20 Years of Religious Freedom

The Cathedral of the Transfiguration Diocese
in Novosibirsk. Spring 2011.

 On the evening of the December 16^th, the Roman Catholic Church sponsored a roundtable discussion - “20 Years of Religious Freedom in Russia.” At the Mass held in the Cathedral before the meeting and at the roundtable itself, Bishop Joseph Wert spoke of his own experience as an underground Jesuit and priest in Central Asia and Siberia. He spoke of the sacrifice that were necessary in order to be involved in the church and of the way Catholics at that time experienced great longing to be fed spiritually. Believers scattered throughout villages on the steppe would dream, he said, that somehow a priest might lose his way and happen upon them. Then, after years or even decades of waiting, they might be able to receive the Sacrament. Every opportunity to gather together and to hear the Word and to celebrate Eucharist was considered an amazing gift of grace.

The diocesan center is in the foreground
 

In the past two decades the situation has changed radically. The Catholic church went from having 3 priests in all of the Asiatic part of the former USSR to having more than 100 in Siberia today; Mass is celebrated at numerous Catholic congregations around Novosibirsk, including in the impressive Cathedral; the roundtable was held in a brand new diocesan center, and this building will be the home for many other public and outreach events in the future. For the Catholic Church, even more significantly for the Orthodox Church, and also (even if in a more limited way) for the other denominations represented at that meeting, the conditions of church life have improved tremendously. Even our small Lutheran congregation, despite its radically reduced numbers, is in many ways better off than it was before the 1990s.

Yet, as the Bishop pointed out and as stories from my congregation's members have confirmed, external repression did not always results in a loss of inner freedom. Bishop Wert knew why he was running through the forest to escape detection – it was to serve those who were waiting for them. The parents and grandparents of my congregation's members knew the value of the Bible and their spiritual traditions when they had to hide the Scriptures under floorboards and could sign hymns only by candlelight in isolated basements.

Church life today, in contrast, shows that external freedom does not always lead to a full flowering of the spiritual life. Twenty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, the conditions have now been met so that a believer can be “perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.”^{1 2} Being free from is a reason for great joy and celebration – I hope and pray that in all Christian churches (whether here or in the West) this is something that is not taken for granted. At the same time, a challenge before churches wherever they are – to focus our ministry on freedom for. Quoting Luther again, “a Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”

Bishop Wert is to my left at the roundtable

The roundtable that night brought together Christians from Novosibirsk, but in reality, the circle is much bigger. Wherever we are, we are called to put our faith into action in works of love, to be our neighbors servants, both in these Advent days of waiting and in all the days that are to come.

1 Martin Luther. “On the Freedom of a Christian.”

2 The degree to which there is true freedom of religion in Russia is a matter of debate. My own personal experience is that there is still quite a bit of prejudice in society against any group that is not the Russian Orthodox Church. On the other hand, the law grants freedom of religion, and I personally have not had any experience with government officials breaking the law in that regard. Going on my own experience, then, it seems that there is not much of a problem, even if there are on occasion cases when government officials become too open in their aggression against other faiths (for example, the news story that has been coming out today about the banning of the Bhagvad Gita  in a neighboring state). However, if one reads the reports of an expert on religious freedom in Russia, Sergei Filitov, it seems that it is not possible to generalized based on my experience: “The last year and half or ttwo has been a time of constant growth in discrimination and pressure on the legal rights of religious minorities, especially Protestants. In all of Russia it has become unbelievably hard for Protestant to receive land for the construction of church bulidngs and renting space has become quite difficult. Persecution of Christians continues on all fronts – government officials create all sorts of difficulties for the work of protestant churches with children, campaigns are put together against drug rehab centers, missionary work is limited. Protestant congregation are en masse refusing to get registered since registration simply provokes problems with 'law' enforcement agencies. Official statistics about the number of members in protestant congregations are so distorted by government officials that it is impossible to come to any conclusions about their quantity.” (translation mine). http://www.keston.org.uk/_russianreview/edition49/01-autumn-2010-review.htm

Russian Elections - One Week Later

When I said last week that I don't usually respond quickly to current events, I thought that it would be quite reasonable to make an exception in this case – Russian opposition parties had made serious gains in elections for the Duma; considering the country's recent political history, this was already news...and it seemed unlikely that there would be any more.
I was wrong, and I was not alone. Even expert political commentators seemed shocked by what followed. Not only did many people complain about electoral fraud (making this election similar to many others here), but, using social networking sites, they also actually acted together in coordinated way to protest the official election results. In the past, those opposed to the governing party were splintered into a various movements that spent as much time squabbling with one another as they did with those in power – their protests were relatively easily put down by overwhelming police power. This time, though, thousands of people in Russia's major cities gathered to criticize the government and demand a new election.

In Novosibirsk at least 3000 people turned up for protests.

And in Moscow tens of thousands of protesters went to the streets.

