Source:         www.forum18.org

Date:            March 26, 2008

By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service <http://www.forum18.org>
 
The unprecedented court liquidation of a Methodist church because it has a
Sunday school could affect thousands of religious organisations across
Russia, the church's lawyer has told Forum 18 News Service. "Almost every
religious organisation has a Sunday school," Vladimir Ryakhovsky of the
Moscow-based Slavic Centre for Law and Justice remarked on 26 March. "I
don't know of one that has a separate education licence. Do they intend to
liquidate them all?"
 
Smolensk Regional Court dissolved Smolensk United Methodist Church on 24
March in response to a suit filed by the Regional Public Prosecutor's
Office, the church's pastor Aleksandr Vtorov and Ryakhovsky told Forum 18.
The telephone of Yelena Sudarenkova, the prosecutor dealing with the case,
went unanswered when Forum 18 rang on 26 March.
 
While court liquidation means loss of legal personality status rather than
a complete ban, it does bar the Methodists from maintaining or developing
any form of public profile as an organisation, such as through missionary
work.
 
At the request of Smolensk's auxiliary Orthodox bishop, government
departments in the western Russian region began a series of check-ups on
the Methodist church on 30 January. Arguing that such an institution
requires an education licence, the Regional Public Prosecutor's Office
forced the church to remove plans for a missionary college from its website
(see F18News 28 February 2008
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1095>).
 
While the sudden state scrutiny shocked the 36-strong congregation, "We
are Methodists and we don't want to and will not become Orthodox, no matter
how hard they try to scare us," Pastor Vtorov told Forum 18. In a further
surprise development, however, the case against the church abruptly
switched focus from the planned missionary college to its functioning
Sunday school.
 
During their investigation, Smolensk Regional Organised Crime Police
established that the Methodists were breaking the law by conducting
"educational activity [obrazovatel'naya deyatelnost'] in a Sunday school
without a corresponding licence," Sergei Sekirov, Senior Counsellor of
Justice at Smolensk Regional Public Prosecutor's Office, wrote to Pastor
Vtorov on 6 March.
 
Viewed by Forum 18, the Office's six-page, 28 February suit against the
Methodists - based on a 62-page report - makes no mention of their
missionary college plans. Instead, it also equates the Sunday school
classes with "educational activity".
 
"The church's Sunday school - Our Little Hearts - is attended by four
children under the age of 14," the Public Prosecutor's Office states in its
evidence against the Methodists. "Every pupil has his or her own file, kept
on church premises, containing study material and documents attesting the
results of assimilation of religious knowledge received in lessons." This
is graded from two to five points, it continues, "although these are
presented to the children in the form of sea creature symbols (five points
- whale or starfish, four points - dolphin or octopus, three points - fish,
two points - shark)."
 
In their 45-minute lessons every Sunday - "planned approximately a month
in advance" - the children spend 35 minutes on practical activities such as
singing, drawing and crafts and a further ten studying Gilbert Beers' "The
Bible in Pictures", finds the Public Prosecutor's Office. This and another
work, "The Book of Life", contain no information "about who recommended
them and whether they have been approved for use as textbooks in the
educational process," the Office complains.
 
According to the 1992 Education Law, the right to conduct educational
activity requires a state licence, the Office notes. In a 13 March 2008
complaint to Smolensk Regional Court, however, Pastor Vtorov maintains that
the Sunday school is "not a professional religious institution for the
preparation of clergy and religious personnel, but serves as an instrument
for the teaching [obucheniye] of religion to and the religious upbringing
[vospitaniye] of our followers."
 
The 1997 Religion Law states that religious organisations have the right
to found educational [obrazovatel'nyye] institutions (Article 5, Part 3)
and institutions of professional religious education for the preparation of
clergy and religious personnel (Article 19, Part 1). These must be
licensed. However, the law distinguishes between education [obrazovaniye]
and teaching [obucheniye] by stating that "religious groups have the right
to engage in the teaching [obucheniye] of religion to and religious
upbringing [vospitaniye] of their followers" (Article 7, Part 3). As
religious groups are unregistered, it follows that this activity does not
require a licence.
 
Viktor Korolev, the official in charge of religious organisations at the
Federal Registration Service, recently made the same distinction to Forum
18 (see F18News 15 November 2007
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1048>). But while Smolensk
United Methodist Church's registered charter describes its Sunday school in
terms of teaching [obucheniye], Smolensk Public Prosecutor's Office still
cites the document as evidence that the church is conducting educational
activity.
 
Previously, confusion over what type of religious educational activity
requires a state licence centred on relatively organised adult Bible
courses (see F18News 15 November 2007
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1048>). In recent years
several religious organisations have been raided or dissolved for
conducting such activity without an education licence (see most recently
F18News 14 February 2008
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1087>).
 
In those cases, the lawyer Ryakhovsky pointed out to Forum 18, "at least
the Public Prosecutor had a real position. But this is just stupidity." Our
Little Hearts is not even a Sunday school as commonly understood, he
maintained, "but four children taken care of for 45 minutes so that they
don't bother the congregation during the sermon."
 
As an educational institution, however, argues the Regional Public
Prosecutor's Office, Our Little Hearts' timetable, teaching methods,
technical equipment, furniture and textbooks must conform to relevant
health and safety regulations. Instead, it notes, classes take place in a
private house heated by an independent gas boiler, where there is ordinary
furniture, no running water and an outside toilet.
 
Forum 18 notes that such conditions are common in provincial Russia.
 
The two children of Natalya Kuzmenkova, who now attend Our Little Hearts,
went to an Orthodox Sunday school in Smolensk several years ago, she told
Forum 18 on 26 March. There is "no difference whatsoever" in the study
conditions at the two schools, she maintained. While the premises at the
Orthodox Sunday school had cold - but not hot - running water and an inside
toilet, said Kuzmenkova, this was used by many classes as well as adult
workers at the church and its bakery. The Orthodox Sunday school did not
have an education licence, she told Forum 18.
 
The liquidation of Smolensk United Methodist Church legally prevents its
22 February suit against Orthodox Bishop Ignati (Punin) of Vyazma from
being heard, Ryakhovsky told Forum 18. It was Bishop Ignati who asked
Smolensk Regional Public Prosecutor's Office to take measures "to defend
the inhabitants of our city, particularly youth, from this pseudo-religious
organisation" - Smolensk United Methodist Church.
 
On 29 February Belgorod Regional Court dissolved a functioning Methodist
church merely for failing to file a report about its annual activities on
time (see F18News 10 March 2008
<http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=1098>). (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>