I. RUSSIAN STATE INSTITUTIONS QUIETLY COLLABORATE WITH CONTROVERSIAL RERIKH MOVEMENT II. KAZAKHSTAN SEEKS TO INCREASE LEGISLATIVE CONTROLS ON RELIGION Wednesday 10 February RUSSIAN STATE INSTITUTIONS QUIETLY COLLABORATE WITH CONTROVERSIAL RERIKH MOVEMENT by Roman Lunkin, Keston News Service Russia's 1997 law restoring state control over religious life was ostensibly supposed to protect Russia's traditional faiths against novel, alien spiritual movements - the so-called 'cults'. But at least one movement which many Russians consider to be an exotic new religion has continued to flourish under the law, cooperating with state institutions in ways that have not been possible for traditional confessions such as the Old Believers. Teachers from Moscow and many other Russian cities have recently begun to receive instruction in seminars conducted by the International Rerikh Centre, founded in Moscow in 1991. The Centre propagates the ideas of Russian artist NIKOLAI RERIKH and his wife YELENA, who lived in Russia in the early 1900s before emigrating to India. Their teaching is based on theosophy, Buddhism and Christianity, and is set out in a book by Yelena Rerikh called 'Living Ethics'. In today's Russia this teaching is called Rerikhism (rerikhanstvo). According to IGOR FILATEV, secretary of the Association of Teachers of Culture at the Rerikh Centre, the Centre holds international conferences and lectures for teachers in schools and institutions of higher education on the general theme 'Man on the Threshold of a New World'. In an interview with the Keston News Service the acting head of the Rerikh Centre, LYUDMILA SHAPOSHNIKOVA, denied that the Centre's activities in Russia had any religious basis and insisted that the only person to call her group a religion or sect was anti-cult deacon ANDREI KURAYEV. 'We only study culture, the paintings of Nikolai Rerikh and philosophy', she said. But she also maintained that in the future the whole world would adopt the philosophy of 'Living Ethics', for it provided the only salvation for mankind. Nikolai and Yelena Rerikh took the basic elements of their teaching from Hinduism and Buddhism. From the first of these cosmogonies they took the concept of the cyclical development of the world, from the second the concept of nirvana, where a person arrives after achieving perfection. Many other concepts common to both Hinduism and Buddhism were borrowed, such as reincarnation, the `Mahatmas of the World' (the teachers who would lead humanity), the perception of God as the impersonal Supreme Beginning and Absolute, and the existence of a firm hierarchy of teachers and pupils. According to the teaching of Agni Yoga, the cosmos and the universe represent a psycho-energetic system, while a person is a particle of psychic energy. One particular feature is that Rerikh treats the concept of culture in the same way as the divine being: `Culture is respect for the World. Culture is love for humanity: culture is salvation: culture is immortal.' Nikolai Rerikh�s interest in mysticism seemed to grow after the Bolsheviks took over Russia in 1917; toward the end of his life he wrote that `Whoever knows the holy foundations of Culture appreciates the one great Light'. Deacon Kurayev and other opponents of the Rerikh movement contend that such formulations are clearly religious. MAYA BEKRITSKAYA, head of the education department at the Rerikh Centre, told Keston that instruction in the department's seminars is based on 'Living Ethics': 'The whole concept of culture can be found in the spiritual legacy of the Rerikhs'. She said that the Centre holds conferences for schoolteachers not only in Moscow but throughout Russia: in 1999, for example, conferences will be held both in Pskov and in St Petersburg, where participants will be able to visit Nikolai Rerikh's estate in nearby Izvar. SHALVA AMONASHVILI, an academic from the Russian Academy of Education who has been studying the basis of the method of 'humane pedagogy' contained in 'Living Ethics', is actively involved in the study of teacher-training programmes. Bekritskaya told Keston that the Centre works together with the Ministry of Education, but no one at the ministry was able to confirm whether or not there really are joint programmes with the Rerikh Centre. Keston also spoke with KLARA MANSUROVA, executive director of the League for the Defence of Culture, which was founded in 1996 in association with the International Rerikh Centre and promotes the Rerikhs' ideas in a general cultural context through open lectures, particularly for teachers. She said that it was of course prohibited to promote the philosophy of 'Living Ethics' openly, but that the ideas of the Rerikhs, 'Living Ethics' and the nineteenth-century theosophist YELENA BLAVATSKY would nevertheless be subtly and gradually advanced in the seminars. Like the officials at the Ministry of Education, the head of the Russian Ministry of Culture's section on museums, VERA LEBEDEVA, maintained that her ministry has no formal joint programmes with the Rerikh Centre. A ministerial department had offered to organise joint projects, she said, but the Centre had refused. At the Ministry of Education the Keston