January 6, 2003
Russian report calls faiths security threat
___MOSCOW (RNS)--Protestant and Catholic leaders reacted with befuddled indignation to an apparent Russian government report classifying the two faiths as severe threats to national security.
___The internal report, excerpts of which were published in the respectable Moscow daily Gazeta, ranks the Roman Catholic Church as the most dangerous "religious extremist" organization operating in Russia today.
___Protestants are ranked No. 2, while Satanists, Jehovah's Witnesses and Scientologists come in third. They are trailed by Russia's 20-million strong Muslim minority, a tiny element of which is waging a separatist war in Chechnya.
___The 15-page document was not officially acknowledged by the Russian Ministry of Nationalities and Migration, for whom it reportedly was prepared, but a church historian familiar with the report and the names of those who authored it said, "I think it is true."
___The historian, Yakov Krotov, said the report represents the thinking of some government officials who yearn for a return to the Soviet period, when the secret police regarded members of minority faiths as potential traitors, saboteurs and enemies of the state.
___The report's publication and the subsequent minor firestorm of ridicule and anger in the Russian media have effectively neutralized its impact, said Krotov, theorizing that was the leakers' intent. Gazeta reported that the document was to have been presented in January to a meeting of Russia's Security Council and a presidential commission of religious leaders--including Catholics and Protestants.
___Russia's leading Catholic cleric, a member of the commission, said in a statement on the report's contents, "If this is true, then I am in shock."
___Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz continued, "How can a civilized society consider as an extemist organization a church which has 2,000 years of history, makes every effort to stamp out conflict and fights terrorism? It is inconceivable."
___The report advocates fighting the influence of Catholics and Protestants in Russia by expelling their foreign clergy. This year, that is exactly what has happened to one Catholic bishop, four Catholic priests and at least a half-dozen Protestant missionaries.
___In its survey of faiths posing a national security threat, the report exempts only the 80-million member Russian Orthodox Church along with the country's substantial Buddhist and Jewish minorities.
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