Yakov Krotov

While Russian journalistic coverage of religion entered a completely new phase in the 1990s, it retained some characteristics of its previous Soviet existence. Qualitative distinctions between Communist and post-Communist journalists require close inspection because writers either try to minimize the distinctions or state that they disappeared altogether under glasnost.

State Controls and Private Subsidies
One must understand the difference between Communist and non-Communist media in order to understand developments in Russian church journalism in the 1990s.  After 1917 the Bolsheviks destroyed the free press, but at the same time created a system of propaganda that imitated the forms of a free press.  This system of propaganda included nationalization and centralization of all printing houses and newsprint factories; government training of journalists, all of whom received government salaries; and transformation of newspapers into instruments of various government agencies.

In the media industry, state control of the means of production remains the case today.  In modern Russia it is not possible to organize either private papermaking production or a private printing house that can print more than a few thousand copies of a book.  The only exception in Christian circles is the Catholic Printing House "Istina i Zhizn' [Truth and Life]" headed by Fr. Aleksandr Khmelnitskiy.  It has only one printing press that can print no more than 5,000 copies at one time. However, since an edition becomes profitable only with a printing of more than 10,000 copies, publishing in the religious sphere is doomed to be unsuccessful.  That is why Christian books, magazines, and newspapers are being financed either by overseas Christians if they are Protestant or Catholic or by the government if they are Orthodox.  This leads to subsidized prices because those who pay for publications are not so much interested in profit as in widespread dissemination of the Christian message.  Thus, publications are sold at less than their actual cost.

De Facto Orthodox Veto
Most central Russian newspapers are still being printed in the same two Moscow printing houses as under the Communists.  New magazines and newspapers must either be printed in Finland or they must agree to the conditions of Russian monopolists.  Thus in 1998, for example, the Moscow Printing House required the official Russian Catholic newspaper Svet evangeliia [Light of the Gospel] to provide a document from the Moscow Patriarchate affirming that Orthodox had no objection to this publication.  (Khmelnitskiy's printing house could not provide the required circulation for an acceptable price.) Orthodox Metropolitan Kirill (Gundiaev) signed such a document, remarking that the law did not in fact require such a procedure.  However, in the provinces, the Orthodox hierarchs have the opportunity to block the publication of non-Orthodox newspapers or magazines without any exchange of official documents because of the state monopoly on printing press production.

Heavy Hands on Church Journalists
The government also continues to control the training of journalists. The Department of Journalism at Moscow State University is headed by the same person, Yasen Zasurskiy, who was appointed to this post under Khrushchev. This department's Division of Church Journalism is headed by an Orthodox nationalist.  Nevertheless, in the 1990s the Catholic mission, Aid to the Church in Need, managed to rent space in the department for an information center that prepared radio programs for Moscow and the Moscow Region.  Orthodox and government attacks on freedom of the press from the mid-1990s included attempts to close down this Catholic information center, which finally succeeded in 2000.  At the same time the government shut down the Russian branch of the Paris-based émigré paper Russkaya mysl [Russian Thought] because it carried a regular column dedicated to religion that was neither nationalistic nor pro-government.

Many papers and magazines take great pleasure in acknowledging awards received from the minister of defense for stories favorable to the army. Similarly, the mayor of Moscow grants prizes to journalists giving positive reviews for the work of the city council.  Likewise, the patriarch does the same for favorable treatment of the life of the church.  Unfortunately, the mass media do not see the granting of such favors as incompatible with journalistic ethics.  It was common practice during the Soviet era for the government to reward journalists for Socialist propaganda and today it does the same for Russian Orthodox propaganda.

Official and Unofficial Orthodox Papers
The Russian Orthodox Church has created a network of church papers built on the model of different government ministry publications, such as the newspapers of the ministry of defense or the ministry of transport. Also, almost all dioceses publish their own newspapers, even though their circulation figures are low even by Russian standards.  The central paper of this type is Moskovskii tserkovnyi vestnik [Moscow Church Herald], founded in 1988 by Boris Kozlov and Metropolitan Pitirim (Nechaev).  The circulation of such papers is close to zero.  It has proven impossible to make laymen, unlike members of Communist Party organizations in days of old, subscribe to these papers.  Church newspapers that are not official are more noteworthy and livelier.  They tackle issues of interest to church activists, issues that the hierarchy would prefer to solve behind closed doors without undue attention.

