Religious leaders of the Russian Federation commented on the findings of the US State Department report on religious freedom and concluded: Churches are burned, but little by little, so it's not so scary. They are shelled, but not systematically. They are ransacked, but not massively. In general, everything is not so bad!

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Russia’s religious leaders have commented on the conclusions of the U.S. State Department report concerning religious freedom in Russia.

In this document, Russia remains on the list of countries where religious freedom is violated. At the same time, the State Department notes that the situation with religious freedom in Russia improved in 2011, and the number of acts of vandalism caused by religious intolerance sharply declined. The report also states that although Russia’s Constitution guarantees religious freedom, «but other laws and political practices restrict it.»

Their views on the document were expressed by First Deputy Chairman of the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia, Mufti of Moscow and the Central Region of Russia Albir Krganov, representative of the Buddhist Traditional Sangha of Russia in Moscow, Sanzhe Lama Andrei Balzhirov, and the Executive Director of the Russian United Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith (ROSKhVE), member of the Expert Council of the State Duma Committee on Public Associations and Religious Organizations, Bishop Konstantin Bendas. The day before, the Russian Orthodox Church gave its assessment of the report of the U.S. State Department.

«No one is preventing law-abiding citizens from freely professing their faith in Russia,» Mufti Krganov is convinced.

«No one is preventing law-abiding citizens from freely professing their faith in Russia,» First Deputy Chairman of the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia (CDUM), Mufti of Moscow and the Central Region of Russia Albir Krganov told the portal Interfax-Religion.

«The most serious restrictions relate to accusations of extremism against small religions, attempts to suppress their activities and self-expression, as well as attempts to deny registration, hinder access to places of worship, refuse visas to religious figures arriving via religious channels, and detain representatives of religious organizations,» the report’s authors note, adding that the largest number of detentions applied to Muslims and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Krganov stressed that «we have no persecution of law-abiding Muslims.»

«It happens that Muslims are summoned to give testimony to the police; they may be considered witnesses or suspects. But once their innocence is proven, they are released. There was even a case when I myself was called to the police station. This is normal law enforcement work; there is no need to make a problem out of it,» the mufti said.

He acknowledged that sometimes «organizational issues arise, such as the allocation of land for mosques, but they are being resolved.» «And the problem here is not that the authorities prevent Muslims from practicing their faith, but that religion was banned for 70 years here, and we are only just learning to interact with the state,» the agency’s interlocutor stated.

As for sects, according to the mufti, there is such a concept as «spiritual security.»

«There exist destructive religious organizations that pose a danger. It is strange that the United States recognizes this in its own domestic policy but denies other countries this right. And in order for the annual State Department reports to be more objective, it would be desirable for the report’s authors to consult more with traditional religious communities that have been active in Russia for centuries and unite the majority of believers,» Krganov added.

«Religion in Russia today “is being restored and preserved,” says the country’s Buddhist representative»

The representative of the [Buddhist Traditional Sangha of Russia](https

“It seems to me that the state is not doing enough in training religious studies scholars, in preparing personnel who could professionally and impartially interact with religious associations at the local level in the subjects of the Federation,” the bishop noted. He expressed serious concern that in the hinterlands and remote regions there are ever fewer good specialists in the sphere of state-confessional relations.

Bendas also listed the main problems of Pentecostals: the commissioning of church buildings and acts of vandalism. In particular, according to the ROSKhVE representative, in Izhevsk for several years, under various pretexts, the commissioning of a fully completed church of the large evangelical church “Philadelphia” has been denied, which is causing growing tension in state-church relations in the region.

In Nizhnevartovsk, the building of a Pentecostal church was fired upon three times; in Udmurtia, on the day celebrating the Baptism of Rus’, windows of an evangelical church were smashed. “But on the whole, these incidents are isolated, not global,” Bendas added.

Touching on the issue of granting visas for missionaries and clergy, the bishop said: “In reality, this is not our problem. Much more often we encounter situations where the American side refuses to issue visas to Russian clergy who travel to the West for theological education or to participate in conferences and preach in local churches.” Since the beginning of 2012, Russian Pentecostals planning to travel abroad for religious purposes have received about 15 visa denials from the U.S. consulate.

Therefore, according to Bendas, “one should treat the U.S. State Department’s ratings calmly, understanding that for the United States this sphere is a method of political pressure, and accordingly the document not only is not the ultimate truth but also does not fully reflect the situation in the world.”

