Repose of the Holy Right-believing Princess Anna of Kashin

Commemorated on October 2

The Holy Right-believing Princess Anna of Kashin, a daughter of the Rostov prince Demetrius Borisovich, in 1294 became the wife of the holy Great Prince Michael Yaroslavich of Tver, who was murdered by the Mongol-Tatars of the Horde in 1318, (November 22). After the death of her husband, Anna withdrew into Tver's Sophia monastery and accepted tonsure with the name Euphrosyne. Later, she transferred to the Kashin Dormition monastery, and became a schemanun with the name Anna. She fell asleep in the Lord on October 2, 1338.

St Anna's sons also imitated their father's steadfast confession of faith in Christ. Demetrius Mikhailovich ("Dread Eyes") was murdered at the Horde on September 15, 1325; and later, Alexander Mikhailovich, Prince of Tver, was murdered together with his son Theodore on October 29, 1339.

Miracles at St Anna's grave began in 1611, during the siege of Kashin by Polish and Lithuanian forces. There was also a great fire in the city which died down without doing much damage. The saint, dressed in the monastic schema, appeared to Gerasimus, a gravely ill warden of the Dormition cathedral. She promised that he would recover, but complained, "People show no respect for my tomb. They ignore it and my memory! Do you not know that I am supplicating the Lord and His Mother to deliver the city from the foe, and that you be spared many hardships and evils?" She ordered him to tell the clergy to look after her tomb, and to light a candle there before the icon of Christ Not-Made-By-Hands.

At the Council of 1649 it was decided to uncover her relics for general veneration and to glorify the holy Princess Anna as a saint. But in 1677 Patriarch Joachim proposed to the Moscow Council that her veneration throughout Russia should be discontinued because of the Old Believers Schism, which made use of the name of St Anna of Kashin for its own purposes. When she was buried her hand had been positioned to make the Sign of the Cross with two fingers, rather than three. However, the memory of St Anna, who had received a crown of glory from Christ, could not be erased by decree. People continued to love and venerate her, and many miracles took place at her tomb.

On June 12, 1909 her second glorification took place, and her universally observed Feast day was established. Her Life describes her as a model of spiritual beauty and chastity, and an example to future generations.

SOURCE:

SAINT OR FEAST POSTED THIS DATE 2008(with 2007's link here also):

RUSSIA: Religious freedom survey, October 2008

By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service http://www.forum18.org

The gravest current threat to freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Russia comes from the federal government's approach to combating religious extremism, Forum 18 News Service finds in its survey analysis of religious freedom. In the wake of the 2002 Extremism Law, moderate Muslim literature has been outlawed as inciting religious extremism - despite the reasoning behind this being questionable. This has led to harassment and sometimes prosecution of alleged authors, distributors or simply readers. The authorities have subsequently begun to level religious extremism charges against other confessions, including traditional pagans, Jehovah's Witnesses and a Baptist. Some religious communities continue to complain of restriction through petty bureaucracy, such as the loss of legal status for unlicensed educational work or not engaging in financial activity, even though the law is ambiguous on these points. Long-running problems – such as state disruption of religious events, obstruction of access to and retention of property for worship and bureaucratic visa problems for foreign religious personnel - persist.

Ahead of the Universal Periodic Review of Russia by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council in February 2009, Forum 18 News Service has found a new and escalating threat to religious freedom from indiscriminate prosecutions for religious extremism. This is against an established background of persistent, low-level bureaucratic obstruction of some religious communities.

Previously, the defining feature of Russia's federal policy towards freedom of religion or belief, from the end of the Soviet period, was the lack of a federal policy. By the mid-1990s, local government officials were acting unilaterally – and with impunity - to obstruct religious communities, usually those perceived as "foreign spies", such as Catholics and Protestants, or simply "troublemakers", such as Hare Krishna devotees and Jehovah's Witnesses. Dozens of regions dissatisfied with the 1990 Religion Law, which protected freedom of religion or belief, even enacted their own local laws limiting missionary activity. Attempts to push through a similarly restrictive law at the federal level resulted in the adoption of a hybrid text in October 1997. The 1997 Religion Law's more restrictive provisions have either since been toned down or are not strictly enforced, however.

The 1997 Religion Law's preamble states that respect should be accorded first to Orthodoxy, then to Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Christianity, although the 1993 Constitution declares all religious associations equal before the law. While there is no legal mechanism for according respect, the preamble sets the tone for official dealings with religious communities, and is viewed by some state representatives – particularly at the local level - as granting permission for repressing minority groups. Prominent symbolic support for the Russian Orthodox Church by former President Vladimir Putin is similarly regarded. There has been no indication of substantial change with the election of Dmitri Medvedev as President.

Extremism charges

Without doubt the gravest current threat to freedom of thought, conscience and belief comes from the federal government's approach to combating religious extremism. The June 2002 Extremism Law's lengthy definition of extremism contains a number of clauses describing such activity in a religious context: incitement of religious hatred; propaganda of the exclusivity, superiority or inferiority of citizens according to their attitude towards religion or religious affiliation; obstruction of the lawful activity of religious associations accompanied by violence or the threat of violence; committing a crime motivated by religious hatred.

While such formulations are quite defensible, the government's record in seeking to apply them has caused grave concern to some. For local human rights defenders, the February 2003 ban of the radical Islamic group Hizb-ut-Tahrir prompted alarm about how the Law was being implemented. Hizb-ut-Tahrir's website has voiced virulently anti-Semitic views warranting prosecution under the 2002 Extremism Law (see F18News http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=170 for an outline of the group's views). Russia, however, chose to outlaw the group as a terrorist organisation, in a closed session of the Supreme Court whose verdict did not cite evidence of terrorist activity.

Subsequent prosecutions of dozens of alleged Hizb-ut-Tahrir members across Russia hinged not on proven participation in terrorist acts, or even membership of the organisation, but the content of the group's literature alleged to have been circulated by suspects. In a 2005 case in Tobolsk (Tyumen Region), for instance, five young Muslims were handed down sentences ranging up to six years for extremism, as well as aiding and abetting terrorism, solely on the basis of literary evidence.

