The new law's initial impact occurred in the town of Tuim in Khakassia, when on September 26--even before the law became effective on October 1--local officials banned further activities by the officially registered Lutheran congregation.

On September 29 an Orthodox church in Noginsk loyal to the Kiev Patriarchate in Ukraine was seized and placed under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. The Kiev Patriarchate blamed the action on the new law.

In St. Petersburg the Salvation Army was abruptly evicted from three state-owned halls it had been renting for its church services. Captain Joseph Smith, the Salvation Army's head of social services in northwest Russia, said he considers these to be isolated incidents. He had previously declared that the new law did not worry him. "The Russian Foreign Ministry invited the Salvation Army in 1991 to do charity work. We don't expect to have any problems caused by the new law," Smith said.

The Salvation Army has received the backing of officials at the state hospitals and prisons where it has been helping for years, and they have reassured Salvation Army leaders that they remain welcome.

The Justice Directorate in the Bryansk region, about 200 miles southwest of Moscow, has held up a Jewish congregation's registration permit, citing the new law, even though the law recognizes Judaism as one of the nation's "traditional" faiths. An official said the directorate had merely requested more documentation and has not made a final decision to refuse to register the congregation, although a later letter indicated that this was in fact a final decision.

The Ryazan regional authorities have transferred a church building from a congregation affiliated with the Russian Church Abroad (founded by Orthodox believers who fled Russia after the 1917 revolution) to an affiliate of the Russian Orthodox Church. The church, closed by Soviet authorities in 1939, had been used by the congregation linked to the Russian Church Abroad since 1992.

However, there have been some hopeful signs. In early October the Justice Ministry of the Republic of Khakassia restored the registration of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission in the republic. The Justice Ministry reversed the decision following complaints by two pastors working for the mission. But in a meeting with the pastors, Nikolai Volkov, the Khakassian official in charge of religious affairs, pledged to continue trying to close the mission and warned the pastors not to seek help from outside the republic. The mission continues to hold Lutheran services.

Meanwhile, a group has been formed in Moscow to fight the new law. More than 20 religious and human rights groups have formed an All-Russian Movement for Freedom of Conscience and a Secular State. The group's founding declaration, dated October 21, complains that the new law "legalizes the lawlessness and inequality of the rights in Russia."

The founding declaration also speaks out against local laws on religion in many of Russia's regions and agreements between law enforcement agencies and the Russian Orthodox Church to suppress rival religious groups. It criticizes the teaching of Orthodox catechism in schools and enforced participation in religious rites in the armed forces, believing that schools and the military should be secular. It also complains of biased reporting of minority religious communities in the media. "All this makes us worry about the bureaucratization of religion and the attacks on the fundamentals of civil society," the group concludes.

Anatoly Pchelintsev, the director of the Institute of Religion and Law, announced in early November that the new movement is preparing appeals against the religion law to the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court.


COMMENTS