The leading paper of this kind is Pravoslavnaia Moskva [Orthodox Moscow] edited by Fr. Vladimir Kharitonov and Fr. Mikhail Dudko. Regular writers include Archimandrite Amvrosii Yurasov and Fr. Vladimir Vigilianskii, a former journalist of Ogoniok [Little Fire] who writes satirical press surveys on behalf of the Analytical Center of the Union of Orthodox Citizens.  The patriarch has expressed strong support for this paper. Radonezh, the organ of the Radonezh Orthodox Union, keeps some distance from official church papers.  It very aggressively indulges in personal attacks on its opponents, stressing that Jews, advocates of democracy, and Americans are enemies of Orthodoxy.  In contrast, Pravoslavnaia Moskva does not engage in such tactics.  Rus' derzhavnaia [Mighty Russia] is more militant towards the West but prefers to criticize the threat from secular organizations and powers without engaging in fights with church "liberals."*

While sources of financing for these papers are obscure, they probably receive government subsidies.  For both papers an active fight against "American type" programs of sexual education and freedom of conscience predominates.  In new post-Soviet language the absence of freedom of conscience is called "freedom of conscience of the European type."  The magazine Prozrenie [Insight] headed by Aleksandr Dvorkin under Bishop Tikhon (Bronnitskiy) of the publications department of the Moscow Patriarchate specializes in the fight against freedom of conscience. The practically unreadable magazines Pravoslavnyi patriot [The Orthodox Patriot] and Russkii dom [Russian House] take the same position, propagating extreme nationalistic views.

An Attempt at an Independent Stance
At the beginning of the 1990s the Russian émigré paper Russkaia mysl (Paris) organized a religious supplement Tserkovno-obshchestvennyi vestnik [Church and Society Herald]. The editor-in-chief of this paper was Irina Ilovaiskaia who died in April 2000.  She was an Orthodox believer who actively supported the idea of reconciling the Vatican and the Moscow Patriarchate. However, some journalists of the supplement opposed this position and put extremely heavy pressure on the editor to stop criticizing the politics of the patriarchate.  On the other hand, liberal* priests Innokentii Pavlov, Georgii Chistiakov, and Vladimir Lapshin wrote against clericalization and did not support the restrictions on freedom of conscience proposed by the patriarch. Russian émigrés, for their part, criticized Ilovaiskaia for too much "clericalization" of the paper. As a result, the supplement was closed and only two or three columns remained, penned by priests writing under pseudonyms or discussing innocuous matters. Since its demise in 2000 no paper of this supplement's caliber has taken its place.

Mixed Messages from Nezavisimaia Gazeta
Today, the only secular organ that has a regular and extensive unit dedicated to religion is Nezavisimaia gazeta [The Independent Gazette] with its supplement NG-religii (NGR).  For several years Maksim Shevchenko edited NGR, but in February 2002 he was fired, launching a trend towards greater liberalization.  His replacement, Mark Smirnov, is a former priest who attempts to maintain neutrality in church politics, although he is pro-Western and non-fundamentalist in his orientation.

*Editor's Note:  The author uses liberal in the classic political meaning of support for representative government and civil liberties, not theological liberalism.

This chart identifies newspapers starting with those with the most pro-government and pro-Moscow Patriarchate positions and ending with those with the most independent positions. In general, this order corresponds to a ranking of papers from the most Slavophile (nationalistic and conservative) to the most pro-Western (democratic).
 

Newspaper	Audience	Degree of coverage of official Moscow Patriarchate activities	Position on freedom of conscience	Degree of criticism of the Moscow Patriarchate	Degree of willingness to publish views of atheists, anticlerics, and non-Orthodox
Rossiyskaia gazeta [Russian Gazette]	clergy	-	--	--	--
Trud [Labor]	peasants, workers	-	--	--	-
Nezavisimaia gazeta [Independent Gazette]	intelligentsia, bureaucrats	-	--	-	+
Argumenty i fakty [Arguments and Facts]	peasants, workers, professionals	-	-/--	+	+/-
Vecherniaia Moskva [Moscow Nightly]	workers, professionals	-	-/--	-	+/-
Moskovskii komsomolets [Moscow Komsomolist]	youth, workers, professionals	-	+/-	-	+/-
Sovetskaia Rossiia [Soviet Russia]	workers, intelligentsia	+	--	+	+/-
Izvestiia [News]	intelligentsia, professionals	-	+/-	-	+
Kommersant [Merchant]	intelligentsia, businessmen, professionals	+	-	-	-
Komsomolskaia Pravda [Komsomolist Truth]	youth, workers, professionals	+	-	-	+
Moskovskie novosti [Moscow News]	intelligentsia, professionals	-	+	+/-	+
Novaia gazeta [New Gazette] (Moskovskii komsomolets twin)	intelligentsia, professionals	+	-	+	+
Literaturnaia gazeta [Literary Gazette]	intelligentsia	+	+/-	+/-	+
Russkaia mysl [Russian Thought]	intelligentsia	+	+/-	+	-
Segodnia [Today]	intelligentsia	+	+/-	-	+
Obshchaia gazeta [Community Gazette] (Moskovskie novosti twin)	intelligentsia, professionals	+	+/-	+	+
Novye izvestiia [New News] (Izvestiia twin)	intelligentsia	+	+	+	+
Novoe vremia [New Time]	intelligentsia	+	+	+	+
Ezhednevniy zhurnal  [Weekly Journal]	intelligentsia, professionals	+	+	+	+
Inostranets [Foreigner]	intelligentsia	+	+	+	+

Criteria for Ranking Leading Newspapers
1.  Does the paper publish official, complimentary reports on the activities of the Moscow Patriarchate? Such reports do not satisfy the ambitions of the patriarch but support the political ideology of Orthodoxy as the basis for a "new Russia." Above all, Rossiiskaia gazeta fulfills this function.  Almost every issue also carries a picture of an Orthodox church with a short and touching caption. At the same time this government paper avoids serious coverage of religion, whether critical or positive. In general, this style of treatment is typical of "old" Communist-era papers.