The only thing remotely similar I've seen in the 10 years that I have been here were the protests related to the monetization of pensioner’s benefits in 2005. Yet even here the differences are greater than the similarities. At that time the protesters were almost all elderly, and their anger was directed at a single government policy. Many of those gathered at protests this time around would disagree with one another about nearly every political issue. Yet, they were able to put aside their differences and make their voices heard. This time around the protesters were, to a large extent, also much younger. I've been very surprised to see that many acquaintances my age or younger have suddenly shown an interest in politics, whereas in previous years these same people either gave the government no thought or felt that they were powerless to make change.¹

That is not to say that those who went to the protests are likely to achieve the cancellation of previous election results. Much more likely is that the government will find a few “exceptional cases” where election laws were broken, but make clear that these had little effect on the final results. This seems to be the sense, in any case, of President Medvedev's annoucement on his Facebook page that said:

“People have the right to express their position, which is what they did... [but] I agree neither with the slogans, nor the statements voiced at the protests. Nevertheless, I have ordered checks into all the reports from polling stations regarding the compliance with the election laws.”

This has already generated an interesting response in the internet: 

Most of the signs from the protest read: “we're for fair elections.” “He doesn't agree,” reads the caption.

If nothing more is done by the government, protest organizers plan to go out on the streets again in two weeks time. The situation has suddenly become quite unpredictable, yet in a way that many here are approaching (contrary to the country's traditional instincts) with a degree of optimism. If those dissatisfied with the current domination of United Russia and Prime Minister Putin can find an attractive alternative (it doesn't seem at the moment any of the leaders of the opposition parties fit that bill), there is, surprisingly, a chance that the presidential election this coming March will be interesting for the first time in more than a decade.

1 No less surprising is the fact that officials from the  Russian Orthodox Church have called for “more public control” over the electoral system. In the past years the Orthodox Church has almost without exception supported the government currently in power.

Russian Duma Elections 2011

“Siberia Put on a Red Belt” 

That's the headline from a local paper today. “Red,” of course, being the color of the Communist Party.

While the Communist party actually did not received a plurality (not to mention a majority) of the vote anywhere in the region, the move away from the heretofore dominant “United Russia” party of Prime Ministry Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev was quite noticeable. In Siberia, the votes for representatives for the lower house of parliament were generally split between United Russia and the Communists (with the split in Novosibirsk being about 30%/30%, while other regions had United Russia leading the Communists by 10% or so), with two smaller parties (the Liberal Democratic Party and A Just Russia) each getting a little less than 15% each. It's clear that the results of this election mean that United Russia will lose its constitutional majority (i.e., they will not be able to change the constitution at will anymore), though they will have the simple majority necessary to elect a prime minister and pass laws.

Preliminary results - 2011 election
Dark blue: United Russia. Bright red: Communist Party,
Dark red: A Just Russia. Light Blue: Liberal Democratic party.
The other parties did not receive enough votes to win a place in parliament.
Source: http://english.ruvr.ru/

About 57% of registered voters took part in elections, a bit less than in the previous election cycle. There is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence of unfair election tactics, though Russian election officials (and observers from the former Soviet Union) claim that there were no serious problems. This differs from the preliminary report from observers from the Organization of Security and Co-operation in Europe, which states:

"This result shows that voting can make a real difference in Russia, even when the playing field is slanted in favour of one party. However, any election needs an impartial referee – and until now, it has not had one. This needs to change. Yesterday, Russia showed that it is technically able to organize fair elections – now it is up to the parties to use this opening for real politics and make it a reality,” said Tiny Kox, Head of the delegation of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly.

"These elections were like a game in which only some players are allowed on the pitch, and then the field is tilted in favour of one of the players. Although the choice was limited and the competition lacked fairness, voters were able to come out and have their voices heard,” said Ambassador Heidi Tagliavini, the Head of the Election Observation Mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.¹

I usually don't like to come to quick interpretations of news stories, since I'm not sure that it is possible to come to a good understanding of current events so quickly. On the other hand, though, some of you might be hearing about the Russian elections now on the news, and I thought that I'd share my first reaction.

One thing is clear – United Russia won the elections. Another thing is also clear - there is really quite a bit of dissatisfaction with United Russia just now. The reasons for this are many and (perhaps surprisingly for Westerners) are not readily associated with the financial crises the world has been going through in the past few years. Instead, it seems that people may be somewhat tired of a political scene dominated by one party, especially when it is very difficult to say what this party stands for. This, I suppose, does a lot to explain the relative success of the Communist party in this election – they have clear (if usually quite unrealistic) positions on social and economic questions. In Novosibirsk, I'd imagine that there is a certain degree of sincere support for the Communists, insofar as there are so many people here tied with science and research, and they have reason to believe that if the Communists were in control, their institutes would be better funded. But for the most part it seems like the Communists draw attention, not for their policies, but because it is thought that they are they only party that can realistically challenge United Russia. The majority party, on the other hand, enjoys the support of two groups of people (as far as I can tell): first, those whose main approach to life is to hope that it won't get worse (the 2000s saw greater economic stability and growth than the 1990s, and so we should stick with the people who were in charge in the 00s) and, second, those who received concrete help with their problems thanks to Presidents Putin or Medvedev. A quick example – after church yesterday, people were talking about the elections. One of the people in our congregation said that they she would be voting for United Russia since President Putin helped solved a problem she ran into a number of years ago. The land just next to their apartment building had been illegally seized and construction of a parking garage had begun. This women gathered signatures protesting construction from her neighbors, and they wrote to the President. The president then wrote to the local DA, who took steps to stop the construction and return the land. While I was happy that this woman had been helped with her problem, it must be noted that United Russia controlled every level of government in the past years. So while the President solved a problem and this is good, the President was also responsible for helping to build and strengthen a system in which one needs to write to Moscow in order for a local problem to be solved.

