EDITORIAL

The End of Freedom of Religion in Russia

The latest act of barbarism against Russian democracy being committed by the nation’s so-called “parliament” is a statute called The Law on Religious Activity proposed by the prosecutor’s office and soon to be enacted into law. It’s just one more heartbreaking step down the road towards establishing a Holy Russian Empire, a road Putin has been following since his first days in office.

The Moscow Times reports that under the provisions of the new law “ordinary believers will face fines for sharing their faith with strangers in the metro or on the street.” It will, in other words, become a crime for anyone not specifically authorized in writing by the Kremlin to discuss religion with another person. The MT reports:

Some Protestant groups said Wednesday that the amendments were a violation of Jesus’ call in Matthew 28:19 to “go and make disciples of all nations.” “Missionary activity is part of the Christian religion, and these proposals target not only our church but the Christian religion itself,” said Elder Mikhail Fadin of the Moscow Central Church of Evangelical Christians-Baptists.

In other words, Russia is making the final push to wipe out all religion other than the Orthodox Church, which is run by the same sort of KGB spy who rules the secular world in Russia.

Paul Goble quotes Kommersant characterizing the new law as follows: “The right to profess [religious ideas] is given only to leaders of religious organizations or to persons having special trust from the leadership of their church. All others are prohibited from propagandizing religious ideas, even though today for this no permissions are required.”

Yikes. What we are seeing here is actually worse than what occurred in the USSR. At least the USSR attacked all religions equally; now, the Russian Orthodox church is working hand-in-brass-knuckles with the Kremlin to make itself a monopoly religion which the Kremlin can use as a pretext to further bludgeon and control the Russian population.