representative was referred to the State Academy for Advanced Teaching Qualifications. The pro- rector for science and international affairs at the Academy, IRINA CHECHEL, said that there were no formal programmes with the Centre, which is an independent organisation: 'The Centre holds its own independent seminars and sometimes followers of Rerikh participate in the Academy's activities.' Chechel noted that Shalva Amonashvili is formally employed as a teacher at the Academy and bases his teaching on 'Living Ethics'. She concluded that the Academy and the Rerikh Centre had different aims: 'We have state-funded courses but theirs are fee-paying; their main concern is to get more money'. In an interview with Keston, Deacon Andrei Kurayev stated that there is no official agreement between the Rerikh Centre and the Ministry of Education, but that there are joint projects with the Moscow Department of Education. Kurayev maintained that there are also state schools that use the Rerikh movement's methods. Deacon Andrei's assistant MIKHAIL PERSHIN told Keston that most joint activities between Rerikh's followers and the authorities had taken place in the period 1993-95. On 5 September 1996, he said, the Ministry of Education recommended the Rerikh journal 'School of Spirituality' as a teaching aid. VALERI MURASHOV, who bases his lectures on Rerikh's teachings and is chief editor of 'School of Spirituality', is currently teaching at the Academy for Advanced Teaching Qualifications, said Pershin. In his view, Moscow education officials are now trying to distance themselves from formal links with Rerikh's followers. The Keston representative then visited the Moscow Department of Education for more information. LYUBOV KEZINA said that there are no joint projects or journals, at least not at present. Her colleague ALEKSEI SOLOVYOV said that he had not heard of any contacts with the Department of Education, or of teaching of Rerikhism in schools. He said that subdivisions of the education committee in Moscow's regions might have various forms of personal or official contact with the Rerikh Centre, but that he was not aware of any. He did confirm that there had been a letter of recommendation from the Ministry of Education concerning the journal �School of Spirituality', but that a year aago, soon after the letter wa sent, the Moscow Department of Education refused to acknowledge the recommendation and warned Moscow's departments for teaching methods about the danger of using such teaching aids. Solovyov said that the only matter of concern for the Department was the activities of Valeri Murashov in the Academy for Advanced Teaching Qualifications, where a Rerikh-style Institute of Integral Pedagogy had been established. Keston then contacted NADEZHDA GRIGOREVNA, head of the Institute of Integral Pedagogy's public relations department. She confirmed that the Institute organises fee-paying courses for teachers and promotes the philosophy of 'Living Ethics'. She said that the journal 'School of Spirituality' is published at the Institute. The Institute is headed by Valeri Murashov, who no longer works at the Academy for Advanced Teaching Qualifications. However, the Academy leases its premises to the Institute. Moreover, with the assistance of the Academy, at which all Moscow teachers are obliged to undergo retraining, Murashov's Institute received a licence from the Ministry of Education granting it the right to give courses leading to advanced teaching qualifications. Thus, though there are as yet no official links between the Rerikh Centre and state structures, they in fact collaborate broadly on an informal basis to attract growing numbers of teachers throughout Russia. The Centre has numerous divisions in almost every city in Russia: in cities such as Kazan and Ulyanovsk Keston has found that they enjoy favoured treatment by the secular authorities. Writings of the Rerikh movement record an interesting fact from the lives of Nikolai and Yelena Rerikh. In 1925 the couple met members of the Soviet government in Moscow and handed them what they themselves said was a letter from the `mahatmas' or teachers from India. Addressed to the Bolsheviks, the letter declared: `In the Himalayas we know what you have achieved. You abolished the church, which had become a hotbed of lies and superstition. You annihilated the petty bourgeoisie, which had become the bearer of prejudices. You destroyed the prison of upbringing. You destroyed the seed of hypocrisy. You recognised that religion is the teaching of comprehensive matter: we recognise the timeliness of your movement.' The `mahatmas' (in the form of the Rerikhs) also sent a casket of holy Himalayan soil on which had been written: `for the grave of our brother, Mahatma Lenin'. (END) Wednesday 10 February KAZAKHSTAN SEEKS TO INCREASE LEGISLATIVE CONTROLS ON RELIGION by Felix Corley, Keston News Service Kazakhstan is the latest former Soviet republic to seek to amend earlier legislation on religion to increase state control. A draft bill amending the Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations of 15 January 1992 has been drawn up by Kazakhstan's Ministry of Information and Social Accord. The draft obtained by Keston Institute is in Russian and runs to five pages, and was prepared by S. AMIRGAZIN, apparently last December. The new draft introduces a range of provisions that could adversely affect religious freedom in Kazakhstan, as differences of interpretation of vaguely-worded articles would allow state officials wide and arbitrary powers of intervention. Provisions requiring religious groups to have existed for ten years in a given locality before being allowed to gain legal status and to present a long list of documents to gain registration might lead to unfair denial of legal status to religious groups. Drawing up the range of documents will also be costly for religious groups which may lack the legal expertise, thus subjecting them to possible denial of registration on technical grounds. Moreover, many new provisions introduced in the new draft seem targeted at minority religious communities, designed to prevent them from having the opportunity to gain legal status at all. The `explanatory note' that heads the draft text outlines what the Ministry believes is the need to update the law. `At the present time the activisation of numerous non-traditional religious associations is significantly aggravating the religious situation in the Republic of Kazakhstan and arouses friction and conflict between different confessions and demands an urgent legislative resolution.' The need to bring the 1992 law into line with the 1995 Kazakh constitution and other more recent legislation is also mentioned. `The general thrust of the amendments and additions is directed at strengthening the control functions of the state and the regulation of the activity of non-traditional religious associations arousing the greatest concern on the part of local organs of power.' The Note describes the draft bill as allowing `the overcoming of interconfessional conflicts and the coordination of questions of mutual relations between the state and religious associations'. The Note specifically declares that the draft takes into account the experience of the recently adopted amendments to Russia's law on freedom of conscience and religious organisations, as well as the views of `regional administrations of social accord' and leaders of different religious groups. The new draft in Articles 1 and 9 defines far more closely the terms used in the text, such as `confession', `religion' and `freedom of religious confession' (`a necessary and inalienable element of freedom of conscience'). It defines `missionary activity' as `activity with the aim of preaching and dissemination of any religious teaching by means of religious/educational, charitable or other activity; the dissemination of religious teaching among believers of other faiths of one's own country or of other countries'. In one of the most crucial areas of relations between religious groups and the state, the registration of religious associations, the new draft retains the 1992 requirement for at least ten adult citizens to form a local religious association. However, to gain official registration with the `appropriate executive organ of power' (the local administration), local religious associations would now need, under Article 11, to present a registration application, a list of those who have formed the association, including details on their citizenship, address and date of birth, the statute of the religious association, the minutes of the founding meeting, a document issued by the local administration confirming that the religious organisation has existed on the given territory for at least ten years, a report on the bases of the association's religious teaching and practice, including the history of how the religion developed and the history of the individual association, and a report on the forms and methods of its activity, its attitude to the family and marriage, to education, and on the details of its attitude to the health of its followers. The 1992 version of the law contained no such list of documents required for registration, indicating insttead that the statute would b sufficient. The new draft makes more specific the grounds for the registering organ to refuse registration. The 1992 law stated: `The basis for a refusal can only be the non-compliance of the statute (charter) with the legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan.' The new draft in Article 12 allows denial of registration if the `aims and activity' of a religious association violate the Constitution or other laws, if the association is not recognised as religious, or if the statute and other documentation presented do not accord with the demands of legislation or contain untrue information. The 1992 law gave two grounds for the halting of a religious association's activity: if the association winds itself up, or if a court rules that the association has violated is own statute or current legislation. The new draft spells out in Article 13 the `bases for halting and banning the activity of religious associations in accordance with legal process': violating public security and order, activities aimed at overthrowing the constitutional order or breaking up the country, creating armed