Presidential elections are scheduled for March. Polls show that Vladimir Putin has lost a lot of support in the past months, but at present it seems highly unlikely that a candidate will be found that will even give Mr. Putin a run for his money. But the political scene in Russia, despite its stability stagnation in recent years, can also be pretty volatile. Perhaps the relative success of this parliamentary election will inspire the minority parties to come together to support one strong candidate for president. If that happens, you can expect more blog posts on Russian politics in the future.

1 http://www.osce.org/odihr/85753

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Despite the fact that at least 90% of those Russians who celebrate Christmas do so on January 7^{th 1}, that doesn't mean that the country is far behind the West when it comes to preparing for the holiday season. Christmas decorations have been up in some stores since early November, and Christmas trees are starting to go up in squares and parks around the city. I plan on writing more later about the winter holidays here, but for now, I'll just share a few reasons why it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

• First of all, the snow. It is really, truly winter. After many years of freezing rain and slush in St. Petersburg at this time of year, it is a bit of relief that we know that the snow is here to stay. Until April. Or May. And shoveling snow from the church courtyard has been a good way to work off frustration, I've found...though I'll admit that by spring I might be feeling differently.
• Christmas Bazaar. This past weekend, the local German cultural center (together with the German consulate) hosted their annual 1^st Sunday of Advent Christmas Bazaar. Our congregation always has a table there were we talk with the guests (there were over 1000!) and sell crafts and baked goods. We had fun and raised a bit of money for the church, which the council intends to use towards repairs for our building's foundation next spring. 
  
  
• Midweek Advent services. Our church building is quite isolated – you can't really just happen upon it. In addition, most people in the congregation live in other parts of the city (or even outside of it). For that reason, there usually isn't a lot of reason for the pastor to be located in the church building much. But I decided that for Advent, I would start every Wednesday with morning prayer and end with evening prayer, inviting congregational members to come at any time to pray together or just to talk. It is still too early to say whether or not this will meet the spiritual needs of those in the congregation, but yesterday morning a few of us did pray together, followed by and almost hour-long hymn sing. Fellowship time is important, so I hope that people continue to come.
• “It's the most wonderful time of the year”. “Wonder” in the sense of “miracle.” The news here lately has frequently reported on the astounding number of people who have made their way to the Church of Christ the Savior in Moscow to visit the “the Belt of the Theotokos.” This Orthodox relic, supposedly woven from camel hair by the Virgin Mary herself so that she might wear it during her pregnancy, is usually found on the monastic mountain of Athos in Greece²; in the past month, however, it has traveled through Russia so that the faithful could venerate it.³ When the Belt was in the capital, lines stretched to incredible lengths, with reports that some people waited 15-20 hours and with more than 80 people needing hospitalization after standing out that long in the cold. The Belt went back to Athos this week, but miracles (especially healings and restored fertility) are already being reported. I think I'll leave it to respected journalist Nikolai Svanidze to comment on this phenomenon, even if his commentary is perhaps a bit too harsh: “It testifies to the fact that people long for a miracle. It does not testify to depth of faith... In Russia our religiosity is very peculiar, because since the time of the Baptism of Rus I cannot say that the country became Christian. We have a peculiar understanding of the Orthodox faith; there is a lot of paganism in it. And this longing for miracle in and of itself has, I'd say, an indirect relationship to [Christian] faith.”⁴

  

  Waiting in line to see the "Belt of the Theotokos."
  Originally from the site bogoslava.ru

  
  

1The Russian Orthodox Church follows the Julian calendar which is (at present) 13 days behind the standard Gregorian calendar we use. A significant number of Protestant churches have also decided to celebrate Christmas and Easter together with the majority here, though Lutherans and Roman Catholics tend to follow the western practice.

2Where women are not permitted to visit under any circumstances. 80% of those who came to see the Belt in Russia were women.

3Strangely enough, certain parts of the Belt (and, among other things, part of the hem of Christ's robe) are in Moscow churches permanently, but none of these relics draw so much attention.

4On the radio program “Special Opinion” on the Echo of Moscow radio station. Nov 25.