Senate and Western human rights organizations have the backing of President Boris Yeltsin.

Yeltsin’s office wrote the latest version of the bill after the president vetoed a draft in July, deeming it unconstitutional for its failure to treat all religions equally. The U.S. Senate had threatened to block $200 million in aid if that bill became law.

The revised draft retains the most contentious points of its predecessor and makes it even tougher for religions not already represented in Russia to establish any following. The bill will likely become law by the end of the year, as endorsement by the Federation Council, the upper house of Parliament and Yeltsin’s signature are foregone conclusions.

“The idea of the law is to create a barrier against religious expansion in Russia, to prevent development of totalitarian sects, to limit the activities of foreign missionaries and simultaneously to create conditions supportive of our traditional religions and confessions,” rejoiced Viktor Zorkaltsev, the Communist chairman of the Duma’s committee on religion.

Yeltsin’s representative in the opposition-controlled Duma, Alexander Kotenkov, praised the compromise as a “fair” means of establishing which religious communities “have proven their loyalty to society.”

Most disturbing, in the view of the law’s critics, is its requirement that a religious community have been active in Russia for at least 15 years to be recognized as a traditional faith. That presumably excludes all but the Russian Orthodox Church, which maintained a symbiotic relationship with the Soviet police state and officially sanctioned communities of Muslims, Jews and Buddhists allowed to practice their faith before the advent of reform a decade ago.

The Russian Orthodox Church hailed the legislation as “the fruit of an intelligent and difficult compromise,” said Archbishop Sergy of Solnechnogorsk, who administers the Moscow Patriarchate.

For centuries the dominant religion in Imperial Russia, Orthodoxy has flourished since the collapse of the atheistic Communist state. But in the face of strengthening competition for the hearts, minds and money of the masses, Orthodox leaders have lashed out against what they see as intruders on their spiritual turf.

“Only Orthodoxy” should be allowed in Russia, nationalist deputy Vladimir Zhirinovsky taunted evangelical Christians who sang hymns and brandished placards in a small protest of the controversial bill staged outside the Duma.

Another populist politician feeding Russian hostility toward foreign missionaries, former national security chief Alexander Lebed, has lumped Mormons together with Japan’s extremist Aum Supreme Truth sect in condemning foreign religious activists as “scum.”

“Yeltsin basically caved in” to pressures from the Orthodox Church, commented Diederik Lohman, director of the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch/Helsinki.

The draft law is “grossly discriminating,” he said, and is destined to be condemned by the Council of Europe that last year admitted Russia on condition it bring laws and practices on human rights issues into conformity with Western standards.