The Hizb-ut-Tahrir texts in question were not those whose content invites prosecution for religious extremism, however, and the experts whose analysis secured convictions did not identify such elements. Rather, in assessing this literature, a former scientific atheism lecturer concluded that its "call to the universal Islamisation of humanity signifies nothing less than propaganda for coups d'etat and violent change in the state and order of every country." Vladimir Viktorov also maintained that the literature "propagandises the idea of the superiority of Islam, and therefore Muslims, over other religions and the people who adhere to them.

"This latter assertion features prominently in every subsequent ban or attempt to ban allegedly religious extremist literature known to Forum 18. Its flaw is to confuse claims that those citizens holding a particular belief are superior - which is defined as extremism by the 2002 Law - with claims that a particular religious or non-religious belief itself is superior to other beliefs. The right to be able to make this kind of claim and to criticise religious and non-religious beliefs of all kinds is, in international human rights law, a fundamental part of the right to religious freedom.

The trials of suspected Hizb-ut-Tahrir members heralded a move towards banning more mainstream Islamic literature. Previously, in early 2003, assertions about the supposedly extremist nature of declaring the superiority of a faith by the very same former scientific atheism literature, Vladimir Viktorov, failed even to reach court in Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk Region).

Four years on, however, the text at issue in that instance – Muhammad Ali al-Hashimi's "The Personality of a Muslim" – was banned as extremist by Buguruslan City Court (Orenburg Region). The work – which Forum 18 has read in full – is a manual of Koran-based etiquette whose sole emphasis is on kindness and generosity, including towards non-Muslims. In May 2008 a criminal case was opened against the head of Moscow Islamic University's publishing department, Aslambek Ezhayev, for distribution of "The Personality of a Muslim".

A similar change – reversing a previously unsuccessful prosecution attempt – involves the work of moderate Turkish theologian Said Nursi (1876-1960). In April 2005 a court in the Siberian city of Omsk failed to convict a local Muslim of religious extremism for distributing "Fruits of Faith", one part of Nursi's Risale-i-Nur (Messages of Light). In May 2007, however, a Moscow court banned in closed session all parts of Risale-i-Nur in Russian translation, again relying solely upon literary analysis by psycholinguists and linguists. A group of women who form a study group centred on Nursi's works in the Russian republic of Tatarstan have complained to Forum 18 that they were hounded by the local FSB security service for two years as a prelude to the ban, suffering raids, book confiscations and forced psychiatric examinations. In December 2007, officials from regional public prosecutors' offices and the FSB searched homes of Nursi readers across Russia.

First published in July 2007 and updated every few months, Russia's Federal List of Extremist Materials contained 255 named items by the end of August 2008. These include "The Personality of a Muslim" and all 14 books of Risale-i-Nur. A city or district court ruling anywhere in Russia is sufficient for a work to be entered onto the List and so banned throughout the country.

Russia's Ombudsman for Human Rights, Vladimir Lukin, denounced the Nursi literature trial even before its verdict. "It is very important that we do not allow interference in the convictions and beliefs of millions of citizens on the poorly grounded, unproven pretext of fighting against extremism," he warned, "as this really could provoke wide-scale violations of their right to freedom of belief."

Handed a list of the 16 publications – including "The Personality of a Muslim", outlawed as extremist by Buguruslan City Court in August 2007 - Moscow-based Islam specialist Aleksei Malashenko told Forum 18 that they were simply Islamic history and philosophy. He described the ban as "stupidity".

Several of the works banned by Buguruslan City Court featured on a 2005 list of "sectarian (Wahhabi-fundamentalist) literature" drawn up by the Bashkortostan-based Central Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Russia. Accusations of Islamic extremism – commonly termed "Wahhabism" in Russia after Sheikh al-Wahhab, whose teachings form the religious basis of the present-day kingdom of Saudi Arabia – often colour disputes between the country's rival Muslim organisations. The potential danger of such allegations is graphically illustrated by the situation in the North Caucasus republic of Kabardino-Balkaria. Local Muslims here have told Forum 18 that the state's backing of one Muslim faction in such a dispute, and brutal treatment of the other Muslim faction, contributed to a bloody uprising in October 2005.

Latterly, Russia's "religious extremist" category has widened ever further. In April 2008, the authorities in Tatarstan issued official warnings about extremist activity to its Tatar-Turkish lycees – non-selective secular secondary schools – in connection with the region's criminal investigation into followers of Said Nursi. In December 2006, one of the main traditional pagan priests in the Volga republic of Mari-El was sentenced to 120 hours' labour, partly for inciting religious hatred, for writing and distributing a brochure criticising world religions. In June 2008, a Moscow district public prosecutor issued an extremism warning to a local Baptist pastor without specifying its grounds for doing so.

In late 2007, the authorities in Rostov-on-Don Region ordered investigations into local communities of Jehovah's Witnesses after an expert literary analysis declared some of their well-known tracts extremist. In May 2008, the public prosecutor's office in the town of Asbest (Sverdlovsk Region) issued warnings to a local Jehovah's Witness community on the same grounds.

While a district court in the Russian capital failed to find the Jehovah's Witnesses' local religious organisation in Moscow guilty of extremism, it succeeded in banning it on other grounds in 2004. The Jehovah's Witnesses made an appeal against this long-running prosecution to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) on 11 December 2001, updated by supplementary material on 15 December 2004. The ECHR has yet to pronounce on the admissibility of the complaint.

Large-scale disruptions of religious activities

Despite the ban, Moscow Jehovah's Witnesses have broadly been able to function under the legal umbrella of their federal organisation. While they have faced some rental restrictions and occasional impediment to their preaching activity, their summer 2007 stadium congress in the Russian capital met with no obstruction, for example. However, if Asbest Town Court – or any other court – were to succeed in banning Jehovah's Witness literature as extremist, this would prevent its distribution across Russia and could even lead to a ban on the federal organisation and all its affiliates.

The authorities have recently stepped up their action against Jehovah's Witnesses in other ways, too. In what the organisation's representatives describe as an unprecedented, co-ordinated campaign in 2008, state officials prevented at least eight Jehovah's Witness regional summer congresses from taking place, while a further 30 went ahead despite similar attempts to obstruct them. Previously, a handful of congresses were blocked or disrupted in 2003-5, but all went ahead in 2007.

