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Volume 17, No. 4

Russia and Its National Minorities: Conducting Christian Ministry in a Racially Charged Atmosphere

Peter Johnson

Editor’s note: The first portion of this article appeared in the previous issue of the East-West Church and Ministry Report 17 (Summer 2009), 1-2.

The Origins of Russian Nationalism

A phrase that is often used in the study of the world’s largest country is “Russian cultural exceptionalism.” It refers to the very deeply held assumption that Russia is on a higher cultural level than other nations. Russian writers refer to Russia’s originality (samobytnost) and her special path (osobyi put).1

While other nations, including the United States, have experienced similar attitudes, the Russian case goes deeper than most. It is common to trace this Russian attitude back to the years immediately after the fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. A letter written by the Russian monk Philoteus (Filofey) in 1511 to Grand Duke Vasili III proclaimed, “Two Romes have fallen. The third stands. And there will be no fourth. No one shall replace your Christian Tsardom!” For centuries since, this concept of the Third Rome has underpinned Russian “exceptionalism.” Rome was the center of the Christian empire; Constantinople, the Second Rome, took its place; and Moscow, the Third Rome, justified its dominion over surrounding nations using this theological formulation.

With the fall of Byzantium, Russia declared itself the defender and champion of the true Christian faith. Russia, as the Third Rome, came to see itself as the light of the world, and so the advancement of Russian dominion equalled the advancement of true Christian faith, giving theological foundation to a belief in Russian cultural exceptionalism. By the 19th century Russian writers were widely referring to “Russian Messianism,” the concept of Russia as the savior of the world.

While today most Russians would be uncomfortable with such expansive claims, it is not hard to see how this attitude continues to influence Russia’s view of the world and her treatment of minority nationalities. Thus, a particular brand of chauvinism emerged with the birth of the Russian Empire which continued in a Marxist form after the Bolshevik Revolution, and still exists in Russia today.

Russia is not just one of the nations, on a par with Germany, Turkey, or the United States, much less Ukraine or Georgia. Russia exists on a higher cultural plane. This attitude was illustrated in a recent television documentary on a cult in Siberia led by a self-proclaimed messiah. A pair of the “messiah’s” followers, who were in fact Latvian, were interviewed and asked why they did not speak Latvian with their children. The couple replied, “The Master teaches that in the new reality there will be no culture,” and so Latvian was irrelevant. Yet the documentary filmed them speaking Russian with a balalaika on the wall, listening to traditional Russian music, drinking tea from a samovar in a village of traditional Russian architectural style.

It is, of course, common for large nations to assume that their traditions are normative. Russia is no exception. Russia’s relations with its indigenous peoples, as well as with neighboring nations, start with the subconscious assumption that the Russian language has a supra-cultural status, and that Russia as the Third Rome has a divine obligation to rule.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, these cultural assumptions find their way into Russian Protestant as well as Orthodox churches. I work with a number of Russian pastors who are exceptional in their work in indigenous ethnic regions and their support for indigenous language ministry. One of these pastors has grown a large church which includes a very large number of non-Slavic members. Yet, still, he is fond of saying from the pulpit, “We are all Slavic people.” This is a man who believes he has a ministry to Russia’s non-Slavic minorities, but he cannot help trying to fit them all into a Slavic mold.

One Christian parachurch organization with the word Eurasia in its name started in Russia with the expressed purpose of assisting Christian ministries in Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and across Central Asia. Yet it used the slogan, “supporting Russian language” ministries. In fairness, it should be noted that this organization seems to have dropped this slogan. But the fact that it used it at all illustrates a serious problem deriving from a majority Russian mindset.

The strong value Russians place on the collective also factors into this complex equation. Russian culture has a very deep fear of schism, with an aversion to individuals who separate themselves from the group. The Russian ideal is collective uniformity. Whether this world view derives from Orthodoxy as the One True Church, or whether it reflects a deeper pre-Orthodox value, a connection certainly exists between the majority Russian attitude toward religious minorities and ethnic minorities.

Just as religious minorities are seen as a threat to the stability of the nation, so too, ethnic minorities, although officially celebrated, are also viewed as a danger. The Russian Federation officially celebrates and promotes ethnic diversity, but the actual discrimination and violence suffered by ethnic minorities coping with a Russian majority culture tell another story.

