Laying down the law

When a judge in the Siberian town of Aldan ruled two weeks ago that a local Pentecostal church violated Russian law because its members refused medical care, it was not the first time "faith healing" had been condemned under a democratic legal system. But the court went further. It said the church group also broke the law by teaching children at home. That kind of syncopated crackdown against many religious groups is becoming a pattern across Russia, as a 15-month-old law that restricts the activities of many Christian denominations starts to bite. In February, 400 Pentecostals from the eastern port city of Magadan applied for asylum in the United States, claiming they are being harassed by local officials. Their church, established in 1982 after years of operating underground, has suffered repression reminiscent of anti-religious campaigns of the Soviet era, members told U.S. diplomats. Last June a local prosecutor opened the case against Word of Life Pentecostalist Church, accusing pastors of hypnotizing members in order to get donations. Two months later the city's mayor granted permission to the local chapter of the neo-fascist Russian National Unity party to rally outside the church during Sunday services. In December and January, tax police raided church offices in the middle of the night to confiscate files. Members were called in for questioning by security officials and threatened with loss of their jobs. "For a long time, we believers waited for freedom in Russia," said assistant pastor Alexander Vasilyenko, in Moscow to deliver the asylum applications. "But in a lot of ways, that freedom has turned out to be imaginary." In a forthcoming report from the Keston Institute, Russian experts say 69 incidents of harassment, restriction, or threats against non-Orthodox religious entities have been documented since a 1997 law against religious minorities took effect. The law recognizes the Russian Orthodox Church as the country's dominant religion. While pledging respect to Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism, the statute restricts minority Christian denominations in many ways. They must prove they have been present in Russia for at least 15 years in order to gain full legal status. Uneven enforcement is now giving way to erratic but swift, Soviet-style repression of some Bible-believing groups. The London-based journal acknowledges that its accounting of the harassment may be inconclusive. But the demographics of discrimination are revealing. Of the 69 reported incidents: