Pastor Rudi has provided this information about the development in religious questions in Russia right now. He asks that this be on the homepage just to let people know about this and pray for freedom of religion in Russia!

Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 17:22:31 -0600

From: "Ron Smith M.D." ron@missionnet.org
Subject: MNet/Russian Visas Shortened & Charity Barred 97.11.24/MNWS
To: mnet@missionnet.org
Organization: MissionNet(R). Window To A World Mission.

From: "Ramon A.Williams" rlgmedia@ozemail.com.au

Keston News Service
November 24, 1997

18 November
We apologise for the delay in sending out these articles (due to computer rebellion).

ARTICLES:

I. Catholics in Siberia given three month visas - instead of twelve - and forced to return to home country - instead of contiguous country - to renew them (8 priests must then make 4 trips per year to the USA). Rent increased on land upon which the new Catholic church is built in Novosibirsk as officials refuse to recognise the land as replacement for the church site owned by the Catholics before their church was destroyed by the Bolsheviks. (500 words)

II. 15 year rule explained: Spokesman for the Russian Embassy in London says that arrest records from 15 years ago or more, showing that a group was then legally prohibited from engaging in religious activity, would be accepted as sufficient proof that the group existed and is thus eligible for full registration today. (180 words)

III. Ogorodnikov's charitable soup kitchen forcibly occupied by anonymous band; free meals and medical services to the poor barred and equipment purchased with grant from European Community inaccesible. Local administrator refuses to explain reasons; police fail to investigate. (500 words)

Monday 17 November
CATHOLIC CLERGY IN SIBERIA FACE GROWING VISA DIFFICULTIES

by Lawrence A. Uzzell, Keston News Service

Roman Catholic priests and nuns serving in Siberia and the Russian Far East are finding it ever more difficult to get visas.

Often they can now renew their visas only for three months at a time, rather than for twelve months as in the past, Catholic Bishop JOSEPH WERTH in Novosibirsk told Keston News Service in a long-distance telephone interview on 13 November. 'About half of my priests have had difficulties' connected with their visas, he said.

The bishop said that the visa problems began about two years ago and became sharply worse at the beginning of 1997 - 'just as we were being told that preparations were underway for the new law on religion'. Especially burdensome, he said, is the requirement that foreign priests return all the way to their home countries - not just to any foreign country bordering the Russian Federation - to apply for new visas. For priests and nuns from Germany or the United States, that can mean four expensive, time-consuming trips every year. Priests from Poland and other former Soviet-bloc countries have received milder treatment, he said.

At present foreign priests are indispensable to the Roman Catholic Church in Russia because of the lack of qualified Russian-born clergy. The Catholic seminary in St Petersburg, closed generations ago by the Bolsheviks, was allowed to reopen only in 1993. Serving in Werth's territory, which stretches from the Urals to the Pacific, are eight priests from the United States alone.

Another problem, said Bishop Werth, is abrupt, arbitrary increases in the rental fees which local secular authorities require his parishes to pay for the land which their church buildings occupy. (In spite of the 1993 constitution, in practice most Russian provinces still do not have private property in land.) A year ago the rental fee for the land under the newly built Catholic cathedral in Novosibirsk was about 3 million roubles, he said, but recently it was raised to 50 million roubles (about 8,600 dollars or 5,300 pounds sterling). Keston asked whether the authorities have taken into consideration the fact that the Catholics used to own their own church in Novosibirsk before it was confiscated and demolished by the Soviet regime. Werth replied that the local administration refuses to recognise formally that the site used by the Catholics today is compensation for the one seized from them decades ago.

Roman Catholic priests west of the Urals are having fewer difficulties than those under Bishop Werth, according to the Catholic chancellor for the European part of Russia. FR VICTOR BARTSEVICH told Keston on 14 November that the officials in the city of Moscow seem to be following a policy which is the reverse of that in Siberia: they are granting only three-month visas to priests from Poland, but full-year visas to priests of other nationalities. In European Russian cities other than Moscow, he said, Catholic priests are not having visa problems.