In cases where the ECHR has found against Russia on a religious freedom issue, the state has subsequently paid compensation in full. The Moscow branch of the Salvation Army, a community of Jehovah's Witnesses in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk and an evangelical church in Chekhov (Moscow Region) all received such payments in 2007. However, in the case of the Salvation Army – the only one where the legal situation which led to the violation could be changed – Russia has taken no action, even though this is an ECHR requirement. The Salvation Army thus continues to function in Moscow using the legal personality status it had before the 1997 Religion Law, as this has not been annulled as was threatened. However, it is still unable to re-register in line with that law, however, as the deadline has expired.

Liquidation concerns

Following the 1997 Law's end of 2000 deadline, some 2,000 religious organisations were subject to liquidation for failing to re-register. Without legal personality status, a liquidated organisation would still have the right to worship on premises provided by its members and teach its own followers as a "religious group", but nothing more (although this is not generally policed). Most of the dissolved organisations were presumably defunct, however, as no wave of complaints ensued.

Particularly since the Justice Ministry's Federal Registration Service (FRS) was allocated wider monitoring powers in 2004, religious communities have complained of a marked increase in state scrutiny and bureaucracy. Concern arose, therefore, when the FRS demanded more detailed annual accounts from religious organisations under the 2006 so-called NGO Law. The Russian Orthodox Church achieved a notable concession for all confessions in April 2007, when the law's accounting procedure was substantially simplified for religious organisations.

Nevertheless, worries about liquidation resurfaced from the end of 2007, when regional FRS departments began to announce the court liquidation of notable numbers of religious organisations: 11 in Chuvashia, seven in Moscow and at least 25 in Tyumen Region, for example. In Nizhny Novgorod, 55 religious organisations received official warnings in 2007, mostly for failing to submit annual accounts on time. Tax inspectorates may also remove a religious organisation from the Single State Register of Legal Personalities without a court order if it fails to submit a tax return and has not conducted financial transactions for a year. Here again, however, the majority of affected organisations appear to be either defunct or unconcerned by the loss of legal personality status. The office of Russia's Human Rights Ombudsman has told Forum 18 that it has not received a single complaint on this issue, and the Moscow-based Slavic Centre for Law and Justice, which specialises in religious freedom issues, has dealt with only a handful.

In one such case, a local tax inspectorate's decision to remove a Baptist church in Krasnodar Region from the Single State Register in March 2007 was declared unlawful in May 2008. The church's activity does not require formal financial transactions, so it had thought submission of accounts to be unnecessary. In another case, a small Methodist church in Belgorod Region was dissolved by court order in February 2008 for failing to file a report about its annual activities on time. As officials in this region insist that religious communities cannot use a private home as a legal address and obstruct the use of public and commercial premises, the church is likely to find it very difficult to regain legal personality status.

The impact of the 14 July 2008 abolition of the FRS and transfer of its powers back to the Justice Ministry proper is not yet clear.

Religious education controversy

In some cases, a functioning religious organisation may find itself dissolved for educational activity which local officials believe should be licensed. A Pentecostal Bible Centre in Chuvashia was dissolved for unlicensed educational activity in August 2007 and has subsequently sent an appeal to the ECHR. In January 2008, FSB officers broke up an Embassy of God Bible School graduation ceremony in Tolyatti (Samara Region), claiming that the church requires a licence for educational activity. In March 2008, Smolensk Regional Court dissolved Smolensk United Methodist Church for running a Sunday school – which has only four pupils – for not having an education licence.

Confusion has persisted over what type of religious activity requires such a licence. The 1997 Law distinguishes between "education" – for which a religious organisation appears to require a licence - and "teaching", for which it definitely does not. Quashing Smolensk Regional Court's verdict against the local Smolensk church in a landmark 10 June 2008 ruling, Russia's Supreme Court determined that a licence is required for educational activity if "accompanied by confirmation that the student has attained levels of education prescribed by the state." A yeshiva (Jewish school) which the Moscow city authorities announced in March 2008 would be dissolved, for not having an educational licence, now hopes that it will legally be able to continue its activity as "teaching".

In recent years there have been complaints by non-Orthodox parents – with different or no religious beliefs - that the Foundations of Orthodox Culture course in state schools is compulsory catechetical education, rather than voluntary cultural education. Provision of the course across Russia is patchy. Its imposition has gone furthest in Belgorod Region, where it was introduced as a compulsory subject for all pupils in 2006. In September 2007, however, then President Vladimir Putin publicly rejected this approach while on a visit to Belgorod. He stated that: "Our Constitution says that the Church is separate from the state. You know how I feel, including towards the Russian Orthodox Church. But if anyone thinks that we should proceed differently, that would require a change to the Constitution. I do not believe that is what we should be doing now." While it is unclear how the situation will develop, the federal authorities are now unlikely to support anything more than strictly optional study of religious subjects.

Foreigners' visa problems

The Ukrainian pastor of a Kiev-based charismatic church was deported from a Moscow airport in February 2008, but no further cases of visa denials or deportations of foreign religious personnel are known to Forum 18 from the past two years. Over 50 foreign religious workers – including Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Buddhists and a Jew – have been barred from Russia since 1998. A small number of those who had earlier been barred have since managed to return.

While not targeted at religious communities, new visa rules introduced in October 2007 allowing foreigners with a business or humanitarian visa – which includes religious work – to spend only 90 out of every 180 days in Russia have had a harsh impact on many religious organisations, particularly those which for historical reasons depend upon foreigners, such as the Catholic Church. The difficulties are avoidable, but the procedures for obtaining temporary residency or a work permit – which allow an unbroken stay in Russia – are lengthy and time consuming.

Property problems

A major problem for all confessions, in varying degrees, continues to be the acquisition or retention of places of worship. A new factor in such situations is commercial pressures, particularly in the economically more successful parts of Russia. In the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk, for example, a parish of the Russian Orthodox Church was forced out of a historical church in October 2007 when the hospital complex to which it belongs was bought by a commercial enterprise. In Kaluga, Word of Life Pentecostal Church has similarly come under sustained pressure after it found its land and building surrounded by the construction of a shopping centre.