2.  What is the paper's position on freedom of conscience? This issue was debated actively in the 1990s and led to the replacement of a very democratic law on religion (1990) with a highly restrictive law on religion in 1997. The decisive element here is not the paper's attitude to the slogan "freedom of conscience" because the worst opponents of religious freedom claim to be faithful to democratic ideals. Rather, the criterion hinges on the degree of defense of freedom of conscience for unpopular movements such as Jehovah's Witnesses, Krishnaists, or satanists. Many of the "liberal" papers agree that the activities of these groups should be restricted or forbidden as "dangerous to society."  A good example of this is the position of Russkaia mysl. In the table a plus (+) means comprehensive defense of freedom of conscience (eligibility for status of juridical person and the opportunity to train clergy), including Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists, and Krishnaists. One minus (-) means freedom of conscience for all except "totalitarian sects."  Two minuses (--) stand for the defense of privileges for the Moscow Patriarchate and support for discrimination against even "alternative" Orthodox.

We need to note that in the polemics over freedom of conscience the issue of foreign missionaries took first place, followed closely by the issue of totalitarian cults. Russkaia mysl defended freedom of action for foreign missionaries, with the exception of representatives of "sects." Some papers have both (+) and (-) because their positions are contradictory to such a degree that sometimes in one issue they publish editorials for and against unlimited freedom of conscience.

3.  To what degree does the paper tolerate criticism of representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate? Even in the Soviet era, papers had the right to criticize individual Communists, but no higher than a certain level and never the general secretary of the party. Thus the central newspaper, Pravda, could criticize the leader of the Kazakhstan Communist Party, but in Kazakhstan no paper would dare criticize this person. This rigid, hierarchical principle is replayed in today's Russian press: practically any paper will publish materials critical of individual priests, but some papers will not dare criticize either bishops or the patriarch (they have -- ).  Other papers will criticize bishops but not the patriarch or his politics (they have - ).  Only a small number of papers dare to criticize the patriarch, the Synod, or high church politics (they have +). Those few papers that do actively criticize the patriarch and the Moscow Patriarchate are designated by  (++).

4.  Finally, to what degree is the paper willing to champion freedom of the press and free speech by airing the views of atheists, those with anticlerical views, and representatives of non-Orthodox confessions?  Papers frequently differentiate in their coverage between leaders of confessions and rank-and-file adherents. For example, almost all newspapers regularly publish materials about the pope, although only a small number of papers concern themselves with Russian Catholics. Coverage of the pope sometimes reflects a more or less hidden yearning for an Orthodoxy that is cultured, polite, and civilized.  Examples would be the extensive publications of Rome correspondent Alexey Bukalov in Segodnia and other mass media, general pro-Western tendencies as in Itogi, and official attention due to the head of a foreign country, as in Rossiiskaia gazeta. It is not always possible to divide one from the other. However, there is an evident difference between Rossiiskaia gazeta, which will publish speeches of the leaders of non-Orthodox confessions recognized by the government as "traditional" (the major rabbi, the highest imam, Archbishop Kondrusevich), and Novoe vremia, which will not publish a predictable, official speech of the major rabbi, but periodically will publish vivid and controversial interviews with Rabbi Steinsaltz or letters of atheists and agnostics criticizing the authorities for the "orthodoxization" of the country. In the chart, papers that exclude publications of representatives of all confessions other than the patriarchate are noted with (--).  Papers that publish neutral speeches of representations of non-Orthodox confessions are marked with (-).  Papers that publish speeches of atheists, non-Orthodox, and non-Christians criticizing the patriarchate are marked with (+). The contrast in this instance may be illustrated by the difference between Nezavisimaia gazeta and its religion supplement NGR.  The mother paper will permit criticism of the patriarchate, whereas the NGR supplement will not.

Yakov Krotov is a church historian and journalist living in Moscow.  His informative Web site (http://www.krotov.org) focuses on Russian church history and contemporary church-state issues.

Editor's Note: The next issue of the East-West Church & Ministry Report will carry biographical notes by Yakov Krotov on 43 Russian journalists who actively write on church subjects.

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© 2002 East-West Church and Ministry Report
ISSN 1069-5664