Monday 17 November
RUSSIAN DIPLOMAT INTERPRETS 15-YEAR RULE

One of the vaguest sections of Russia's new law restricting religious freedom is the requirement that a religious organisation 'prove' that it has existed for at least 15 years in Russia by presenting some kind of 'document'. Russian officials have been trying to convince western audiences that this section will be not be interpreted in such a way as to deny rights to dissident religious bodies which operated illegally or semi-legally during the Soviet period.

On 7 November, at a press conference conducted by the Keston Institute at the Britain-Russia Centre in London, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy reiterated this position. NIKITA MATKOVSKY said that arrest records from 15 years ago or more, showing that a group was then legally prohibited from engaging in religious activity, would be accepted as sufficient proof that the group existed and is thus eligible for full registration today. A Keston representative asked Matkovsky afterward if underground, 'samizdat' documents from sources such as the Keston archives would be accepted as well as official Soviet documents. He said he did not know.

Friday 14 November
CHRISTIAN SOUP KITCHEN SEIZED IN MOSCOW

by Lawrence A. Uzzell, Keston News Service

A band of about 20 men, apparently authorised by the local district administrator, has forcibly occupied a Christian charitable cafeteria which provides free meals and medical services to the poor of the Khoroshevsky district in west-central Moscow. Orthodox activist ALEKSANDR OGORODNIKOV, head of the 'Christian Refectory', told Keston News Service in a 14 November interview that the band, who were not wearing uniforms, broke into the cafeteria on late 12 November or early 13 November and then barred its employees and volunteers from entering the site. As a result the feeding programme has at least temporarily stopped functioning.

Ogorodnikov said that the cafeteria's occupiers have refused to give his employees any information about who they are. On 13 November, he said, they responded to questions simply by saying that they were carrying out an order from their 'leaders' to conduct repairs, but declined to identify those 'leaders'. The charity workers immediately reported the incident to the local police station, but the police failed even to come and investigate.

On 14 November Keston rang VYACHESLAV NINILIN, head of the Khoroshevsky district, to learn his version. Keston asked him what he knew about the night-time seizure of the cafeteria. Ninilin answered, 'It wasn't at night-time, but daytime'. Keston asked, 'So this was your band?" Ninilin said, 'It wasn't a band.' Keston asked, 'Were they your people?' Ninilin said 'It wasn't a band'. Keston said, 'It's a simple question, were they your people?' Ninilin said, 'There are no simple questions, I'm not going to discuss this with you.' Keston said, 'Were they your people, yes or no?' Ninilin then abruptly rang off.

Under Keston's questioning Ogorodnikov acknowledged that his group has not recently paid rent on its rooms in the city-owned building. He said that this was because of a dispute over how much the rent should be: the authorities want the charitable cafeteria to pay at the higher rate normally charged only to commercial organisations. He also said that his workers had conducted extensive repairs and improvements in their part of the building, and that according to Russian law the cost of these should be subtracted from the rent bill.

Stored in the cafeteria, said Ogorodnikov, are large quantities of food as well as valuable items of equipment - some of which had been purchased with a grant from the European Community. Of special historic interest, he said, was a printing press donated by British Christians led by Anglican priest DICK RODGERS. Ogorodnikov's group was finally allowed to bring this device into Russia only in 1990 - so they value it not only as a practical tool which they still use to print their publications, he said, but as a symbol of the opening up of the Soviet Union. Now it is in the hands of the cafeteria's occupiers.

--
Keston Institute, 4 Park Town, Oxford OX2 6SH, England
tel: +44 (01865) 311 022; fax 311 280

Moscow correspondent, Lawrence Uzzell
tel/fax: +7 (095) 290 0327; email: 9133.g23@g23.relcom.ru

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keston.institute@keston.org***
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