In other cases, places of worship are threatened when officials question whether they have been built with proper approval or to safety standards, in what the religious communities concerned believe to be a pretext for harassment. In the southern city of Astrakhan, demolition of an unfinished mosque was postponed in 2007 due to a case pending at the European Court of Human Rights. In the Siberian republic of Khakassia, however, Glorification Pentecostal Church was forced to demolish its prayer hall in June 2007.

In Moscow, Molokans (an indigenous Russian Christian confession), the Hare Krishna community and Emmanuel Pentecostal Church are waging long-running bureaucratic battles for approval to construct houses of worship. Other groups, such as an Old Believer parish in Tambov Region, continue to face obstruction in trying to reclaim their historical places of worship. (END)

For a personal commentary by Irina Budkina, editor of the http://www.samstar.ru Old Believer website, about continuing denial of equality to Russia's religious minorities, see F18News 26 May 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=570.

Reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Russia can be found at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=10.

The previous Forum 18 Russia religious freedom survey can be found at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=947.

A printer-friendly map of Russia is available at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=russi.

SOURCE:

32 years ago, Solzhenitsyn came to a small church in Millville

By EDWARD VAN EMBDEN Staff Writer, 856-649-2072
Published: Tuesday, August 05, 2008

MILLVILLE - It was something she felt was remarkable at the time, as she and the rest of the congregation filed in behind him in the small church and left the general public standing on the lawn waiting for him to emerge again.

When Alexander Solzhenitsyn visited Millville and the St. Nicholas Old Russian Orthodox Church in 1976, his message, delivered in Russian to a crowd of between 50 and 70 congregants, was about culture, pride in religion and maintaining the existence of that which was threatened by the Western world.

The Nobel Prize-winning author who provided firsthand accounts of the oppressive rule of dictator Josef Stalin and his slave-labor camps died Sunday at 89, nearly 32 years after his intimate and largely unheralded visit to Cumberland County.

"It was really, really unbelievable to us and all the people that knew of him in any way that he would come here and talk to the old believers," Katherine Shea said. "It was really quite exciting."

Shea has a scrapbook filled with clippings related to church events. In the middle of the book, somewhere between entries on Sunday school and Christmas celebrations, are a few pages reserved just for that visit.

The 76-year-old church member said people come, people go, and right now she's the one who keeps the memories.

A few newspaper clippings, frail and yellowed by age, offer few insights or details about Solzhenitsyn's visit.

The facts are reported - Solzhenitsyn spent time in a slave labor camp, he was exiled from Russia for his controversial writings, he settled and lived out of the public eye in Vermont - but the religious purpose of his visit isn't.

When word got out about his arrival in Millville, Shea said, plenty of people, including members of the media and academia made an effort to claim a seat inside the small Newcombtown Road church. But their efforts, illustrated by frustrating shots of the bearded man, cloaked in black and standing in the December cold outside the closed church doors, were not rewarded.

But he hadn't come to talk about his life or his writing, Shea said, but rather their shared religion.

"He told us how happy he was to find a congregation that was following, as closely as possible, the old way," she said. "He didn't expect to find any of us in the United States."

The Old Russian Orthodox Church was, as reported at the time, and still is one of just four such churches throughout the country. Shea, who said Solzhenitsyn was a practicing New Russian Orthodox - the new and the old church split in the 1600s - said the writer championed faith and bringing the still separate churches together.

The almost private delivery of that message - there is no transcript or tape of his Millville speech - was special at the time, Shea said, but it's likely that his words, now only memories, will be lost.

In the 1-mile drive from her home to her brother's, Shea said plaintively that everyone else is gone now. Everyone in the faded news clippings: the old priests, Solzhenitsyn, the rest of the congregants, even her sister who appears in the edge of one of the photos, has died.

And the children, she said, have moved on too.

At 81, John Bulboff joked that he can remember more about 30 years ago than he can the day before. But when it's something as significant as hearing a Nobel Prize winner speak, he rationalized, it's pretty hard to forget.

"He told us, 'Don't forget that you're Russian and don't be assimilated,'" Bulboff said. "They didn't have a translator there and they didn't need one, we were all Russian and could relate to what he was saying."

Another issue addressed by Solzhenitsyn, he said, was the growth of the Orthodox religion. Stalin, Solzhenistyn told the congregation, had persecuted those of the Orthodox religion but after his death it had experienced a bit of resurgence. That was something, he said, he expected in America.

But in the years since his visit, Bulboff said, there's only been decline.

"He asked us to maintain the faith," he said. "But I expected (a decline). The old ways are hard. Young people, now, they want everything to come in a spray bottle."

SOURCE:

READ THE PREVIOUS POST RELATED TO THIS STORY:

Old Believers break from Russian Orthodox Church

Russian Church Council of 1654: Patriarch Nikon introduces new service books

July 19, 2008, 14:50

This is the fourth in a series of RT reports on Christianity’s arrival and 1,200-year-long development in Russia. After a period of strength and unity, by the 17th century the Russian Orthodox Church began to tear apart. In 1652 it had a new patriarch – an uncompromising and bright Nikon. He decided a reform of the service books and rites was needed.

For centuries, church books in Russia were translated from Greek to Old Slavonic and copied by hand. Gradually, mistranslations of the text and mistakes crept in. Nikon wanted to restore everything to conformity with the Greek original. One thing in particular that created much trouble was that the Russians had come to make the sign of the cross with two fingers instead of three (representing the trinity of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit), as the Greeks did.

Nikon’s reforms unleashed a wave of misunderstanding and violent protests across Russia. The church authority was questioned. Traditional believers viewed the changes as the devil’s work. Some burned themselves to death in their homes or churches. Others cut off fingers to spare them the shame of using the Greek sign of the cross. The reforms caused a schism or “raskol” within the Russian Orthodox Church, a split between Nikon’s supporters and the so-called Old Believers - those who wanted the old ways back.

