Sergei Anatolievich Burianov is an attorney; Sergei Aleksandrovich Mosgovoy is a kandidat of historical sciences

In contemporary Russia anticonstitutional processes in the sphere of freedom of conscience have acquired the character of state policy and have finally gotten out from under society's control. The latest (since the adoption in 1997 of the law "On freedom of conscience and religious associations") step in violation of the Russian constitution, having the aim of juridically confirming the state's confessional preferences, has reached the finish line.

The shot from the starter's gun was a scientific and practical conference "The state and traditional religious associations. The conceptual bases of mutual relations on the model of the central federal district," held 25 January 2002. The level of this event was signified by the fact that it was conducted by the plenipotentiary representative of the Russian president in the central federal district, Poltavchenko. And among the speakers figured the chairman of the Committee on Affairs of Public Associations and Religious Organizations of the State Duma, R.F. Zorkaltsev, the deputy director of the Chief Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Justice for the city of Moscow, Zhbankov, and the chairman of the Department of External Church Relations of the Moscow patriarchate, Metropolitan Kirill Gundiaev.

The draft of the conference's recommendations stated directly that improvement of Russian legislation on religion should take the direction of working out a legislative base for a broad partnership between the state and religious associations.

In particular, Zorkaltsev noted that the fourteen-year-long orgy of freedom of conscience did not bring an amelioration of the situation for RPTs and other "traditional religious organizations." The country was literally filled with pseudoreligious organizations, as a result of which society turned out to be defenseless before the flood of ideas that are troubling and alien to it. His deputy Alexander Chuev advised that if restrictions for "nontraditional" religions were introduced, then there would be charges of restricting freedom of conscience, and so he suggested restricting them in a different way, by legislatively expanding the rights of "traditional" religions.

Then on 5 February 2002 Chuev presented in the State Duma a draft of a federal law "On traditional religious organizations in the Russian federation," based on the very idea of the need to introduce into the legal field of the Russian federation criteria of "traditionality" and the corresponding term "traditional religious organizations." From a legal point of view such a draft law cannot withstand any criticism since at it base lie dividing principles that have no clear legal criteria. In accordance with this draft law it is proposed to confirm de jure a whole package of state confessional preferences, many of which have been introduced de facto: the virtually complete exemption from taxes not only of the "traditional religious organizations" and their structural subdivisions, but also enterprises belonging to them; it is proposed to give to "traditional religious organizations" and their structural subdivisions in the area of education, charity, and social services significant privileges, if not outright financing.

The lack of constructive discussion on the question of the prospects for the introduction of "traditionality" leaves little room for healthy optimism. Moreover, the avalanche of statements from the Moscow patriarchate on the topic of "Catholic expansion" in general and appeals to public officials for defense of its "canonical territory" in particular can become the catalyst for the legislative process. It is difficult to predict whether the State Duma will adopt this particular draft law or will make it an amendment to already existing legislation, but it is obvious that interested circles will not abandon the idea of introducing "traditionality" into the legal field of Russia.

Back in the summer of last year the State Duma conducted parliamentary hearings on the "problem of the legislative guarantee of state-church relations in the light of the social doctrine of the Russian Orthodox church," at the base of which lay the idea of the necessity of amending the legislation on freedom of conscience and religious associations in the direction of confirming state confessional preferences in the form of "traditional" confessions. In particular, the draft of recommendations sent to the State Duma speaks of the need "to generalize and analyze the practice of implementing the federal law 'On freedom of conscience and religious association' and to formulate suggestions for its improvement, taking into account the conceptual principles of the 'Basis for the Social Doctrine of the Russian Orthodox Church' and the opinions of representatives of Russia's traditional confessions expressed in their programmatic documents about relations between the state and religious associations." In the recommendations sent to the government and constituent entities of the Russian federation there was the suggestion to adopt measures "for supporting efforts of Russia's traditional confessions in the work of training native theological personnel for work in the sphere of religious enlightenment and education."

A whole series of speeches at the Sixth World Russian People's Assembly and the last Christmas Readings and of mass media publications has been devoted to the justification of the necessity of introducing the term "traditional religious organizations" into the legal field.

The aforementioned justification is connected in the main with a review of relations of the categories "juridical equality" and "actual equality," as well as with an appeal to international experience in this sphere. Actually, in this sense several confessions called "traditional" find themselves in a historically preeminent position. Only it is not quite clear why the principle of justice should be replaced by "the law of the jungle" and "hazing." It turns out that whoever is older and strongest has more rights. The others are not so lucky, and the law is supposed to set aside "natural selection" in favor of "traditionality."

It is evident that the declaration of juridical equality is not always a guarantee of actual equality. But the rejection even of juridical equality will open the way to direct administrative arbitrariness, which even without this has become a daily phenomenon, but now on a "legalized" basis.

As regards international experience in this sphere, all experience is not progressive or fully in accordance with the standards of international law and modern reality and thus is not worthy of imitation. On the whole, generalizing from international practice in regulating the activity of religious associations in democratic states, it is possible to draw the conclusion that it is directed toward a narrow restriction of the possibility of governmental interference in the internal life of religious associations, or at least it has such a tendency. It is instructive that Switzerland made the decision to separate the church from the state after many centuries of union. Against the background of our country's reality, it is difficult to believe but the initiator of the separation was the church!

It is evident that the designation of traditional religious organizations violates not only the constitutional standard of the separation of religious associations from the state and their equality before the law (part 2, article 14 of the Russian constitution) but also as a minimum a number of mutually dependent constitutional standards which guarantee to everyone freedom of conscience (art. 28) and equality of human and civil rights and freedoms irrespective of attitude toward religion and convictions (part 2, art. 19).

Religious associations are the object of political interests and of "special" control on the part of the government both in Russia and in many countries of the world, as a result of which "special" legislation has been formulated whose implementation not only violates the rights of believers and religious minorities but also erodes a whole series of democratic constitutional principles that constitute the foundation of the constitutional order.

Sacralization (sanctification) of governmental authority is so traditional for Russia. But does this mean that Russia should renounce the course of constructing a democratic, legal state and of forming civil society and renounce its own international obligations in the area of human rights for the sake of the proponents of "traditionality" and the practical sacralization of the government?

Today in its attempt to get unrestricted dominance the government, not without success, is trying to impose on society a complex of exchanges, the chief of which is the exchange of the principle of the supremacy of law for a kind of traditionality, grown in idealized notions about the past. And analysis of the real situation will show that "official" science and the lawmaking process, with the interested or silent consent of "traditional" confessions, are under the control of the government, providing a kind of scientific base under its anticonstitutional policy in the sphere of freedom of conscience.

It is thoroughly evident that the introduction of the concept of "traditional religious organizations" into the legal field of Russia in the final analysis will facilitate the domination of the "most traditional" confession and a new round of infringements of the rights of the other citizens and associations, and this means an intensification of ethno-confessional tensions, a strengthening of the separation of people on the basis of world view values, and in the final analysis a destabilization of the whole of society. (tr. by PDS, posted 1 March 2002)

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