Dispute over religious freedom in Russia
-06/12/05
A Christian Orthodox leader has crit
Dispute over religious freedom in Russia
-06/12/05
A Christian Orthodox leader has criticised a US government report on religious freedom in Russia, accusing its authors of relying on sources representing “the interests of marginal groups”, writes Jonathan Luxmoore for Ecumenical News International.
“There are absolutely no grounds to the assertion that the Russian Orthodox church ‘has enjoyed a status that approaches official’,” said Metropolitan Kirill, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations in a letter to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“The Russian Orthodox church is completely separate from the state apparatus … This, along with the absence of state funding of religious activity, is eloquent testimony to the church’s independence from the state,” said Kirill in the letter made available late last week.
The Russian cleric was responding to the US Department of State’s 2005 International Religious Freedom Report, which accused the Orthodox church of gaining state privileges at the cost of minority faiths.
Kirill said his church believed in “constructing a partnership with the state, based on mutual beneficial cooperation in the interests of society as a whole”. But he believed it “odd” the report viewed “agreements with the state as evidence of the church’s becoming a state church”.
He asserted that “the absence of such agreements with certain other religious organizations active in Russia is not evidence of discrimination”.
The US report, released on 8 November, said the Russian government “generally respects” religious freedom, but did not always uphold constitutional provisions on “equality of all religions before the law and separation of church and state”.
It noted Orthodox leaders had publicly opposed “any expansion of the presence of Roman Catholics, Protestants and other non-Orthodox denominations”.
Metropolitan Kirill said the “seat of honour” granted to Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II when Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed his country’s Federal Assembly was a matter of protocol with no “concrete consequences for a church-state relationship”.
He added that the establishment of an Interreligious Council grouping Russia’s “traditional religions” of Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism refuted the claim there was no “movement to promote inter-faith dialogue”.
Still, he noted, “there are problems in Russia with making religious freedom a reality. Indeed, relations … have to be constructed anew after decades of state atheism and open aggression against all believers.”
The US report referred to restrictions and abuses of religious freedom, and cited cases of local discrimination and violence against Protestants and Roman Catholics, as well as Muslims, Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientologists.
However, it also listed “positive signs” in attitudes to religious minorities and said the US government would continue pressing “for the country’s adherence to international standards of religious freedom”.
[With thanks to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches.]
[Also on Ekklesia: Orthodox seek unity in face of dissent; Protestors say mission conference is gay communist plot; Olympic village converted to Christian centre; Russian church denies links with Saddam; Globalization needs communion, theologians say]
Dispute over religious freedom in Russia
-06/12/05
A Christian Orthodox leader has criticised a US government report on religious freedom in Russia, accusing its authors of relying on sources representing “the interests of marginal groups”, writes Jonathan Luxmoore for Ecumenical News International.
“There are absolutely no grounds to the assertion that the Russian Orthodox church ‘has enjoyed a status that approaches official’,” said Metropolitan Kirill, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations in a letter to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“The Russian Orthodox church is completely separate from the state apparatus … This, along with the absence of state funding of religious activity, is eloquent testimony to the church’s independence from the state,” said Kirill in the letter made available late last week.
The Russian cleric was responding to the US Department of State’s 2005 International Religious Freedom Report, which accused the Orthodox church of gaining state privileges at the cost of minority faiths.
Kirill said his church believed in “constructing a partnership with the state, based on mutual beneficial cooperation in the interests of society as a whole”. But he believed it “odd” the report viewed “agreements with the state as evidence of the church’s becoming a state church”.
He asserted that “the absence of such agreements with certain other religious organizations active in Russia is not evidence of discrimination”.
The US report, released on 8 November, said the Russian government “generally respects” religious freedom, but did not always uphold constitutional provisions on “equality of all religions before the law and separation of church and state”.
It noted Orthodox leaders had publicly opposed “any expansion of the presence of Roman Catholics, Protestants and other non-Orthodox denominations”.
Metropolitan Kirill said the “seat of honour” granted to Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II when Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed his country’s Federal Assembly was a matter of protocol with no “concrete consequences for a church-state relationship”.
He added that the establishment of an Interreligious Council grouping Russia’s “traditional religions” of Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism refuted the claim there was no “movement to promote inter-faith dialogue”.
Still, he noted, “there are problems in Russia with making religious freedom a reality. Indeed, relations … have to be constructed anew after decades of state atheism and open aggression against all believers.”
The US report referred to restrictions and abuses of religious freedom, and cited cases of local discrimination and violence against Protestants and Roman Catholics, as well as Muslims, Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Scientologists.
However, it also listed “positive signs” in attitudes to religious minorities and said the US government would continue pressing “for the country’s adherence to international standards of religious freedom”.
[With thanks to ENI. Ecumenical News International is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches.]
[Also on Ekklesia: Orthodox seek unity in face of dissent; Protestors say mission conference is gay communist plot; Olympic village converted to Christian centre; Russian church denies links with Saddam; Globalization needs communion, theologians say]