Religious conflict
Belarus: Religious intolerance
and lack of religious freedom
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Overview:
In its mid-1990 survey analysis of religious freedom in Belarus, Forum 18 News
Service notes that formal state support for "traditional"
religions is at most symbolic, and that militant atheism still influences
state officials. Some officials have attempted to pressure people signing
registration applications of Protestant churches to withdraw their names.
The re-registration of most, but not all, religious communities does not
guarantee religious freedom, and registered activity is restricted by a
variety of laws and regulations, such as a bar on registered religious
groups working outside their registered area. Another example is that
although Greek Catholic Church parishes have re-registered, as it does not
qualify as a "central association," it cannot own media
publications or invite non-Belarusians to work, for example, as
missionaries. Non-registered religious communities are banned under
Belarusian law and liable to prosecution, against international law, but
the number of unregistered communities appears to have grown. A key feature
of state religious policy is an extensive centralized network monitoring
religious communities and active religious believers. There has been at
least one attempt by the secret police to persuade a pastor to collaborate
with them.
In 2002, a restrictive religion law was passed that restricts religious
celebrations to designated places of worship. A faith group to wshes to hold a
religious observance elsewhere reqires special permission from the government.
Survey:
In 2004-OCT, five days before parliamentary elections and a
national referendum on whether he can stand for a third presidential term, Aleksandr Lukashenko met with the leader of the Belarusian Orthodox Church,
Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk and Slutsk. In a state report of the event,
President Lukashenko maintained that "one of the proposals voiced by
representatives of the political opposition and supported by some foreign
activists is to narrow the sphere of activity of Orthodoxy in order to
increase the influence of non-traditional confessions and various
sects." According to the Belarusian president, "such anti-Slavic
plans and aspirations are directed not only against the Orthodox Church.
but also against the state."
This differentiated approach towards the various confessions in Belarus
informs the whole of the state's religious policy. While stating that
"religions and confessions are equal before the law," Article 16
of the 1994 Belarusian Constitution also proclaims that state relations
with religious organizations are regulated "taking into account their
influence on the formation of the spiritual, cultural and state traditions
of the Belarusian people." The preamble of the Belarusian 2002
religion law thus introduces a tiered set of relations with the republic's
different confessions. The role of the Orthodox Church in the historical
appearance and development of the spiritual, cultural and state tradition
of the Belarusian people is recognized as "defining". The
spiritual, cultural and historical role of the Catholic Church is simply recognized. The Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Judaism and Islam, in turn,
are described as "indivisible from the shared history of the people of
Belarus." That the current situation rather than historical contribution has in fact
shaped this paradigm is suggested by several significant omissions
distortions. Priestless Old Believer communities were first established on
Belarusian territory in the late seventeenth century. The Greek Catholic
Church in Belarus was particularly influential from its foundation in 1596
until its prohibition in 1839. Dozens of Calvinist - rather than
Lutheran - communities were established on Belarusian territory by
the mid-seventeenth century. During the early medieval period, Christian
activity in western areas of what is now Belarus appears to have been
predominantly Catholic.
Fluctuations in religious policy due to the fleeting concerns of political
expediency have been particularly apparent this year in the run-up both to
parliamentary elections, the national referendum on 16 October, and the
deadline for compulsory re-registration of religious organizations on 16
November. Previously appearing prominently only with the Orthodox,
President Lukashenko promised to assist and co-operate with the Catholic
Church at a meeting with Catholic bishops on 21 October, "on condition
that you are prepared to love Belarus as I do. and fight for her
territorial integrity and independence." Invited with representatives
of the confessions listed in the 2002 law's preamble to an 11 November
meeting with Vice-premier Vladimir Drazhin, the Old Believers in practice
now appear to be counted among their number. Vice-premier Drazhin even
heard Protestant leaders' concerns at a meeting also held on 11 November,
reportedly scheduled at the request of the Belarusian president himself.
