I. ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS CONTROVERSIAL IN RUSSIA II. EUROPEAN COURT TO REVIEW RUSSIA'S TREATMENT OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESS III. MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE TO DISTRIBUTE U.S. FOOD SHIPMENTS Wednesday 9 February ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS CONTROVERSIAL IN RUSSIA by Tatyana Titova, Keston News Service Many people believe that alcoholism is Russia's national disease. Specialists in alcohol and drug addiction estimate that some 20 million Russians are currently sufferers. It is therefore not surprising that Russian newspapers are full of advertisements offering help in breaking off hard drinking by various methods, even including psychological 'kodirovaniye' (hypnosis). It has long been believed that this illness can be treated by medical or psychological means. But Russians' growing interest in the spiritual has seen new approaches to addiction - seeing it as a violation of an individual's spiritual integrity. Among the new methods and new movements is Alcoholics Anonymous, one of whose principles is the recognition that an individual cannot make a full recovery by his own strength and must call on higher forces for help. TERRY WEBB reported in her book �Tree of Renewed Life� (which has recently appeared in Russian) that the first AA groups in the former Soviet Union were organised in Kiev and Moscow in April 1986. The founders, former alcoholics and members of the group `Create a Sober World', were then on a visit to the Soviet Union. Parallel to this were several other groups and individuals working in the USSR, including an Episcopalian priest from New York who opened Moscow's first AA group in the mid-1980s. All of these individuals met government officials and doctors both publicly and privately, and managed to gain official approval of the new method from the Soviet authorities. They also visited clinics and drug treatment centres, teaching their new methods to whomever was interested. KONSTANTIN, a member of the General Service Board (the highest body) of Alcoholics Anonymous, told Keston: `The Russian branch of AA is simply one part of the world-wide AA organisation, which has two and a half million members in 150 countries. There are now some 200 groups in Russia in 80 towns, including 30 groups in Moscow. Of these two are English-speaking, one is Finnish-speaking and one German-speaking. We have one goal - to remain sober ourselves and to help others. In accordance with our tradition, nothing has to be organised, the people decide everything themselves. But we can create services which would be difficult for an individual group in order to promote our ideas and to serve the groups. We have two paid employees, a treasurer and a secretary. Last year we began to publish AA literature which we receive from the General Service Office in New York. Using our own resources, we are also beginning to raise money to publish our own translations. We are not connected with any organisation, foundation or religious body. In accordance with our tradition we are forbidden to collect money from outsiders - we are only allowed to pass round the hat among ourselves to cover the rental of the premises and the traditional tea. Several years ago the Ministry of Health issued an official document recognising us and approving our activity, which makes it fairly easy for us to rent premises or have meetings free of charge in drug treatment centres. As for the statistics of recovery, these are high - up to 50 per cent of those who have come to us.' Asked about AA's relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church, KONSTANTIN told Keston: `We have some groups which are exclusively Orthodox groups and even a section on cooperation with the Orthodox Church. Many priests cooperate with us, though there are no official contacts with the leadership. In the past year I have myself helped organise an AA group in one church where the priest had seen two of his brothers die of alcoholism. It is true that the most conservative part of the ROC does not recognise us and considers us heretics. It is easier with the Protestants - they recognise that the Church alone is not enough to be sober, just as we recognise that AA groups are not enough either, that we need a higher force. I do not go to a religious group, but if someone needs this - by all means! Our movement helps Christians, Muslims, everyone.' In addition to Russia's official branch of AA's International Association there are other organisations in the country which have drawn up treatment programmes based on the `twelve step' method, combining the practice of a therapeutic community with the services of psychologists, doctors and other specialists. (Strictly speaking, these organisations are violating the `third tradition of AA' by adding a new requirement: that members must be patients of the specific given programme, not just members of the AA movement who have expressed a desire to stop drinking.) One interesting example is the Christian social and charitable foundation `Old World', founded by YEVGENI PROTSENKO, a graduate of the psychology faculty of Moscow State University. Having accepted baptism in the Orthodox Church in 1983, Mr Protsenko took up work as a psychologist in a drug treatment centre. It was here that he first encountered the despair of people unable to break their dependency on alcohol and drugs. In 1988 he came into contact with AA groups based on the twelve-step method and was struck by their closeness to the Christian world-view. Mr Protsenko soon became one of the first specialists invited by the American International Institute for the Study of Problems of Alcoholism for training in the United States. There he gained a deep knowledge of the widely used 'Minnesota model' of treating dependency, which combines the principles of the twelve-step programme with the latest discoveries in psychology, medicine, sociology and other sciences. As a result, after his return to Russia, the Old World rehabilitation programme was established in 1992 in a district treatment centre. In 1995 it lost its state funding because of its lack of commercial prospects, and was reorganised as a Christian social and charitable foundation. `Our programme represents a Christian adaptation to Russian social conditions of the experience gained by the Alcoholics Anonymous movement,' Mr Protsenko told Keston. 'Its name - Old World - is designed to show that the programme is not a novelty from America, but a reflection of the centuries-old Christian (and in particular, Orthodox) tradition. The essence of our method lies in the awakening of a deep process of repentance in the sick person, during which he is provided with special spiritual and psychological help in correcting the deformation of his personality associated with biological dependency on alcohol and drugs. Our programme has proved to be highly effective in rehabilitating alcoholics - 70 per cent of people who have been in the programme for more than three months have stable remission lasting more than one year. Among those who complete the full programme the figure rises to 86 per cent. More than 150 people have taken part in the programme throughout its entire existence, with many of them attaining a firm, conscious sobriety. The majority of those who came into the programme as atheists or agnostics have become churchgoers. Catholics and Orthodox are working together in the foundation. For the past six years the Catholic priest Father SERGEI NIKOLENKO has been cooperating with us. Among the Orthodox priests I could name Father YEVGENI GERING, who works with the patients.' Father Gering is priest of the Church of the Protecting Veil in the village of Yerino in the Podolsk district of the Moscow oblast (the province which surrounds Moscow but does not include the city itself). As he wrote in the September 1998 issue of the Information Bulletin of the Department of External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, `in September 1995, with the blessing of METROPOLITAN YUVENALI of Krutitsy and Kolomna, our parish began to help people suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction. At the basis of our attitude to alcoholism and drug addiction lay the centuries-long experience of the Orthodox Church's attitude to sin in general and the practical work of groups and rehabilitation centres based on the spiritually-oriented programme of the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.' Father Gering lists the `essential' elements of his programmes as `introductory talks about Orthodoxy, giving the most general introduction to God, Man, the world and the Church to people who have just broken free from a state of hard drinking; in addition, the full-scale catechising of alcoholics who have already indicated firmly their adherence to the Orthodox Church.' Although AA deliberately avoids defining the higher force (it adds: `as we understand it'), this remains a controversial issue. There are some - including Father Nikolenko and Father Gering - who believe that the movement tends towards Christianity. The two priests also believe that joining an AA group is a necessary step to bring an alcoholic back to the Church. However, not all priests are as well-disposed towards the movement. Father KONSTANTIN OSTROVSKY, dean of Krasnogorsk near Moscow, told Keston: `I have attended group meetings several times and consider the experience very useful. This method is not hostile to the Church and an Orthodox Christian can take part, but there are factors that should worry any Christian. In order not to say anything that is unsubstantiated, I will quote you: "I entrust myself to God as I understand him" - for the Orthodox this is a question of principle. It is not that people of various faiths get together in these groups, but that a Christian can only be a member of the Church and everyone has a different understanding of the Church. The indiscriminate blending of different religions is the very worst thing one can imagine. Inasmuch as Alcoholics Anonymous has become a religious movement, this frightens Orthodox people; my Orthodox acquaintances believe that they are going against their own conscience.' Asked whether it is possible to form a purely Orthodox AA group, Father Ostrovsky replied: `People told us that when someone entered AA they had to abide by the general rules which oblige everyone to attend all meetings, and whoever goes just to an Orthodox group would be a stranger in other groups.' Father Ostrovsky added: `For people who find them helpful, it's not the sort of organisation that destroys a person. However, if a person spent 90 days in a church it would indicate a very strong motivation. You see AA has such a high percentage of recovery because they calculate only from those who have been attending for three months. We also have people who have recovered, just coming to church without attending any group. By the way, I am also not as strongly opposed to more brutal methods like injections. Of course, they do nothing on a spiritual level and do not teach you how to struggle against yourself, but if they last for one year, that's good in itself.' YURI SAVENKO, the president of the Association of Independent Psychiatrists, gave Keston his view of how successful the AA programme has been in Russia. `Alcoholics Anonymous is a highly valuable movement for us. It has not achieved as much in Russia as in other countries, mainly as it's a religious movement and here the Moscow Patriarchate is very jealous of other movements. Likewise it is hampered by the absence of religious soil in our country, it is perceived more as a fad. The Moscow Patriarchate itself had no experience in such work and only in recent years have some Russian- American conferences been held which have resulted in the establishment of rehabilitation centres, as for example in Moscow's Botkin hospital (one of the capital's biggest) or attached to several churches. But this is just a drop in the ocean.' (END) Wednesday 9 February EUROPEAN COURT TO REVIEW RUSSIA'S TREATMENT OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESS by Tatyana Titova, Keston News Service The Jehovah's Witnesses are facing a new hearing scheduled to begin on 9 February in the long-running legal case against their Moscow community brought by an `anti-cult' committee. The previous court session in this case was postponed because of the absence of factual proof of violations of the law by the Jehovah's Witness community. Keston News Service asked ALEKSEI NAZARYCHEV, a member of the headquarters of the Jehovah's Witnesses, to comment on the forthcoming trial. `I have seen the new legal documents', he said, 'and the prosecution has removed all alleged "factual" accusations, leaving only accusations based on our literature.' The Jehovah's Witnesses' lawyer ARTUR LEONTYEV told Keston what he believed to be the aims of the `anti-cult' committees in their cases against the Jehovah's Witnesses. `The Committee for the Salvation of Youth has long persecuted the Jehovah's Witnesses and has prepared cases on which it could exert influence in future. This has happened here in the accusation filed by the procuracy, but in fact wholly prepared by the Committee.' In another potentially ground-breaking legal development involving the Jehovah's Witnesses, the European Court has agreed to review a Russian court's decision which deprived a Russian woman of the right to bring up her child solely on the basis of the fact that she is a Jehovah's Witness (European Court Case Number 45665/99). The mother's appeal to the European Court became possible after Russia's May 1998 ratification of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which now gives every Russian citizen the right to seek protection from the European Court of Human Rights. NATALIYA NIKISHINA joined the Jehovah's Witnesses in 1997 when her son was six. In 1998 the boy's father (who is not married to Nikishina) kidnapped him and appealed to the courts to grant him custody. In each of the three subsequent hearings by a local court in Lyubertsy, just southeast of Moscow, the Anti-Cult Committee for the Salvation of Youth took part on the side of the father. In all three hearings the court's rulings directly cited the religious convictions of the mother. Nikishina reported that the judge NATALIYA SHERSTNYAKOVA told her at one hearing: "If you, Nikishina, love your child, renounce your religious convictions!" Spokesmen for the Jehovah's Witnesses have likened such statements to the policies of Nazi Germany, which forced members of that confession to renounce either their faith or their children. The head of the Moscow Helsinki Committee, LYUDMILA ALEKSEYEVA, told Keston: `I studied the rulings of the courts in the suits of Nataliya and the father of the child and it is clear to me that the judges reached their decision precisely on the basis of one fact - that Nataliya is a Jehovah's Witness - despite other indications testifying that Nataliya is a good mother.' Lyudmila Alekseyeva, a human rights activist with thirty years' experience, said that the court decision flagrantly violates the Russian Constitution and Russian laws affirming the legal equality of all religions. She told Keston that this is not an isolated instance and that court decisions routinely violate the Constitution. `We maintain contact with thousands of regional human rights organisations. They all report that despite good national laws, the rights that these laws guarantee are observed neither by the executive bodies (from the president down to the lowest official), nor by the legislative bodies (for example, the adoption of the law on freedom of conscience in 1997), nor by the courts. This is a most serious problem for our citizens. During the Soviet period the reason given for such violations was the defence of the interests of the state, while now it is the prejudices which we and the judges have inherited from Soviet society. In this connection it is very important that Russia has entered the Council of Europe and that we can resolve such problems in the European Court. We have respect for the European Court - as not for our own courts - since its rulings are made on the basis of the law.' The Jehovah's Witnesses' lawyer, Leontyev, believes that the Nikishina case will be resolved positively. The European Court has already heard a similar case - that of the Austrian citizen INGRID HOFMAN, also a Jehovah's Witness. The Austrian Supreme Court ruled in 1986 that Frau Hofman should be deprived of parental rights and that custody of her children should be granted to their father; the Austrian court citd a 1921 law which declared: `Neither parent has the right without permission of the other to decide that a child shall in future be brought up in accordance with the principles of a faith different to those to which the parents adhered in their marriage'. Frau Hofman took her case to the European Court, which reviewed it in June of 1993. The European Court ruled that in its decision against Frau Hofman, the Austrian Supreme Court had violated Article 8 of the European Convention, which guarantees the right of an individual to respect for his or her personal and family life. The European Court annulled the Austrian court's decision. It is on the basis of this precedent that Leontyev is hoping for a similar but speedier ruling. (END) Wednesday 9 February MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE TO DISTRIBUTE U.S. FOOD SHIPMENTS By Lawrence A. Uzzell and Roman Lunkin, Keston News Service Two private charitable organisations confirmed in conversations with Keston News Service that they plan to use the Moscow Patriarchate as a partner in distributing food shipments provided by the United States Department of Agriculture. As of 4 February, International Orthodox Christian Charities expected to sign an agreement with the U.S. agency within a few days, while Feed the Children had already done so. A source at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow told Keston that the two organisations were among five which American officials had selected from 47 applicants. He said that the organisations had informed the department in advance that the Patriarchate would be one of their partners in distributing the American food shipments. The source said that he could not state precisely how much would go to the Patriarchate, but that it would be a relatively small part of the 'extraordinary volume' of $625 million in food and credits on which the embassy agreed with Russian authorities in late December. VANESSA HORTON of Feed the Children�s Moscow office told Keston that her group expected to receive some 8,000 tonnes of American soybeans under the agreement, which it would deliver not only to Orthodox monasteries but also to secular institutions such as hospitals and orphanages. Feed the Children now has agreements not with the Patriarchate as a whole but with individual monasteries, including the Danilov Monastery in Moscow and the Sergiyev Posad lavra about 50 miles north-east of the capital, said Vanessa Horton. The new grant will enable her organisation to expand its programme to include other monasteries in provincial centres such as Nizhni Novgorod. She said that she and her colleagues were also negotiating with a Roman Catholic charity which might be included in the food programme. GEORGE ANTOUN of International Orthodox Christian Charities confirmed that his organisation had still not signed a final agreement with the U.S. agriculture officials, but expected to do so shortly. He told Keston that his organisation already had an existing agreement with the department of charity at the Moscow Patriarchate's national headquarters, with which it works in 'partnership'. In a 5 February interview, ANDREI KRAVCHENKO of the Moscow Patriarchate's department for charitable activities told Keston News Service that originally the new food-aid programme had been expected to begin on 1 March, but discussions with the US embassy in Moscow were still underway. He said that the necessary agreements with grantees such as International Orthodox Christian Charities would be finalised by mid-February. In order to provide safeguards against possible fraud, the embassy source said that U.S. officials would work closely with the Russian government's newly reconstituted commission on humanitarian aid. Several representatives of the Department of Agriculture would visit Russia solely in order to monitor the programme, he said. He also told Keston that journalists would be allowed to observe distribution of the food shipments, which were expected to arrive in Russia at the end of March or later. (END)