formations, inciting ethnic or religious hatred, forcible breaking up of families, infringement of the person, rights and freedoms of citizens, harming morals or the health of citizens, including by the use of narcotics or hypnosis, encouraging suicide or refusal of medical treatment to those in a critical state of health, obstructing the provision of education, forcing adherents or others to hand over their property to the religious association, threatening those who leave a religious association, and encouraging citizens to refuse legal obligations. The procuracy, the registering organ or the local administration have the right to bring to court an application to wind up a religious association. In the 1992 law, religious rites could be conducted outside religious premises in accordance with the law on meetings, demonstrations and processions. Article 14 of the new draft requires such religious rites to have prior approval from the local administration. The new draft in Article 15 continues the restrictions on religious publishing contained in the 1992 law, that specifies that religious associations have the exclusive right to set up publishing houses for religious literature and factories to make religious objects. Other firms may produce such materials only on the instruction of religious associations and religious headquarters. However, the new draft cuts a clause of the 1992 law which spelled out religious associations' right to `publish, produce, export, import, and distribute objects of religious significance, divine service books and other informational materials of religious content'. In one of the most contentious areas of religious activity - missionary activity by foreign organisations - the new draft introduces a completely new article wholly absent from the 1992 law. The new article (Article 6) requires that foreign citizens who have come to Kazakhstan legally to conduct missionary activity obtain accreditation from local administrations. The Article adds: `Unilateral religious/missionary, publishing, and advertising/propagandistic activity by foreign organisations on the territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan is banned.' Also banned is the spread of ideas rejecting the constitutional set-up of Kazakhstan or inciting interethnic or interreligious conflict. The provisions on education have been subtly amended. The new draft repeats the guarantee in the 1992 law that parents may bring up their children in accordance with their own convictions, provided that no coercion is used. However, Article 7 of the new draft adds a provision that `the practice of a religion or convictions in which a child is being brought up must not bring harm either to his physical or moral health, or to his full development.' The same article also adds a new provision that religious education generally must take place `in a spirit of understanding, tolerance and respect for the freedom of religion or conviction of other people'. The new article also deletes a clause in the equivalent article of the previous law granting fulltime students at religious colleges the same tax and military service exemptions as students at state-run colleges. Kazakhstan is a divided nation, both ethnically and religiously, with Kazakhs of Muslim background and Slavs of Christian background. The emphasis in the new draft preventing interethnic and interreligious conflict and promoting an atmosphere of tolerance is clear. This lies behind a number of the amendments. However, a disturbing number seem to regard religious groups as potentially violent and harmful. Although neither the 1992 law nor the new draft specifically declare unregistered religious activity illegal, it is unclear how the authorities will treat religious groups that do not have registration but which have not specifically been banned by a court. Nevertheless, the denial of registration to bona fide religious groups or the removal of registration are a real threat to many groups, especially to those such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, Hare Krishna or others, especially ones that reject military service or refuse certain medical treatment (such as blood transfusions). Without legal status they will not be allowed to publish religious literature or, probably, to acquire religious premises. Kazakhstan is just the latest of the former Soviet republics to consider amending their laws on religion adopted during the final years of the Soviet period or in the early years of independence. Turkmenistan amended its law in 1995, Azerbaijan in 1996, Armenia and Russia in 1997 and Uzbekistan in 1998. All these amendments represented a tightening of the original laws and an increase in state oversight over religious communities. Parliament in Kyrgyzstan is currently working on a draft text amending its law. Belarus and Moldova are also considering revising their laws on religion. Georgia has discussed adopting a law on religion (it is the only former Soviet republic without a law on religion), but no law has been adopted and the process seems to be in abeyance. The breakaway republic of Nagorno-Karabakh adopted a law on religion for the first time in 1997. (END)