The report’s conclusions regarding Russia are politicized, and the study itself is poorly researched

It should be recalled that on the eve of the report’s release, representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church commented on the State Department’s report, expressing bewilderment at the U.S. assertion that freedom of religion is violated in Russia. They regarded this claim as politicized and the study itself as poorly researched.

“The U.S. State Department’s report on the religious situation in Russia is nothing new; they publish it every year, and every year — unfortunately or fortunately — it differs little from all the previous ones. The negative aspects highlighted in this report regarding religious organizations in our country boil down to a standard set of the aforementioned problems. We have approached the U.S. government several times with a proposal to cover the religious situation in Russia more fully or from various angles, because the expert community observes that the sources of information for the U.S. State Department report — they are, generally speaking, the same organizations, not always well-known and most likely dissident-minded towards Russia and the religious organizations here,” Archpriest Georgy Roshchin, deputy chairman of the Department for Church-Society Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate and secretary of the Interreligious Council of the CIS, told RIA Novosti.

He noted that the authors of the annual report in previous years had not attempted to contact the Russian Orthodox Church, as one of the country’s large religious organizations, to obtain information on the current state of affairs in Russia, which “also raises certain questions” about the study.

“If the State Department report provides exhaustive information, then, generally speaking, the primary sources should be the religious confessions of that country themselves, which provide information, and only afterwards other sources. Such an imbalance is observed year after year. At the same time, we express the hope each time that this report will somehow take into account the views of the traditional religions and confessions of Russia as well — not only the Jehovah’s Witnesses and others who may be more likely than others to come forward with complaints of rights violations. Although this is standard practice — there are European countries where “Jehovah’s Witnesses” are banned; in the United States itself we do not observe a uniform approach to all religions, so in another country with a distinct religious legislation this raises certain thoughts and, most likely, bewilderment,” Roshchin added.

Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy, noted missionary, and popular Orthodox blogger Protodeacon Andrey Kuraev also regarded the published report with skepticism.

“Such reports existed in the 1990s, the Yeltsin years, and the accusations were exactly the same, even though we remember how well sects felt in our country back then. This is a conflict between the American model of religious policy and the European and Russian one. America is a country of immigrants, and therefore it has no confessional traditions of its own that shape the state, whereas European countries do. So our policies here are different. But if the State Department also published information about the foundations through which it supports the activities of American sects outside America — for instance, the Church of Scientology — then we would get a truthful picture,” Kuraev told RIA Novosti.

He noted that other countries can have a wide variety of political interests, including the aim “to needle Russia and prevent it from being considered part of the democratic Western world.” The protodeacon does not rule out that the publication of such studies may also serve that purpose. At the same time, the clergyman agrees that traditional religions in Russia receive certain preferences from the state, but he sees nothing reprehensible in that.

“Undoubtedly, these preferences exist, but they are part of normal European policy, because the majority religion is culture-forming, but preferences granted to some do not mean prohibitions for others, and that’s important. I do not think that at the federal level there is any violation of the principle of freedom of conscience. There may be problems for individual communities here and there — look at how difficult the program for building two hundred new churches in Moscow is going. There are problems for everyone, but from this no conclusion is drawn that the state is persecuting the Russian Orthodox Church,” Kurayev emphasized.

Analysis of the comments:

In Soviet times, too, not everyone was imprisoned, but rather occasionally, so that they wouldn’t forget where they lived. But they imprisoned mainly those who wanted and did something for the Glory of God. For example: over ten years, from 1976 to 1986, throughout the USSR 168 Pentecostals and about three hundred Baptists were imprisoned! For the sake of truth, it must be emphasized that seventy percent were those convicted for refusing to serve in the army.

Now let’s continue the analysis: That was me talking about the entire Soviet Union in general, and if we take Russia alone, we get the same statistics and even worse than now! Now, according to guys like Bendes and Kurayev, everything is fine! Well, sometimes the statistics get spoiled a bit by blown-up, smashed, shot-up and looted churches, by criminal cases, beatings and other “delights”! Everything’s fine — they’re not blowing up and setting fire to everyone, not shooting! If they start doing that to everyone, and especially if to Bendes himself and Seryozha Ryakhovsky!!! Then yes! But now it’s so-so — anything can happen, but they’re not killing, and they’re not touching me, Bendis, and Seryozha, and they even invite us to various presidential councils — that means freedom!

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