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I am glad to greet you. In 1917, when in 1917 Satanic forces conquered Russia, the Ukrainian people were forced to leave their homes. In faraway land of Portugal, Holy Mary appeared before three poor shepherds. She said, if the western Christians will pray for Russia, then a miracle of the resurrection of Russia will happen. In faraway land of Portugal, Holy

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Mary appeared before three peasant children and told that if western Christians will pray for Russia, the miracle of her revival will take place. And if we see this miracle happening, the miracle of almost bloodless changes in a society, that brings us to conclusion that you western Christians indeed prayed, especially those

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of you who care about Russia. And we are very grateful for that. From religious perspective, contemporary Russia probably looks like Stalingrad after it has been bombed and completely devastated by Germans. But we Christians understand very well that only economical changes or social changes without religious renewal will not benefit

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the country. But our life has shown that not only we have great difficulties in building a new society, but even in the area of religious revival we are also encountering great difficulties. I will not give you all the details of the new changes in the law that have been passed

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through preliminary stage in the parliament recently. I think that Dr. Rosenbaum will talk about this in detail because he is the chairman of the committee on freedom of conscience in the Russian Federation. And I hope that you will hear about this from Dr. Cherentsev who is involved in the president's team in preparing new elections and new constitution.

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But I will rather try to explain to you how come these new proposals and new changes could appear because they represent a step back from the freedoms guaranteed by the existing law. And I will also try to touch on the situation around this law. I hope you know that there is a split or I may say a gap between the president and the

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parliament where the majority is trying to pull the country back to old ideas. And I hope when we hear from Dr. Cherentsev that he will tell you about the plans of the parliament and I hope when we hear from Dr. Mikhailov who represents the Russian government we will hear about the present situation, present attitude of the government toward religion

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and what the future holds. So we really need to understand what is behind this law. I must emphasize that most of the paragraphs and articles of this law are quite good but I feel that they only mask those few articles that really work against religious freedoms

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and certainly violate human rights. Here as in any normal country the government responds to the lawmakers and the parliament makes these laws. And so the passing of this unfortunate or bad law is a sign of the fact that the parliament

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headed by Mr. Hasbulatov is trying to get the country back to the old ways. And I feel what is threatening that the new law excludes article 10 of the present law, the article which puts every religious organization on an equal basis before the law. And equally threatening is the article 15 of the new proposed law which deals with activities

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of foreign religious organizations in Russia. In paragraph 2 of this article we read that foreign religious organizations or religious individuals from foreign countries receive a right to act on the territory of Russian Federation only after having been accredited with the Russian government.

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There is a totally new concept. There is nothing of this kind in the present law. And in the same article paragraph 4, the fifth or fourth point says that independent activities of foreign religious organizations or religious individuals are not allowed.

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There is no right to conduct on the Russian territory any activity on their own including missionary, publishing or industrial, commercial or advertising. Here is a paradox. If you are an atheist but a western businessman then you can do anything you want on the Russian

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territory. But if your organization is a religious one then you have no right to do this on your own. My great experience as a defender of human rights forces me to say that I see this as

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an attempt in a religious area to restate the Iron Curtain. I already mentioned that I see very vividly many parallels between our government or civic life and our religious life. And I see these things clear because I take part in both.

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And in order to fight monopolies in the area of economics our government now established an anti-monopoly committee. But apparently our lawmakers follow totally opposite direction.

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Instead of creating an anti-monopoly, anti-monopolistic atmosphere they try to be protective of one another. Because our committee is being lobbied heavily by the Russian Orthodox Church representatives, people that have tried to make it a monopoly.

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As we were discussing and passing the law next to me seated was Metropolitan Clement, who is an assistant to Metropolitan Cyril, who used to be a representative of the Russian Orthodox Church. And he was a member of the Russian Orthodox Church.

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