In September 2006, race riots broke out in the northwestern Russian town of Kondopoga between ethnic Russians and people from the Caucasus.2 A group calling itself “The Movement Against Illegal Immigration” gleefully reported the riots, hailing them as “an awakening of the Russian people.”3 The slogan, “Russia for Russians,” is often championed by such groups, but what makes the events in Kondopoga especially noteworthy is that, as the town’s name indicates, this is not ethnic Russian territory. Kondopoga is in the Republic of Karelia, which, while part of the Russian Federation, is not Slavic territory. The indigenous Karelians and Veps are Finno-Ugric, very close in language and culture to Finns. A “Russia for Russians” riot in Kondopoga is equivalent to an “England for English” protest being held in Scotland. It is a direct denial of the legitimacy of a nationality’s existence.

“Racist Attacks Become More Frequent in Moscow”: Such was the headline on the mosnews.com site on what should have been a beautiful spring day in April 2009. The article quoted the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights stating that 122 people were killed and at least 380 injured in 2008 in racially motivated attacks across Russia. Russian skinhead assaults on foreigners and ethnic minorities are now “a regular occurrence in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as other Russian cities.”4 In July 2008, Russian prosecutors charged a skinhead gang with the murder of 20 people during a series of brutal attacks against minorities in Moscow. The case followed repeated accusations from human rights groups that authorities in Russia were failing to investigate racial killings, often simply labelling xenophobic attacks as hooliganism.5 For example, in August 2006, Russia’s Supreme Court upheld a verdict in which killers of a nine-year-old Tajik girl were found guilty of simple “hooliganism,” rather than a hate crime.

Nevertheless, of late the continuing increase in racial violence has forced the government to take more notice. In February 2009, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) reported Russian President Medvedev’s acknowledgment that racist attacks in Russia grew by 30 percent in 2008 and had become a threat to national security. UNHCR also quoted Deputy Interior Minister Yevgeny Shkolov stating that the destructive threat of extremist racial attacks “is equal or in some aspects stronger than that of the terrorist threat.”6

The root problem is not simply racism. It has to do with an ingrained belief about Russia’s place among the nations. Russia first must come to peace with itself. Russia, just like all other nations, must learn that in the eyes of God all ethnic and national groups are of equal value. The bearer of light to the gentiles is Jesus Christ, not any ethnic or political nation. As a result, no nation can act as if it has a God-given right to control the destinies of others. Size and power should not confer special value, but they should oblige citizens to use size and power to do good.

The Russian Capacity for Love and Generosity

Having lived and worked for many years among both Russians and Russia’s indigenous minorities, I have learned the immense capacity Russians have for love and generosity. I do not know if I have ever met a warmer and more open-hearted people. Yet when it comes to minorities, be they ethnic or religious, all too often this great warmth is eclipsed by anxious, chauvinistic attitudes.

Both Orthodox and Protestant theology stress preaching and reading the Bible in the indigenous, vernacular language, giving Christianity the possibility of replacing negative nationalism with a positive view of all nations. The Church, which from the days of the Apostle Paul, has been a multi-ethnic body accepting all nationalities, should take a conscious and active role as an example of love and tolerance. The Russian Federation is a multi-ethnic society and its cultural diversity is a source of beauty and potentially a source of strength. The question, however, remains: Can Russian society learn to live in harmony with non-threatening minorities in its midst?

How Should Missionaries Respond?

It is the Russian people themselves who have to come to terms with their often-subconscious racial attitudes and assumptions. Nevertheless, Western missionaries have a responsibility to model charitable attitudes toward minority populations. First, missionaries should be an example by showing love and respect toward indigenous groups and by not following the subtle patterns of exclusion that alienate ethnic minorities. Second, missionaries should demonstrate through their actions and words that human worth does not depend upon numbers, power, or a particular culture, but rather in everyone’s sharing equally in the image of God. Missionaries should show due respect for indigenous languages and cultures. This means taking the time to learn indigenous languages and cultures. Third, missionaries should lovingly but clearly question negative attitudes and actions directed against non-Slavic peoples. If possible, confrontation and condemnation should be avoided in favor of speaking the truth in love. Finally, missionaries should encourage indigenous peoples to watch their own attitudes and to pray for those in authority over them, both in government and in the churches. A degree of responsibility does lie on both sides

 Notes:

1 It is, of course, also true that hand-in-hand belief in Russian cultural exceptionalism is an equally deeply felt sense of insecurity in the Russian psyche. The tension, clearly seen in Russian writers, between feeling strong and feeling weak, feeling proud and feeling ashamed, is very important for fully understanding the Russian mindset.