Incredibly strong-willed and powerful, Nikon set about crushing the opposition but his reign was brutally ended as he suddenly fell foul of the Tsar. It’s thought that his active interfering in politics and an ambition to make the Church independent on the state caused the Tsar’s anger. In 1666 Patriarch Nikon was formally deposed, made a simple monk and confined to a remote monastery.

Nikon’s reforms, though, were upheld by his successor. Old Believers were referred to as “raskolniki” or schismatics and endured severe persecution. Over the years many fled Russia altogether while many were sent to villages scattered across Siberia. Out of sight and often regarded with mistrust, they led a secluded life, carefully preserving the traditions of the past.

In 1971 the Moscow Patriarchate revoked the anathemas placed on the Old Believers in the 17th century, but most Old Believer communities have not returned to Communion with other Orthodox Christians. Many still live in extremely isolated communities respecting ancient traditions.

Previous reports:

Christianity: 1020 years of Russian faith

Kiev: the cradle of Russian Christianity

Moscow becomes ‘third Rome’

SOURCE:

READ THE PREVIOUS POST RELATED TO THIS STORY:

Orthodox Conference to offer services

Archpriest Pimen Simon, of the Church of the Nativity, participates in a processional along with parishioners around the church on September 2, 2007. (Lauren M. Anderson / Erie Times-News)

Published: June 14. 2008 6:00AM

The last time Erie's Church of the Nativity of Christ hosted an Orthodox Conference, the building burned.

The fire just days before the 1986 meeting has been on the Rev. Pimen Simon's mind as he plans the 2008 version, set to begin Tuesday.

"Please God, don't let us face something like we did the last time," Simon has prayed.

Despite a blaze that collapsed the ceiling and buckled walls, the 1986 conference went on. Now, 22 years later, the Russian Orthodox church is celebrating several historic events by once again welcoming people to learn about the faith.

"The reason we're doing the conference is because for the parish, it's the 25th anniversary since we restored priesthood to our parish and joined ourselves to the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia," Simon said.

His church is Russian Orthodox Old Rite. A break from the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1600s left the Old Ritualists without church hierarchy or priests.

In 1983, the Erie parish became the only Old Rite church to unite with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.

"A year ago, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia reconciled itself to the church in Russia," Simon said. "This will be one of the first really public events that are part of that reconciliation and the Russian Church in Russia is sending a delegation and one of its bishops to participate in the conference."

Simon also said the new head of the church outside of Russia, Metropolitan Hilarion, will attend the conference.

Hilarion, of Australia, had agreed to participate before being chosen in May to succeed Metropolitan Laurus, who died in March.

"Even though he is elected now as the first hierarch of the church outside of Russia, he still will be here for the entire conference," Simon said.

It's expected to draw about 200 people, not all of them Orthodox.

The public is welcome at the entire conference or individual services and panels, Simon said. The theme is "Orthodox Christianity in the 21st Century."

Simon said services at the church will include matins, the early morning service celebrating the coming of Christ; vespers, the evening service commemorating the creation of the world; and divine liturgy, commemorating the life of Christ and including Eucharist.

Sessions and panels will take place at Mercyhurst College. Topics will include issues Christians face today, such as beginning-of-life and end-of-life decisions. Separate programs will be offered for children.

"We've got a program for people of all ages," Simon said.

He said the conference is geared toward families.

"It really is a very spiritually enlightened event and when all parts of the family are able to participate in that, then I think the entire family benefits by having that kind of spiritual awakening," Simon said.

Mary Wassell, 11, of Millcreek Township, is excited about meeting other Orthodox Christians her age.

But, she said, "What I'm looking forward to most is the hierarchal liturgy that will be served on Saturday because it will be cool to see all the bishops and priests from around the country serving in our church."

Simon said Metropolitan Hilarion, four bishops and about 20 priests will take part.

Mary, her parents and her older brother plan to attend the liturgy and the rest of the conference. They're one of about 160 Church of the Nativity families.

Mary's father, Mark Wassell, 50, said, "Christ should be a central part of everyone's life. This sort of gives me an opportunity for one week to really focus on something that should be a central part of life."

Wassell, an attorney, said he took vacation time for the conference.

"I think it should be very spiritually uplifting," he said.

KNOW BEFORE YOU GO
What: Orthodox Conference

When: Tuesday through June 21

Details: Services at Russian Orthodox Church of the Nativity of Christ, 251 East Front St.; Sessions and panel discussions at Mercyhurst College, 501 E. 38th St. Public is welcome at single events for free. Costs to attend the entire conference vary.

Call: 459-8515 or visit www.churchofthenativity.net for more information

SOURCE:

Ethnic Groups in Georgia #15 – East Slavs

Part 3 – Molokans and Old Believers

While in the past two weeks, we have covered the East Slavs in the series on ethnic groups in Georgia, today we feature the Molokans and the Old Believers, two small communities of Russian religious sub-groups. The materials on the ethnic groups are provided by the European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and are extracted from the volume, Georgia – An Ethno-Political Handbook by Tom Trier & George Tarkhan-Mouravi, which will be published by the end of the year.

Who, What, Where

The Molokans are a community of Russian religious dissenters, which emerged in the late 18th century in Central Russia and was exiled to the South Caucasus starting from the 1840s. Presumably, there were several thousand Molokans in Georgia in the late 1980s, while today – due to emigration and assimilation – there are only around 300 persons left.

The Old Believers, another religious minority that emerged in the 17th century in opposition to the reform of the Russian Orthodox Church, was quite numerous in Georgia in the late 19th century but has practically vanished from Georgia today.

A Bit of History of the Molokans

Facing the choice of accepting Orthodox Christianity or being exiled, Molokans from Russia started to arrive in various part of the Caucasus in the 1840s. Unlike the Dukhobors, Molokans mostly arrived as families rather than as whole communities (see the article on the Dukhobors in last week’s edition of the Georgian Times for more on the background of the exiling of religious dissenters in Russia in the 19th century). Molokans mainly found refuge in villages in Kakheti and in the regions today constituting Kvemo Kartli. Agriculture was the mainstay of early Molokan settlers, as they cultivated crops, planted fruit trees, and maintained bee colonies for honey production. Molokan blacksmiths designed new advancements in plough technology and were also actively engaged in Russian military campaigns during the 19th century. Like the Dukhobors, moreover, the Molokans found a niche in the provision of transportation services.

