Religion Russia

When the Mormons first came to the Russian capital about five years ago, city authorities gave the preachers from Utah what seemed an appropriate place to hold their prayer meetings: rooms in a ramshackle former Russian Orthodox monastery, closed decades before by the Soviet government. But as the strictures of communism fell away in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse, Russians were again permitted freedom of worship and, in 1993, President Boris N.

He may never set foot on Russian soil in his lifetime, but Pope John Paul II visited in spirit and image, at least, in a teleconference Saturday night that was criticized by the Russian Orthodox patriarch as "an invasion." The gothic spires of Moscow's Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception loomed against a pearly evening sky as hundreds flocked to the church to pray with the pope.

It didn't seem like a big deal. They were only planting a handful of potatoes in a swampy plot of land. But nine Russian Orthodox priests were here to bless the event, and looking on were a crowd of Russian government and church officials, two busloads of American missionaries and the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, the TV preacher who had come all the way from the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove. Schuller was there, he said, to plant religion along with the potatoes.

The Vatican announced Monday that it will establish four formal dioceses within Russia, touching a theological nerve and sparking a round of condemnations from the Russian Orthodox Church, which accused the Roman Catholics of violating its "canonical territory." The decision may prompt a temporary freeze in relations between the two churches, said Metropolitan Kirill, chairman of the Russian Orthodox Church's external relations commission.

It didn't seem like a big deal. They were only planting a handful of potatoes in a swampy plot of land. But nine Russian Orthodox priests were here to bless the event, and looking on was a crowd of Russian government and church officials, two busloads of American missionaries and the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, the TV preacher who had come all the way from the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif. Schuller was there, he said, to plant religion along with the potatoes.

A hotly debated bill that many believe will curb freedom of religion in Russia won unanimous and final passage from parliament Wednesday and appeared certain to become law. Boris N. Yeltsin's spokesman has indicated that the president will sign the legislation, which enshrines Russia's conservative Orthodox Church as the country's preeminent religion.

Despite imminent limits on religious freedom in Russia, U.S. church and government leaders said Tuesday that Russian government and church officials are offering assurances that pending legislation will not be strictly enforced. Those assurances, communicated in recent meetings in Geneva and at the Hague--as well as similar promises offered in Moscow to U.S. government officials--have prompted some U.S.

On a walk down this city's million-ruble mile, Nevsky Prospect, one cannot help but notice, just behind the Koff beer garden, a magnificent early 19th-Century Lutheran church with two bell towers and a cross that dates back to, oh, about June 29. From this church once emanated some of the world's most inspiring music, played on a famous organ that since has disappeared. The sound one hears now is of jackhammers. A look inside reveals an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

A religious revival of historic proportions may be under way in Russia, with one-third of all Russians who once called themselves atheists now believing in God, a new study has found. Two out of five Russians believe in life after death, half believe that God is personally concerned with each human, 40% believe in miracles and one-third believe in heaven and hell. Moreover, although only 9% of Russians grew up in the Russian Orthodox Church, 29% of them are now affiliated with it.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin's appearance this week at the opening of a new $10-million synagogue at Moscow's huge war memorial complex was an unqualified triumph for Russia's Jews. The Memorial Synagogue includes Russia's first permanent exhibit acknowledging the Nazi Holocaust. In joining a Russian Orthodox church and mosque at the war memorial park, the new synagogue becomes a clear symbol that Russia's Jews are a religious and political force to be reckoned with.

It was time to worship in the capital of the Russian Orthodox world, but there wasn't one incense-darkened icon, one black-robed priest or one word uttered in Old Church Slavonic. Instead, believers of a different sort--Jehovah's Witnesses--faced a simple stage. Two women were demonstrating how to win Russian converts over to the Witnesses, a controversial religious group with roots in the United States.

Earlier generations of Yaroslav Sivulsky's family were persecuted as Jehovah's Witnesses in the Soviet Union, and then the state still sought to ban the group as a dangerous cult--even in democratic Russia. Finally, in what was called an important victory for religious freedom in Russia, Sivulsky saw justice done Friday when a Moscow court threw out a case that sought to outlaw the group in the capital.

Of all the proposals one might make to a Roman Catholic bishop, a proposal of marriage is probably the least common and most audacious. But in Russia, that is precisely what local authorities have suggested to two Catholic prelates trying to obtain permission to live and work in the former atheist superpower.

The fresh-faced Shestopalov sisters of Tishanka are keeping their lives simple. No makeup or miniskirts, no alcohol or cigarettes, no complications like romance that could lead to the sin of marriage. Olga, 23, Nadezhda, 22, and Tatyana, 17, gaze out on their small world in central Russia, their clear blue eyes blazing with the certainty of youth. They are members of the Fyodorovtsy sect, which believes that Christ returned to Earth early this century as a Russian peasant named Fyodor Rybalkin.

KGB files on a Ukrainian rabbi have been turned over to Lubavitchers, a Hasidic Jewish group headquartered in Brooklyn. The files concern Levi Schneerson, who was chief rabbi of Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, until his arrest in 1939 for counterrevolutionary activities--namely promoting Judaism in the Soviet Union. Schneerson was imprisoned, then exiled to a remote area of Kazakhstan. He was released in 1944 and died a few months later.

Prosecutors launched a drive Tuesday to outlaw the Jehovah's Witnesses, accusing them of fomenting religious strife at the start of a trial that could have sweeping implications for all faiths in Russia. The case is the most prominent test so far of Russia's new law on religion, which is designed to curb the activities of foreign religious organizations seeking new members in Russia. Prosecutors brought charges under an article seeking to outlaw dangerous cults.

President Boris N. Yeltsin swept aside objections from U.S. officials and human rights critics Friday and signed into law a bill to restrict religious practices in Russia. Critics contend that the law in effect overturns Russia's constitutional guarantee that all religions are equal and that it marks the waning of the liberal democratic euphoria that gripped Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union nearly six years ago. Russian Orthodoxy is listed first among "traditional" religions.

Invited to bring religion to the Russian Army, Robert H. Schuller, the Orange County televangelist, found himself on Monday evening addressing a hostile, restless crowd of 600 officers who appeared to find his message irrelevant. "We have completely different problems and a completely different language," Alexander Nikitin said, shaking his head in disgust at Schuller's pep talk on the power of positive thinking.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin's appearance this week at the opening of a new $10-million synagogue at Moscow's huge war memorial complex was an unqualified triumph for Russia's Jews. The Memorial Synagogue includes Russia's first permanent exhibit acknowledging the Nazi Holocaust. In joining a Russian Orthodox church and mosque at the war memorial park, the new synagogue becomes a clear symbol that Russia's Jews are a religious and political force to be reckoned with.

Believers of the Russian Orthodox faith have set out on a 6,000-mile "millennium pilgrimage" to Moscow in an effort to call people back to their traditional faith--and promote Russian nationalism along the way. The nine pilgrims who left this city on the Sea of Japan this week expect to reach their destination on Jan. 7, 2000--the 2,000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus, according to the Orthodox calendar.