2 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5312078.stm, 4 September 2006.

3 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6084458.stm, 25 October 2006.

4 http://www.mosnews.com/society/2009/04/23/1270/, 23 April 2009.

5 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/01/raceissues.russia, 1 July 2008.

6 http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/category, REFERENCE,,,RUS,49904c6d28,0.html, 6 February 2009.

Peter Johnson (a pseudonym) has worked as a missionary for many years among numerous ethnic groups in Siberia and northern Russia.

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Volume 17, No. 4

Russian Orthodox Attitudes on Church-State Issues

Christopher Marsh

The 1997 Russian law on “Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations” established a two-tier system distinguishing between religious “organizations” (which have operated in Russia for at least 15 years) and religious “associations.” While the former are granted a broad range of privileges, the latter are permitted to worship but face restrictions on their property rights and their educational, publishing, and evangelistic activities.

The situation in Russia has since evolved, with the Constitutional Court and other court decisions interpreting the law somewhat less restrictively than was initially anticipated. Still, regular and severe violations of religious freedom occur in Russia, ranging from the denial of clergy and religious worker visas to the liquidation of religious associations that fail to meet registration requirements. Issues of religious freedom and church-state relations in Russia, therefore, remain some of the most critical issues surrounding the establishment of democracy and liberty in a state with a long authoritarian tradition.

This study seeks to determine the orientation of Russian Orthodox Christians toward issues of church and state. While the Moscow Patriarchate’s political maneuvering and the Kremlin’s homage to religion are at the center of the study of church and state in Russia, the beliefs and values of Russian citizens regarding church-state issues remain seriously understudied. Do Russian Orthodox Christians look to the church to give answers about social problems, and perhaps even to advise them on how to vote? And do they welcome the idea of the church playing a strong role in politics? By exploring such questions I hope to shed light on issues that have thus far remained unexamined with the use of empirical data.

Quantitative Analysis of Russian Religious Values

Sociologists of religion and others have long taken advantage of modern survey methods to explore the religious orientations of people across the globe, and Russia is no exception. Since the onset of political openness to survey research in Russia and other post-Communist societies, a wide array of studies has assessed value orientations, both within individual countries and cross-nationally, on indicators such as religious belief, support for democracy, trust among citizens, and orientations toward civic life.

Little if any attention, however, has been devoted to the critically important issue of how differing degrees of religiosity may be related to attitudes toward civic life, religion and politics, and church-state relations among Orthodox believers.1 One of the primary reasons is that these studies tend to classify respondents by how they answered a single question on religious belief or practice. For example, the major studies of the value orientations of religious believers in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union use the response to a question on religious denomination to code respondents as Orthodox Christians. While self-identification is an accepted means of classifying religious believers in the West, in a post-Communist environment where for decades a policy of forced secularization attempted to mold “scientific atheists” while destroying religious life, such an approach is problematic.2

In the two most thorough analyses of Orthodox religious life in Russia, V.F. Chesnokova has shown that religiosity and church adherence are complex processes that cannot be gauged by any one indicator.3 Her analysis explored Russian Orthodox religiosity using a complex array of indicators, including belief in God, regular church attendance, taking communion, making confession, fasting at prescribed times, praying at home with the use of church prayer books (molitoslov), and knowledge of Old Church Slavonic sufficient to understand the liturgy. Understood this way, it was clear that only a very small number of self-identified Orthodox Christians were “fully churched,” while the majority of respondents exhibited extremely low levels of church adherence. These findings, although perhaps more nuanced, are quite in line with conclusions reached by several other Russian scholars who have argued that the number of “real,” “traditional,” or “church-minded” Orthodox in Russia is no larger than five-to-seven percent of the population, with other Orthodox believers characterized as “nominal,” or as Varzanova has phrased it, Orthodox only in a “cultural sense.”4

While Chesnokova and her team’s work is a major contribution to the field of the scientific study of religion, the fact that their survey does not contain a sufficient number of questions on issues of politics, society, and economics means that it will be difficult to incorporate her achievements into studies that focus on such factors. In order to examine the religious and political value orientations of Russian Orthodox Christians, data from the World Values Survey is used. No other survey has the same range of questions relating to religious belief, practice, and spirituality, along with accompanying questions on social values, civic engagement, and political orientation. This study uses data from the 1999-2001 World Values Survey, released in spring 2004. This dataset provides a reliable look at contemporary Russian society after more than a decade of social, economic, and political upheaval, including significant changes in the role of religion in individual and public life and the laws governing public religiosity.