In the Soviet period, relations between the Bolsheviks and Molokans were quite friendly early on. The Communist leaders saw remarkable similarities in their own political and social ideas and those of the Molokans. The group was given considerable freedom in the early years of socialism to maintain their historical communes, and the Molokans themselves voluntarily contributed financially to the communist experiment. However, by the late 1920s, Molokan communes were deemed inefficient in comparison with the Soviet collective farms, into which they were eventually incorporated. As a result, the community’s self-imposed segregation declined rapidly, and the Molokan religious and cultural practices lost much of their vitality in later Soviet years. However, the prized labour productivity of the Molokans came to fruition in the Soviet kolkhozes, distinguishing Molokan farmers by their impressive output.

From the late 1980s, Molokans from Georgia departed in large numbers, similarly to other East Slavs, mostly to Russia. Only three villages with compact settlement of Molokans still exist in Georgia, all within the Kakheti region – Krasnogorka (35 Molokans), Ulyanovka (100), and Svobodnoye (80). The houses of emigrating Molokans have largely been bought by Georgian villagers or by urban population as summer houses. A small number of Molokans also live in Tbilisi, amounting to no more than 100 people. Hence, only around 300 Molokans remain in Georgia. The remaining Russian Molokan villagers - as often the case with Russians and other persons belonging to national minorities in rural areas - do not know the Georgian language well enough, which complicates their efforts to find substantive employment in the country. The once esteemed Molokan kolkhozes have now all been shut down and villagers struggle to find subsistence elsewhere. Although a few Molokans have returned to Georgia after unsuccessful attempts to find work and integrate into Russian society, the harsh economic conditions of the post-Soviet period have far from created good perspectives for the Molokan community in Georgia.

Molokan Religion and Community

The Molokans evolved out of the Dukhobor community in the second part of the 18th century. The name means ‘Milkdrinker’ and is thought to have appeared in 1765 due to the fact that Molokan believers drank milk during fasts. Formed like the Dukhobor community as a protest movement to the institutionalized and hierarchical Orthodox Church, the Molokans rejected the use of liturgy, sacraments, icons and rituals as sources of religious authority. An individualized approach to the faith was adopted - one that opened God’s spirit to each person equally. However, unlike Dukhobors, Molokans have historically scorned individual leadership of the community, preferring an egalitarian approach to the running of communal affairs.

This altered treatment of Orthodoxy also has consequences for the social structure of the Molokan community. Formed as a leaderless commune, any member has the right to address the congregation and interpret the Bible as he/she sees fit. Although this democratic nature gives some esteem to sectarian elders, all believers are established as ‘spiritual equals’ without any authority over one another. The Molokans fits many characteristics of ‘utopian’ communities in its self-imposed segregation as a way to achieve the creation of God-given principles through purely human efforts.

A declining and elderly population has resulted in the disappearance of religious traditions among Molokans in Georgia, although some elderly members, especially in Tbilisi and the Kakhetian village of Ulyanovka, do continue to attend religious ceremonies every Sunday to sing psalms and pray. Intermarriages between Molokans and adherence to other religions have also risen considerably since the end of the Soviet period. In Tbilisi, the Molokans are spiritually guided by the octogenarian Head Presbyter, Fyodor Neudakhin (see picture).

The future of the Molokans in Georgia does not look bright. The number of Molokan villages has been reduced, the younger generations have emigrated, the remaining population is ageing, and the religious heritage has no or very few heirs to carry it on. The development through the past 20 years makes it hard to believe that Molokan traditions in Georgia will exist in another 20 years. The heritage is more likely to be continued in Russia. The village of Kochubeyevskoye in Stavropol krai in recent years has become a centre of the Molokans in the Russian Federation. It should be emphasized that these dark perspectives are neither caused by violations of religious rights nor by discriminating and hostile attitudes from Georgian citizens.

Old Believers

Another group of religious dissenters that was exiled to Georgia in the 19th century is the Starovery, or Old Believers, a group formed in the mid 17th century in opposition to the ecclesiastical reforms of the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Nikon. Old Believers consider themselves to be the true practitioners of Orthodoxy and preserve the pre-Nikonian rituals, such as the two-fingered signing of the cross. Also called Old Ritualists (Staroobryadtsy), very little is known about the history of this group in Georgia, although they settled in the Caucasus in quite significant numbers. Unfortunately, very little historical information exists to assist the tracing of Old Believer settlements. The Russian census of 1897 included statistics on confessional belonging, and listed over 16,000 persons in Tiflisskaya Gubernia and around 250 persons in Kutaisskaya Gubernia (Western Georgia) in the category “Old Believers” – but this category also included Dukhobors and Molokans. There are no data as to the breakdown into separate confessional sub-group of sectarians, but there must have been at least a few thousand Old Believers in the second part of the 19th century.

Presumably, Old Believer communities were strongly affected by the secularization of the Soviet regime, and by the end of the 1980s, Old Belivers had almost fully disappeared from the country. Today, only one village partly inhabited by Old Believers still exists, the village of Grigoleti near Poti on the Black Sea coast. Roughly 50 descendants of what historically used to be an Old Believers community currently live there. A few Old Believers also live in Tbilisi. However, most members of this community have assimilated into Georgian society or have left for Russia in recent years.

Copyright by Tom Trier & George Tarkhan-Mouravi.

(ECMI)

2008.05.26 14:26

SOURCE:

RUSSIA: Old Believers use new media to demand religious freedom

By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service
http://www.forum18.org

Old Believers are among the many religious communities which have been unable to get back places of worship confiscated during the Soviet period, despite a 1993 presidential decree ordering their return. As Forum 18 News Service has found, Old Believer communities of the Moscow-based Belokrinitsa concord are increasingly turning to the internet to raise these and other religious freedom concerns. They told Forum 18 that internet coverage and associated lobbying saved one of their parishes in Yaroslavl Region from being stripped of legal status in 2007. Yet in Tolyatti in Samara Region the parish does not yet know if publicity will prevent their half-built church's building permission from being removed. "If the church is declared illegal, they'll have to knock it down," Old Believer website editor Irina Budkina told Forum 18. "That would be an act of sacrilege." In Morshansk in Tambov Region, a parish briefly recovered a historical church in 2002, only to see it re-confiscated. Asked by Forum 18 why the building could not function as a church again, the head of the town's Cultural Department insisted that it was impossible for residents to live so close to "such an institution".