While the Belarusian Baptist Union initially vowed not to re-register as a
central association under the 2002 religion law until every one of its
affiliate congregations was re-registered, it reassessed this position
after holding Sunday school camps and tent evangelization events without
obstruction during the summer of 2004. According to Protestant sources,
this period of calm resulted from the fact that the state authorities could
not afford to alienate Protestant voters in view of the impending elections
and referendum, and wished to re-register as many religious organizations
as possible in the belief that this would prove respect for religious
freedom in Belarus. Representatives of several other confessions reported
that the state authorities assisted them through the re-registration
process, and many with registration under the old 1992 religion law were
offered significant compromises. Thus, those with between ten and 20
members (rather than the new legal minimum of 20) were permitted to
re-register, as were religious associations with no affiliate community
functioning on Belarusian territory for more than 20 years (as is
stipulated by the 2002 law). While the same law prohibits "regular or
mass performance of religious rites" on residential premises, these
were also accepted as legal addresses if they were detached houses meeting
certain fire and sanitation requirements.
It should be noted that the 2002 law's preamble actually gives neither a
positive nor negative evaluation of the historical role played by the
confessions it mentions - which may reflect the at least lukewarm
attitude towards religious faith held by many state officials in Belarus.
President Lukashenko's support for the Belarusian Orthodox Church may
likewise be largely symbolic - his pet construction project is after
all for a new ice-hockey stadium in every regional center rather than a new
Orthodox cathedral, and Orthodox involvement in state institutions is
reportedly low-level despite a series of co-operation agreements between
the Belarusian Orthodox Church and government ministries. In general,
however, the authorities do honor a 12 June 2003 church-state concordat in
which they guarantee the Belarusian Orthodox Church's "right of
ecclesiastical jurisdiction on its canonical territory" and pledge
"to fight jointly against pseudo-religious structures." In
conjunction with the 2002 law's tiered model and other pieces of
legislation, this works to create different categories of confession
assigned spaces of varying size within the religious and public spheres,
starting with the Belarusian Orthodox Church and finishing with those who
are essentially underground.
Non-Moscow Patriarchate Orthodox churches were
barred from re-registering without the consent of the local Belarusian
Orthodox Church bishop, and thus effectively banned.
The "traditional" confessions of the 2002 law's preamble as well
as several others have been encouraged or helped to register or
re-register. However, this is not a guarantee of religious freedom. In
March 2004 leaders of the main Protestant churches wrote to President Lukashenko seeking the removal of several provisions from the 2002 law,
including those stipulating compulsory registration and a minimum of 20
members; limiting the area of a religious organization's activity to the
city, town or village where it is registered (or to a particular region in
the case of an association); permitting only associations to found monastic
communities, brotherhoods, sisterhoods, missions and educational
institutions; prohibiting systematic home worship meetings; requiring state
permission for outdoor events and barring a religious organization from
registering at a residential address. (In Belarus only the president,
parliament, the Supreme Court, the Supreme Economic Court or the Council of
Ministers may appeal to the Constitutional Court.) This appeal failed.
While most religious organizations that have re-registered successfully
- such as Muslims, Lutherans and Baha'is - admit to gathering
at residential addresses without prosecution, failure to meet this and
other of the law's requirements has prevented some religious organizations
from qualifying for registration or re-registration and hence leading a
fully open existence. Not meeting the minimum ten participants for a
monastic community, for instance, only seven Roman Catholic convents and
none of its five or six de facto monasteries exist officially. For the same
reason, the Greek Catholic Church cannot found a monastery. (This is also
impossible because the Church does not qualify to register a central
association as its parishes have been established only within the past 15
years, and its leader is not a Belarusian citizen.) While all 15 of its
parishes are fully re-registered, without a central association the Greek
Catholic Church is also officially barred from founding its own media
publications or inviting foreign citizens to Belarus in order to engage in
religious activity.
Although four of its six communities in Belarus have also been
re-registered, the Society for Krishna Consciousness does not qualify for a
central association either and so cannot hire a public hall for or publicize lectures by visiting foreign teachers, or produce a publication
in a circulation higher than 300 copies, as this would require the
publication to be officially registered. Consistently refused permission to
distribute literature in public on the grounds that the places selected are
"inappropriate", the Society's members report frequent brief
detentions and small fines (of about the equivalent of 137 Norwegian kroner, 16 Euros or 20 US dollars) if they continue to do so, or being
ordered to leave a location if they do not have a registered community
there.
