by Geraldine Fagan and Tatyana Titova, Keston News Service
"Events in recent months demonstrate that an organised campaign is being waged against the Catholic Church in Russia, " maintains a 20 April statement from the head of Russia's Catholics, Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz.
Since the Vatican updgraded its four apostolic administrations in Russia to dioceses in February, prominent Italian parish priest Fr Stefano Caprio and Irkutsk-based Polish Bishop Jerzy Mazur have been denied entry to Russia despite holding valid visas. Local authorities have halted the construction in Pskov of a Catholic church in the wake of a complaint by the local Orthodox bishop, and Magadan's department of justice is seeking to liquidate the local Catholic parish since its priest, US citizen Fr Michael Shields, does not have a residence permit. On 23 April Saratov parish priest, Irish citizen Fr Michael Screene, told Keston that the local department of justice had also warned him that he could not function as parish priest after 1 May since he does not have a residence permit. On the same day, a Warsaw-based Polish radio station reported that a Polish Franciscan monk, Brother Damian Stepien, was asked for his identification papers by police on leaving Moscow's Catholic cathedral. When he replied positively to the police officers' question as to whether he was Catholic, said Brother Stepien, they crumpled up his papers and threw them in a rubbish bin.
The initiators of the presumed campaign remain elusive, however. The only recent prominent calls from within the Russian state apparatus for a restriction on Catholic activity have come from the Russian parliament, the Duma. On 19 February Stepan Medvedko, adviser to the Duma Committee for Religious and Social Organisations, told Keston that on 15 February the Duma passed a motion instructing his Committee to request information from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on violations of freedom of religion committed by the Catholic Church in the former Soviet Union and to review "the situation arisen in connection with the active proselytism of the Catholic Church in traditionally Orthodox areas." The motion, according to Medvedko, was passed with a clear majority of approximately two-thirds. Proposing the motion, according to RIA Novosti news agency, Duma vice-chairman Vladimir Zhirinovsky additionally called upon the Ministry of Foreign Affairs "not to give visas to representatives of the Vatican in connection with the heightened circumstances and their wilful actions in changing the status of Catholic dioceses". Two days before Bishop Mazur's expulsion, the Duma was due to consider a draft resolution on the activity of the Catholic Church in the Russian Federation. Proposed by deputy Viktor Alksnis, it called for a ban on the activity of the four recently-formed dioceses under Article 14 of the 1997 law on religion, since, argued Alksnis, the Church's use of the geographical name "Karafuto" ostensibly amounted to "an encroachment upon Russian territorial integrity." Also on 17 April, according to a RIA Novosti report, Communist Deputy Boris Kibirev called on the Duma religion committee to provide information on the financial support received by Russian Catholic communities in order to determine "to what extent their financial sources are in line with Russian legislation".
Speaking to Keston on 22 April, adviser to the Duma religion committee Stepan Medvedko said that Deputy Alksnis' resolution was not in fact debated on 17 April due to the parliament's packed current timetable. The proposal had anyway "partially lost its relevance," he said, since on 16 April the leader of Russia's Catholics, Archbishop Kondrusiewicz, sent an official letter to Alksnis and Duma speaker Gennady Seleznyov maintaining that the proposed resolution was based on an unofficial Russian Catholic website erroneously still using the name "Karafuto". Although an extra parliamentary session was held on 18 April, pointed out Medvedko, Deputy Alksnis had not insisted upon his proposal being transferred to that day. Asked about the recent difficulties encountered by Russian Catholics, Medvedko noted that Bishop Mazur had possessed a visa which was valid until January 2003, and said that his committee had been "surprised that events took such a turn".
On 23 April, Andrei Sebentsov, vice-chairman of the Russian government's Commission for Religious Organisations, similarly told Keston that he found the recent incidents involving Catholic clergy "surprising and incomprehensible". However, he said that as yet he did not have sufficient information or explanations to comment on whether they represented an anti-Catholic campaign. He did state, however, that an invitation from a registered religious community and a valid visa were the only legal criteria for foreign Catholic clergy to function in Russia, and a residence permit was not required. Asked by Keston whether he thought the recent events were a result of the Catholic Church's formation of four dioceses in Russia in February, Sebentsov remarked that "the setting up of dioceses may not be a friendly step towards the Russian Orthodox Church, but as far as the state is concerned it is a neutral development." The only concern held by the state, he maintained, was the use of the name "Karafuto", whose negative implications upon relations with the Russian state, in his view, had not been thought through by the Vatican. The presidential administration appears to be at least mildly supportive of the Catholics' position. On 18 April Vremya Novostei newspaper reported that Sergei Abramov, deputy director of the administration's main department for internal policy, had stated that "the presidential administration is concerned by violations of legislation regarding Catholics and will always stand in defence of Russian laws." Contacted by Keston on 22 April, Andrei Sarychev, a presidential administration official specialising in relations with the Catholic Church, said that he hoped that the situation involving Bishop Mazur would be "corrected". Since he did not yet know "the facts behind the decision of the competent organs," he said, he was unable to comment upon what had happened in that case. When Keston suggested calling back once Sarychev did have more information, he remarked ironically that he was "hardly likely" to be told anything further.
On 23 April the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a memorandum expressing concern that increasing influence of the Moscow Patriarchate in Russia is curbing the rights of other religious organisations. According to an Interfax report, PACE members called for Bishop Mazur to be allowed to continue his religious activities in Russia. On 22 April Moscow Patriarchate spokesman Fr Vsevolod Chaplin told Interfax that the Russian Orthodox Church was in no way the initiator of Bishop Mazur's expulsion. Pointing out that Bishop Mazur's title had included the term "Karafuto", Fr Chaplin maintained that if similar actions were taken in the United States or Europe, world opinion would be understanding, so it would be strange if Russia's actions in this case were not received with understanding.
Writing on the recent developments in Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 22 April, journalist Oleg Nedumov points out that the Russian authorities would not risk the serious international scandal resulting from the expulsion of two Catholic priests without "weighty reasons". In his view, the Kremlin could in fact be playing "a subtle game" by fanning the scandal so that the Moscow Patriarchate will be accused of waging an anti-Catholic campaign. In order to smooth over the scandal, predicts Nedumov, the Moscow Patriarchate will be obliged to make a goodwill gesture to the Vatican - giving its consent to President Putin's much-desired papal visit.
Keston News Service
24. april 2002