Old Believer communities in parts of European Russia are discovering that internet publicity and associated lobbying can prove key to defending their freedom of worship, Forum 18 News Service has found. One priest denied access to bring communion to a parishioner in a local prison was allowed in after his complaint was aired on a website in August 2007. Old Believers told Forum 18 that internet coverage saved one of their parishes in Yaroslavl Region from being stripped of legal status. Whether such coverage will help Old Believers in Morshansk in Tambov Region to recover the historical Dormition Church – confiscated again after its brief return in 2002 – remains unclear. The town mayor has prevented the community from holding prayer services outside the church.

All the communities concerned belong to the Moscow-based Belokrinitsa concord (soglasiye), the largest Old Believer branch in Russia. Formed in the mid-nineteenth century, it has a church hierarchy, unlike some other Old Believer branches.

In Tolyatti (Samara Region), the 70-strong Belokrinitsa parish is waiting to see whether permission for its partly built St George's Church will be rescinded. "If the church is declared illegal, they'll have to knock it down," Irina Budkina, editor of http://www.samstar.ru Old Believer website, which has highlighted the case over the past six months, told Forum 18 on 14 January. "That would be an act of sacrilege, as when the militant atheists tore down crosses and destroyed churches in the 1920s and 30s." On 10 January the Volga Region's Federal Arbitration Court granted the Old Believers' appeal against the annulment of the state's original decision to allot them land for the church. The case is due to be reheard at Samara Regional Arbitration Court within the next few months, said Budkina, "but it's unclear what will happen."

Allotted the land by the then mayor of Tolyatti, Nikolai Utkin, in May 2006, the Old Believers held a ceremony to erect a consecration cross at the site the same month. The lower storey of the traditional sixteenth-century style church is now under construction, according to Budkina.

No one legally challenged the Old Believers' rights to the land for six months before and a year after it was allotted, http://www.samstar.ru reported. But then the administration of Stavropol District, which includes Tolyatti, did so in May 2007. The Old Believers suspect this was due to the adjacent construction of Tolyatti's largest shopping mall, a development which has turned their church site into prime real estate. They also note that the city district's challenge was facilitated by the detention of Mayor Utkin on suspicion of bribe-taking. Elsewhere in Samara region, points out http://www.samstar.ru, numerous acts privatising land and property have been annulled whenever a change of mayor has taken place.

"This is an extremely unusual case," the head of Stavropol District's Property Committee, Eduard Zhin, told Forum 18 on 18 January. When the plot was given to the Old Believers in 2006, he said, "it wasn't entered on the cadastral register in the way we now understand it, and this wasn't taken into account at the time." He acknowledged that the state authorities may have been slow in responding to the oversight.

Territory belonging to a state hospital, the plot of land where the Old Believers are building has not been transferred to anyone else, insisted Zhin. "We plan to use it to develop the district," he maintained. Provided funds are forthcoming, an ambulance station will be built at the site, he told Forum 18.

With the issue still to be decided in court, Zhin said that it is not yet clear whether the Old Believers will have to vacate the land. He was also unsure whether they will receive an alternative plot if they do. "The situation is complicated," he remarked to Forum 18, "and I simply don't understand why it has arisen here and now."

As commercial pressures begin to dominate in newly-wealthy parts of Russia, religious communities' property rights may be challenged. In Kaluga, a Pentecostal church is threatened with the loss of a building it bought in 2002 as it now stands in the centre of a shopping mall construction site (see F18News 30 October 2007 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1040). Even the Russian Orthodox Church is not exempt, as illustrated by the recent loss of a historical hospital church in Khabarovsk (see F18News 23 October 2007 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1038).

Despite a 23 April 1993 presidential decree ordering the return of federally owned buildings of religious significance to religious communities, progress has been slight. As in the case of the Catholic parish of Christ the King in Barnaul (Altai Region), protracted campaigns involving thick files of apparently futile correspondence with state bodies are common (see F18News 3 August 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=624). The same applies when religious communities – such as Moscow's Molokans - attempt to acquire land to build new houses of worship (see F18News 29 November 2007 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1054).

After 60 years of petitioning, Samara's Belokrinitsa Old Believer parish received its historical church building back from the state in September 2006 (see F18News 8 February 2007 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=908). Irina Budkina suggested on 14 January that this was thanks to coverage of the case by Forum 18 (see F18News 30 March 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=533).

In Morshansk in Tambov Region, Old Believers continue to fight for the return of their historical Dormition Church. Transferred to the community by the town authorities in October 2002, it was withdrawn again just two weeks later at the request of residents of an adjacent building, the former priest's house. "The location of a religious association of a different faith from ours in our yard disturbs the future of our children," http://www.samstar.ru reported the residents as complaining, "most of all their security, health and moral development". Gas and electricity supplies were cut on the building's 2002 transfer back to the state and it is now deteriorating.

The elder of the Morshansk Old Believer community confirmed that the state authorities refused to return the Dormition Church to his community. Declining to give his full name, Andrei told Forum 18 on 21 January that the most recent legal objection given is that the church - built by the widow of a pre-1917 mayor of Morshansk who was an Old Believer - stands next to residential accommodation, "but this regulation refers to construction." Registered in Morshansk District, the 10-20 members of his community meet at home for worship, he said. "Without a church it's not the same - we have to shorten services." Andrei also suggested that more people would attend services in a church building.

Four times during autumn 2007 Morshansk's mayor, Gennadi Kalinin, withheld permission for an Old Believer prayer service to be held outside the church followed by a separate demonstration for its return, the community elder confirmed to Forum 18. "We wanted to have it inside the church, but they wouldn't let us do it either inside or out."