Similarly, on the eve of a 10 October 2004 service in Dyatlovo (Grodno
[Hrodna] region) as part of the "Belarus for Christ" car rally,
the pastor of the local charismatic Light to the World Church reportedly
received a telephone call from a local official warning him not to allow
pastors from other areas to speak since Dyatlovo was "not the sphere
of their activity."
According to the Belarusian State Committee for Religious and Ethnic
Affairs, 2,677 of a possible 2,783 religious communities had successfully
re-registered by the 2002 law's 2004-NOV-16 deadline, which number
included 84 that reportedly requested "self-liquidation" for
technical reasons. Having spoken with various religious representatives,
Forum 18 finds this figure largely credible. In some cases, however,
failure to meet the strict criteria of the 2002 law has resulted in
religious communities being refused re-registration and with it the right
to function legally. Having lost their use of privately rented premises on
the eve of the parliamentary elections (in which its pastor was standing), Word of Truth charismatic Full Gospel Church in Dzerzhinsk (Minsk region)
was refused re-registration for correspondingly failing to provide a valid
legal address. Repeatedly refused permission to rent premises in Minsk
since 2003 (for example, for specifying "Sundays" rather than
precise dates over a period requested), New Life charismatic Full Gospel
congregation has also been denied permission to use its former farm
building for services and so was similarly refused re-registration for lack
of a valid legal address.
Like New Life, the Minsk Krishna Consciousness Society now faces
prosecution for worship at on unapproved premises after being refused
re-registration at an address that is technically residential. Two Reformed
Baptist congregations have also been refused re-registration without
explanation. While the outcome of their re-registration applications is not
yet certain, Messianic Jewish and Calvinist congregations in Minsk also
report difficulty in obtaining a valid legal address. (Similar to New Life
but in a different Minsk district, the Calvinist church was earlier also
refused rental for not specifying precise dates of its proposed meetings.)
Five autonomous Baptist congregations in Brest region have also yet to hear
of the result of their re-registration applications, in which they refused
to accept the provision of the 2002 law restricting their activity to a
particular location. Unlike the more established religious bodies, these
churches do not have an umbrella association that would allow movement to
different areas for mission.
In addition to the 2002 law, local and other restrictions combine to
circumscribe the activity of registered religious organizations. As one
Protestant source remarked to Forum 18, "we may not be persecuted, but
you can create a legal basis which makes almost nothing possible." In
addition to Article 25 of the 2002 law, which requires state permission for
religious events outside purpose-built places of worship, the August 2003
law on demonstrations also requires prior state permission for public
religious events, while a Minsk City Council ruling has barred religious
events in cultural establishments since 1999. Elsewhere, local decrees ban
the use of cinemas for religious events in Grodno city and the hire of
public swimming pools for baptisms in Grodno region.
While Krishna devotees are allowed to hold processions at one location in
Minsk, they also report having to pay fees equivalent to 682 Norwegian
kroner, 79 Euros or 100 US dollars (i.e. just under the average monthly
salary) if these occur on a weekday or 2,046 Norwegian kroner, 237 Euros or
300 US dollars (i.e. over double the average monthly salary) if at a
weekend, since the 2003 demonstrations law requires payment for the
provision of emergency services during public events and cleaning up
afterwards. In September 2004 a celebration at a privately hired function
suite which Krishna devotees maintain was secular was broken up by police
claiming it was religious and so required the state's permission.
In the same month, the Full Gospel charismatic Church of Jesus Christ and
the Pentecostal New Testament and Hope of Salvation churches were told that
they could not hold services at their premises in Minsk since they did not
hold the necessary approval from the fire and sanitation authorities. In
October 2004 the pastor of the registered Light to the World charismatic Full Gospel congregation pastor was fined 1,110 Norwegian kroner, 136 Euros
or 174 US dollars (about 125% of the average monthly salary) for holding an
unsanctioned religious meeting at his home. In July 2004 three Council of
Churches Baptists were each fined 1,200 Norwegian kroner, 153 Euros or 175
US dollars for similarly violating regulations on holding religious events
by singing hymns at a hospital in Gomel region without first obtaining the
state's permission. For the same reason, members of a Council of Churches congregation in Lepel [Lyepyel'], Vitebsk [Vitsyebsk] region were detained
five times in three months during 2004 for running a street library without
permission, while one was allegedly beaten in police custody.
Under a new law governing tax on real estate that came into force in
January 2004, Light of the Gospel Church in central Minsk was fined several
million Belarusian rubles for offering its premises to other registered Baptist Union congregations without their own places of worship, and not
paying the relevant fee. A million Belarusian rubles is about 2,820
Norwegian kroner, 345 Euros or 458 US dollars, or over three months'
average earnings. Under the new legislation, tax must be paid if a legal
personality rents its premises to another, even if free of charge.
State registration also fails to prevent religious organizations from being
denounced by the state. An October 1997 analysis by specialists attached to
the State Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs determined that the Society for Krishna Consciousness was a "destructive totalitarian
sect", while they concluded in March 2000 that a member congregation
of the charismatic Full Gospel Association was a "neo-mystical
religious-political destructive sect" whose growth posed "a
significant threat to the individual, society and state" of Belarus. A
2002 state schoolbook teaches that Baptists, Pentecostals, Adventists and
Jehovah's Witnesses are "sects" encouraging fanaticism, that
Krishna devotees need psychiatric help, and that Orthodox worship results in
a hypnotic state.
The same official school textbook asks schoolchildren to chose the
"correct" definitions of "religion" from various
options, including "a particular form of social consciousness in which
dominant external forces are reflected in a fantastical way in a person's
consciousness, and earthly forces take the form of the non-earthly"
(correct), "a system of scientific knowledge concerning the salvation
of mankind" (incorrect) and "teachings of the 'church fathers'
which aim to substantiate the existence of God" (incorrect). In a
section headed "Let's take note," five quotations on religious
belief are printed, such as "To believe means to refuse to
understand," and "Religion is a weakness..."
In a further testament to the lingering influence of militant atheism in
the Belarusian state apparatus, an official religious studies textbook,
intended for first-year college students, maintains that "religion
does not teach a believer to strive to lead a dignified life, to fight for
his freedom or against evil and oppression. This is all supposed to be
performed for him by supernatural forces, above all, god. All that is left
for the believer to do is to be his pathetic petitioner, to behave as a
pauper or slave... Religion's promises to give a person everything that he
seeks in it are but illusion and deception."
Following a section which considers atheism as "the highest form of
free thought," the Chairman of the Expert Council attached to the State Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs, Professor Anatoli Kruglov
declares the Marxist-Leninist definition of freedom of conscience to be
"authentic" (unlike that of "bourgeois ideology") and
claims that, following the incorporation of this principle into Soviet
legislation in 1918, "no religion was accorded any preference or
subjected to any form of oppression" in Belarus.
While religious communities with re-registration thus face varying degrees
of restriction and possibility, those without it are now entirely illegal.
The number of unregistered communities appears to have grown in recent
years. In 2003 several Protestant churches reported attempts by rural
officials to pressurize those giving their personal details as part of
registration applications for new communities into withdrawing their names.
Pentecostal, charismatic Full Gospel and Greek Catholic representatives
have also told Forum 18 that they have been unable to register new churches
for several years. A reduction in registered religious communities is even
reflected in official government figures: while 2,748 were registered in
October 2001 and 2,863 in January 2004, there are now 2,677 out of a
possible 2,783.
If unregistered communities do not lead an entirely underground existence,
they are liable to prosecution. Orthodox congregations independent from the
Moscow Patriarchate are barred from obtaining re-registration, although
there is no corresponding provision in the law. While the discreet Catacomb
Orthodox Church reports no obstruction, a parish of the Belarusian
Autocephalous Orthodox (People's) Church claims ever more frequent small
fines (of about 57 Norwegian kroner, 7 Euros or 9 US dollars) for holding
services at a partly ruined church on the outskirts of Minsk. A priest of
the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad who oversees three parishes in Minsk and
Minsk region reports as yet unsuccessful attempts by the local authorities
to prosecute him for unregistered religious activity. An independent
Orthodox parish in Pohranichny (Grodno region) has disbanded after its
church was bulldozed in 2002 and its priest, Fr Yan Spasyuk, sought asylum
in the United States.
Forum 18's previous survey a year ago in 2003 noted that six fines had been
reported for unregistered worship meetings, usually in private homes, over
the previous year. (A further three between March and May 2003 have since
come to light). Most of these fined were congregations of the Council of
Churches Baptists, who have refused on principle since 1961 to register
with the state authorities in CIS countries. Since that survey, there have
been a further six fines of their communities totaling 1,688 Norwegian
kroner, 213 Euros or 250 US dollars, with other fines made handed down to a Baptist Union member for holding Bible study at his home in Grodno region
(105 Norwegian kroner, 13 Euros or 15 US dollars) and an independent
unregistered Pentecostal church in Brest region (142 Norwegian kroner, 17
Euros or 23 US dollars). The average monthly wage in Belarus is the
equivalent of about 864 Norwegian kroner, 105 Euros or 139 US dollars.
One Pentecostal representative has told Forum 18 that such fines would
happen "every day, but we leave quickly and quietly after home
services." Most of the fines came in the wake of a December 2003 order
issued, according to regional officials, by the Belarusian Ministry of
Justice, which ordered them to halt "the illegal activity of members
of unregistered Baptist organizations" belonging to the Council of
Churches by 1 March 2004.
A key feature of Belarusian state religious policy making such actions
possible is its extensive centralized network dealing with religious
affairs, which remains more or less intact from the Soviet period. As well
as a central committee in Minsk and one or two religious affairs officials
per region, each district (approximately 20 per region) has a Department
for Relations with Religious and Social Organizations and a Commission for
Monitoring Compliance with Legislation on Religion.
In April 2003 Baptist
Union congregations in districts in Minsk region received similar demands
for personal details of children and teachers of their Sunday schools,
which they refused to provide. In October 2003 a district in Minsk region
received a letter from a top religious affairs official accusing its Commission for Monitoring Compliance with Legislation on Religion of
"not fully performing its function" and recommending increased
monitoring of religious organizations, including regular visits, check-ups
and conversations with their leaders.
On 17 August 2004 a local KGB secret police officer reportedly approached
the pastor of the evangelical Salvation Church (Brest region), noting that
the congregation contained many student members and their parents were
complaining that they were being "zombified". After accusing the
pastor of breaking the law by inciting religious hatred towards the Belarusian Orthodox Church, the secret policeman also allegedly told the
pastor to speak in support of President Lukashenko during his next sermon and
proposed that the pastor collaborate with the secret police.
The Hassidic Jewish community in Minsk applied to the city administration for
permission to hold their Passover celebration on 2006-APR-12 at the state-owned
:Palace for Children and Youth. Forum 18 reported that permission was refused:
"...on the grounds that a religious event could not be permitted at a
venue frequented by children....A spokeswoman for Minsk's Central District
administration told Forum 18 she could not recall the precise details of the
31 March refusal, but surmised that it was probably because "it wouldn't
be very good to have a religious event at a children's institution - I'm
sure you understand." The Hassidic community then planned to join the
celebration at a Jewish veterans' club, but that too was banned. A
scaled-down celebration went ahead at a synagogue cafeteria. The community
was similarly unable to obtain official permission for its Purim
celebrations in March. Belarus' highly restrictive 2002 religion law
requires all religious events taking place outside designated places of
worship to obtain official permission as stipulated by the 2003
demonstrations law, with fines or imprisonment for those defying the
restrictions. 2
Reference:
- Geraldine Fagan, "Belarus: Religious freedom survey - December 2004,"
Forum 18, 2004-DEC-16
- "Belarus: Passover celebration banned for fear children might watch,"
Forum 18 News Service bulletin, 2006-APR-27. Their web site is at http://www.forum18.org/
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