Religious Beliefs and Behavior

The first set of questions relates to the role religion plays in the lives of Orthodox believers in terms of their belief in God and sin, frequency of prayer, and church attendance. Three percent of self-identified Orthodox Christians said they did not believe in God. As well, 15 percent of Orthodox said they did not believe in sin, while many denied belief in life after death (46 percent) or heaven (42 percent).

Sharp disparities emerge when looking at religious behavior as opposed to religious beliefs. While 86 percent of Orthodox Christians take comfort and find strength in their religion, only 11 percent attend religious services at least once per month, and only slightly more than five percent attend religious services weekly. This phenomenon is in some ways similar to that of “believing without belonging,” which Grace Davie identified as a trend in England after World War II.5 In contrast, Inna Naletova argues that many still take part in a vibrant Orthodox life connected to “external” forms of religiosity.6 Despite low levels of church attendance, evidence does support the latter position: more than one quarter pray at least once per day (27.9 percent), while more than half (56 percent) regularly engage in prayer or meditation. Nevertheless, only 60 percent responded that God played an important part in their lives.

It might be useful to categorize Orthodox respondents as devout if they identified themselves as Orthodox, stated a belief in God, and attended church services at least monthly, all key indicators according to Chesnokova. Using these criteria, 186 Orthodox Christians in the survey are devout. The remaining self-identifying Orthodox (1,001), some of whom do not even believe in God and none of whom attend church services more than a few times per year, may be labeled cultural Orthodox.

The Babushka Factor

In terms of level of education and rural/urban setting, devout and cultural Orthodox differ little. (See Table 1.) When noting gender, however, the contrast is remarkable. It is clear that devout Orthodox are primarily comprised of females 55 and over (half of all devout Orthodox), with a slightly less likely chance to have ever been married. Also, many more women than men are cultural Orthodox.

 These characteristics suggest that the phenomenon of babushkas (grandmas) who stand guard over church services and who ensure adherence to codes of conduct is real (as if empirical confirmation were necessary). More significant, however, is that a relatively large percentage of devout Orthodox are between the ages of 18 and 34 (just below 20 percent), confirming the trend being observed of the younger generation finding its way to church. These two factors combined indicate that church adherence among Russians may be on the rise: 1) a healthy number of women are joining the church in later life (and the large number of cultural Orthodox women are likely to become more devout as they age); and 2) the younger generation appears to be finding its way to church earlier in life as well.

Views of the Church

Using the distinct categories of devout and cultural Orthodox believers in Russia, we can now begin to examine their views of the church itself. (See Table 2.) Surveys regularly find that the church is the most trusted institution in Russian society, with around 60 percent of all Russians expressing confidence in it. Using our distinct categories, however, we can in fact see great variation in levels of trust. Devout Orthodox more often expressed high levels of trust in the church (92.6 percent), than cultural Orthodox (76.5 percent). Interestingly, and something that has remained overlooked, is the fact that very few non-religious Russians have a great deal of trust in the church (5.7 percent), although a modest 30 percent do respond that they have quite a lot of trust.

 In addition to trusting the church, Orthodox Christians in Russia also believe that the church provides answers to people’s spiritual, moral, and family problems. While these numbers are significantly higher for devout Orthodox ( 89.6, 87.4, and 78.5) than for cultural Orthodox (75.6, 71.7, and 57.7), it is significant to note that as we move away from the spiritual realm, the church is seen as having less relevance. Although the church is seen as having a significant role to play in people’s spiritual, moral, and family life, fewer respondents in each group felt that the church could provide answers to social problems, ranging from 41.5 percent and 23.7 percent for devout Orthodox and cultural Orthodox, respectively, to under 10 percent for the non-religious (9.6 percent). Quite interestingly, more than one third of non-religious Russians still felt that the church provides answers to people’s spiritual and moral problems. F

Notes:

1 Andrew Greeley, “A Religious Revival in Russia?,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 33 (1994): 253-72. While Greeley considered many of the factors I examine here, he compared East Germans with Russians, with no distinction between respondents’ religious preference, religiosity, or beliefs, making it impossible to determine the ways in which religious preference or adherence impact political and civic views. Likewise, in their analysis of religion and political choice in Russia, Hesli et al. grouped together all Orthodox adherents, regardless of their particular beliefs or levels of church attendance. Vicki Hesli, Ebru Erdem, William Reisinger, and Arthur Miller, “The Patriarch and the President: Religion and Political Choice in Russia,” Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization 7 (Winter 1999): 42-72.

2 Paul Froese, “Forced Secularization in Soviet Russia: Why an Atheistic Monopoly Failed,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 43 (2004): 1, 35-50.

3 V. F. Chesnokova, Protsess votserkovleniya naseleniya v sovremennoi Rossii (Moscow: Fond “Obshchestvennoe Mnenie,” 1994 and 2000).

4 M. P. Mchedlov, “Religioznoe vozrozhdenie v Rossi: Prichiny, Dharakter, Tendentsii,” Obnovlenie Rossi: Trudnyi poisk reshchenii (Moscow: Toddidkii Nezavisimyi Institut Sotsial’nykh i Natsional’nykh Problem, 1992), 102-12; M. P. Mchedlov, “Novyi tipveruyuschego na poroge tret’ego tysyacheletiya,” Istoricheckii vestnik 9-10 (2000); M.P. Mchedlov, “Ob osobennostyakh mirovzreniya veruyuschikh v post-Sovetskoi Rossii,” Religiya i prava 1 (2002): 15-18; T. Varzanova, “Religioznoe vozrozhdenie i molodyozh,” in V. I. Dobrinina, T. N. Kychtevich, and S. V. Tumanov, eds. Kul’turnie miry molodykh Rossiyan: Tri zhiznennye situatsii (Moscow: Moscow State University, 2000), 167-91; T. Varzanova, “Religioznaya situatsiya v Rossii,” Russkaya mysl’ 4165 (1997).

5 Grace Davie, Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without Belonging (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994).

6 Inna Naletova, “Orthodoxy Beyond the Church Walls: A Sociological Inquiry into Orthodox Religious Experience in Contemporary Russian Society,” Ph.D. dissertation, Boston University, 2006.

Editor’s note: The conclusion of this article will be published in the next issue of the East-West Church and Ministry Report 18 (Winter 2010).

Christopher Marsh is director of the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, Baylor University, Waco, Texas.

Edited excerpts reprinted with permission from Christopher Marsh, “Russian Orthodox Christians and Their Orientation toward Church and State” in Perspectives on Church-State Relations in Russia, ed. by Wallace L. Daniel, Peter L. Berger, and Christopher Marsh (Waco, TX: J. M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies, Baylor University, 2008).

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Volume 17, No. 4

Christians in Central Asia

Sebastien Peyrouse

Editor’s note: The first portion of this article was published in the previous issue of the East-West Church & Ministry Report 17 (Summer 2009): 9-11.

The Islamic-Orthodox Alliance

Orthodox leaders have supported the efforts of Muslim clergy (ulema) to pressure Central Asian authorities to restrict missionary activity. The Orthodox Church finds itself in an ambiguous position insisting on religious freedom for itself, but complaining that post-Soviet states should not abide by any broader Western model of freedom of religion. Orthodoxy, not regretting the Soviet period, would prefer greater continuity, citing the Belarusian example of the state recognizing the Orthodox Church as the “national church.”1 Other Christian churches question whether an established faith would guarantee a country’s stability, contending that this is “only a myth that leads to inquisitions and monastery jails. Religious freedom is a right for anyone, for small and large denominations.”2

The current Orthodox Church in Central Asia considers itself the victim of Christian proselytism, Russian emigration, and people’s indifference to religion. Church leaders, despite their official apolitical stance, have turned to the authorities for support. Central Asian Archbishop Vladimir Ikim has met Central Asian state presidents several times and confirms good relations with all. Vladimir and Islamic muftis in Central Asia have not hidden their intention to put pressure on authorities in order to restrict religious freedom.3 Archbishop Vladimir’s virulent and denigrating attitude toward other Christian movements, echoed by high and low clergy, reflects a trend across the former USSR. Orthodox clerics in Central Asia have attacked the Catholic Church, claiming it has “always tried to seize the Orthodox Orient.”4 In 1998, Archbishop Antonii of the Uralsk and Gureev regions of Kazakhstan declared: “What can we think of a church that has systematically violated God’s law? The Pope, who has declared himself God’s substitute on Earth, who is he? The Antichrist!”5

Criticism against local missionary movements fills the pages of local Orthodox journals.6 A Kazakhstani journal defined Protestantism as a religion of “the aggressive bourgeois.”7 Orthodox writers attack Jehovah’s Witnesses as the most dangerous movement, which, among other things, would convert people using narcotics and hypnosis.8 Many articles explain how Orthodox Christians should confront missionaries, Jehovah’s Witnesses in particular.9 The leader of an Orthodox parish in Dushanbe condemned denominations for proselytizing with “a meal in one hand and a Bible in the other.”10

Orthodox and Muslim leaders agree that “in Central Asia and in Russia, there is a natural distribution of the sphere of influence between the two religions, Orthodoxy and Islam, and no one will destroy this harmony.”11 Leaders of each religion have agreed not to proselytize among nationalities traditionally belonging to the other religion and to fight all other proselytizing movements. Official inter-religious conferences and meetings between muftis and Orthodox hierarchy publicly confirm their mutual understanding.12

Below the level of central hierarchies, tensions simmer between church officials and believers of various Christian denominations. Lutheran pastors, for example, strongly criticize other Protestant denominations. One Lutheran cleric in Tashkent condemned “all the sects developing in the country.”13 Lutheran officials, expressing particular hostility toward Baptists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, criticize the activity of “foreign” missions and have been suspected of pressuring political authorities to place limits on Presbyterian, Pentecostal, and charismatic movements. Such hostility varies greatly from the ecumenism of Western Europe or North America; in Central Asia denominations at best ignore each other, but much more often label rivals as “sects,” at times collaborating with the government to ban these movements.

Legislative restrictions threaten to shutter many Christian denominations, which rarely consist of more than 20 believers in villages and 50 to 70 believers in small-to- middle-size cities of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Laws against proselytism have endangered movements of religious officials, even those of the more established religions.

In Turkmenistan most Protestant communities have been refused registration while Orthodox parishes, which rarely consist of more then 50 people, are allowed to maintain their religious activity. In Uzbekistan any denomination suspected of proselytism – or at least too visible proselytism – is denied registration, regardless of the number of signatures collected.

Believers of primarily Protestant denominations are forced to celebrate services in homes, even though conducting religious activities in private is forbidden. State authorities also consider the distribution of religious literature in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan as proselytism. These Central Asian republics have banned so-called “foreign” Christian denominations from importing religious books of any kind written in local languages. Authorities do not hesitate to seize Christian material in homes or even in registered religious buildings.

In addition to legislative restrictions, many believers, especially Protestants, undergo unofficial pressures from authorities. These pressures show a real continuity with Soviet anti-religious practices, varying from subjective interpretations of law to police raids during services, temporary illegal internments, and psychological pressure. Registration formalities continue to be the main form of pressure exercised by authorities upon believers and their leaders. State authorities ignore legislation in their refusal to register Christian groups. Special efforts to deny registration to Christians are concentrated on “foreign” proselytizing movements such as Presbyterians, charismatics, or Jehovah’s Witnesses. Several groups have been refused registration on the basis that their leader is a foreigner. In recent years, some legally registered churches have also been suppressed.

Conclusion

As in the Soviet era, Central Asian states fear the influence of religion. Secularism has become a way to face not only “foreign” Christianity but Islam, a force that could lead to a questioning of the elite’s acquired privileges, which could then threaten their political power. Leaders mistreat known religious movements by means of a combination of nitpicking, arbitrariness, extra-legal measures, and everyday administrative humiliations. By way of contrast, the Orthodox Church has been able to gain status as a type of “official” religion for Russians, whom Central Asian leaders want to see remain in their republics.

In all Central Asian republics today official secularism excludes any reference to the Quran or sharia and officially grants Christianity, especially Orthodoxy, the same rights as Islam. Discrimination against several Protestant movements – such as Baptists, Seventh-day Adventists, and Pentecostals – as well as, at times, the Catholic Church and even non-Christian Baha’i and Hare Krishna, result more from general restrictions on freedom and national considerations rather than religious ones. The situation of Christians in Central Asia resembles the situation in Belarus or Russia, where Orthodox believers meet no real difficulties, but repression of other Christian groups significantly affects the everyday life of believers, who in some cases are not even able to celebrate regular services. These difficulties stem primarily from the fact that these groups are considered “foreign denominations” imported from Western countries. As such, political authorities and the hierarchs of so-called traditional religions view them as a threat to internal security and stability.14 F

Notes

1 “V. Belorussii zapreshena deiatel’nost’ obshchestva soznaniia Krishny,” Svet pravoslaviia v Kazahstane No. 5 (1999), 16-17.

2 Blagovestnik. Gazeta i uzhnoi konferentsii tserkvi khristian-adventistov sed’mogo dnia, March, 1996, 3.

3 Slovo Kyrgyzstana, 1 October 1994; Alisheva, “Multiconfessional Kyrgyzstan.”

4 Vedi 17 (No. 3, 1998), 2-8.

5 Ibid., 5.

6 E. Luzanova, “Religious Renaissance or Political Game?,” Central Asian Post, 23 March 1998, 4.

7 “Protestantizm kak religiia agressivnogo burzhua: ekskurs v istoriiu,” Svet pravoslaviia v Kazahstane No. 6 (1997), 12-14.

8 Slobo zhizni No. 9 (19 December 1995), 3.

9 See, for example, “Svideteli Iegovy, i kak k nim otnosit’sia pravoslavnym khristianam,” Vedi, non-dated and non-numbered, 26.

10 Interview with the leader of the Orthodox parish in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, October 2000.

11 I. Botasheva and V. Lebedev, “Krestonostsy kontsa XX veka,” Kazakhstanskaia Pravda, 2 April 1996.

12 Svet pravoslaviia v Kazahstane No. 1 (1993), 8.

13 Author interview with a Protestant pastor, 1999.

14 Sebastien Peyrouse, ed., Gestion de l’indépendance et legs soviétique en Asie centrale, Cahiers d’Asie centrale Nos. 13-14 (Aix-en-Provence: Edisud, 2004).

Edited excerpts reprinted with permission from Sebastien Peyrouse, “Christians as the Main Religious Minority in Central Asia” in Everyday Life in Central Asia, Past and Present edited by Jeff Sahadeo and Russell Zanca (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007), 371-83.

Sebastien Peyrouse is senior research fellow, the Central Asia and Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, and an associate scholar at the Institute for International and Strategic Research, Paris, France.

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Volume 17, No. 4

News Note

The Association for the Study of Eastern Christian History and Culture (ASEC) is an academic organization founded in 2003 by professors of Russian history and literature who wished to expand their knowledge of various Eastern Christian cultures broadly conceived. ASEC biennial conferences at Ohio State University (October 2005; October 2007; October 2009) have included historical, theological, literary, linguistic, cultural, and anthropological investigations of Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian Eastern Christian churches. ASEC is an affiliate of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies.

The theme of the 2007 conference was “Centers and Peripheries: Interaction and Exchange in the Social, Cultural, Historical, and Regional Situations of Eastern Christianity.” In 2009 the ASEC meeting addressed “Reform Movements in Eastern Christianity: Renewal, Heresy, and Compromise.” The keynote address for the 2009 conference was “Southern Challenges to Eastern Christianity: New Pressures for Reform in Contemporary Ukraine,” given by Catherine Wanner (Penn State University), author of Communities of the Converted: Ukrainians and Global Evangelism (Cornell University Press, 2008).

Membership is open to persons without regard to confessional affiliation who are enrolled in, or have completed, a master’s program or higher academic degree. Annual membership fees are $25 ($10 for graduate students and retirees). Officers are president: Jennifer B. Spock, Eastern Kentucky University, Richmond, KY, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; secretary: Christine D. Worobec, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; treasurer: Lucien Frary, Rider University, Lawrenceville, NJ, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.; and newsletter editor: John-Paul Himka, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The next ASEC conference is scheduled for October 2011 at Ohio State University, Columbus, OH.