Even though only several dozen participants were expected, the Morshansk authorities claimed that the prayer service and demonstration could not be held outside the church due to its proximity to a courthouse, college and residential accommodation, local activist Sergei Kiryushatov told Forum 18 on 14 January. Kiryushatov is the representative in the town of the Eurasian Youth Union, the youth wing of Aleksandr Dugin's radically anti-western International Eurasian Movement, which has collected 400 signatures in support of the church's return to the Old Believer community. He said officials also argued that the local Old Believers had nothing to do with the church because they are registered in Morshansk district rather than the city itself, he told Forum 18.

While none of the Morshansk Old Believers belong to the Eurasian Youth Union, it does have Old Believer members elsewhere in Russia, Kiryushatov continued. He said some of them had intended to take part in the demonstration. "We support the Old Believers because we support Russian traditions," he explained.

Svetlana Malysheva, who deals with the case as head of Morshansk Town Administration's Cultural Department, admitted to Forum 18 on 21 January that she lives in the former priests' house alongside the church and had supported the residents' petition against its return. Yet she failed to see any conflict of interest in this and her official position. "Of course it's in the interest of us residents to have a museum there," she explained. "But it's in the interests of the whole town – the state has spent a huge amount of money restoring it."

The local Old Believer community – which Malysheva claimed numbers fewer than half a dozen people – are demanding that the "very valuable monument of federal architecture" be transferred to them only now that it has been restored, she maintained: "When it was in a bad state, they didn't want it." Malysheva also suggested that the church had been "disfigured" because the Old Believers had made it the subject of a dispute and so caused its heating supply to be turned off.

Asked why the building could not function as a church again, the head of Morshansk Cultural Department insisted that it was impossible for residents to live so close to "such an institution": "There will be church processions, funerals, rituals and bells right in front of people's windows." As well as being the only place where residents' small children can play, the shared yard is too small for the installation of a toilet, according to Malysheva. This meant that visitors had started knocking on residents' doors and "doing who knows what" during the few weeks when the Old Believers had had use of the church, she told Forum 18.

While the Old Believer community in Rybinsk (Yaroslavl Region) has been given partial use of a church building, a local television channel refused to air its paid advertisement for a celebratory concert there in August 2007. When he approached Rybinsk-40 television channel, Denis Lupekin, the chief editor of "Staraya Rus" Old Believer website (http://cddk.ru), was told that written permission from the local Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) bishop was required before the advertisement could be run. "We didn't comply, of course, as we don't need such permission," he told Forum 18 on 14 January. Another private television station in Yaroslavl did later run the advertisement.

Lupekin speculated that local Russian Orthodox (Moscow Patriarchate) clergy in Rybinsk – rather than Archbishop Kirill (Nakonechny) of Yaroslavl and Rostov – were behind the television channel's obstruction: "Maybe they're afraid because it is the first Old Believer church in town." While the church – of which the Old Believers have been given rented use of the second of three storeys inserted in the Soviet period – belonged to the Moscow Patriarchate before 1917, Archbishop Kirill was not opposed to its transfer to the Old Believers, he pointed out. In a very poor state, Lupekin added, the other two storeys of the church continue to house a number of Soviet-era trade union organisations.

An Old Believer chapel dating from 1905-1914 does survive in Rybinsk, Lupekin told Forum 18, but as it currently houses a children's music school "it would be neither easy nor ethical to push them out." The Old Believers have not tried to place another advertisement with Rybinsk-40 since last summer, he added, "in part because the need hasn't arisen, but also because we didn't want to raise passions while we still have only one storey out of three." The question of transferring the whole building to the Old Believers is only now beginning to be reviewed by the state authorities, he said."

Russia is an Orthodox country so we asked for the blessing of the Russian Orthodox dean of Rybinsk," the head of the advertising department at Rybinsk-40 television channel, Marina Baskakova, admitted to Forum 18 on 18 January. "We have no doubts about whether we acted properly or not – this is a commercial channel and in principle I have the right to refuse advertisements according to my convictions." While Old Belief "is of course tied up with Christianity one way or another," she remarked, "very many sectarians" approach the channel.

Asked whom she regarded as sectarians, Baskakova mentioned the Jewish mystical tradition, Kabbalah. "We're not experts, especially in religious questions, so we thought it better to have the advertisement approved," she explained. "If someone who comes to me is from a sect it's clear, but if they represent some kind of church then I go to a knowledgeable person, in this case the dean." While the Russian Orthodox dean of Rybinsk did approve the Old Believers' advertisement, she said, she was unable to contact them again.

Also in Yaroslavl Region, publicity generated by http://cddk.ru website prevented the liquidation of an Old Believer parish in Yelokhino village, the chairman of the community, Kirill Vitushkin, believes. "Young people from that website helped us and they didn't close us down," he told Forum 18 on 14 January. In April 2007 Nekrasovskoye District Tax Inspectorate informed the Yelokhino parish that it was no longer a legal personality as it had not submitted tax documents correctly. On raising the issue with the regional tax inspectorate in Yaroslavl, however, the district branch was found to have made a mistake, said Vitushkin. "The effect of being closed down would have been negative, of course," he remarked. "If we hadn't raised the issue we could have lost the state aid we get for church restoration, or they could have fined us." The 100-year-old Dormition Church in Yelokhino is one of the few Old Believer churches not closed during the Soviet period, he told Forum 18.

Featured on local Saratov news website http://news.sarbc.ru in August 2007, Old Believer priest Fr Vadim Korovin complained that he had been refused permission to take communion and religious literature to a parishioner in a local prison. A week later, however, Fr Korovin withdrew the complaint, saying that he had been able to make an unrestricted visit to the parishioner since its publication. (END)

For a personal commentary by Irina Budkina, editor of http://www.samstar.ru Old Believer website, about continuing denial of equality to Russia's religious minorities, see F18News 26 May 2005 http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=570.

For more background see Forum 18's Russia religious freedom survey at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=947.

Reports on freedom of thought, conscience and belief in Russia can be found at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?query=&religion=all&country=10.

A printer-friendly map of Russia is available at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/atlas/index.html?Parent=europe&Rootmap=russi

SOURCE: