The Russian Foreign Ministry Advised Washington to Take Care of Religious Freedoms in the United States

Moscow, April 29, Interfax – The Russian Foreign Ministry rejected accusations from the United States of violating religious freedoms in Russia and pointed to gaps in this area in the United States itself.

"Let's give a piece of advice to the Americans – take a closer look at what's happening in your own country. Independent sources, for example, note an unprecedented increase in anti-Semitism in the United States. During the escalation of the armed conflict in the spring of 2021 between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip more than 200 cases of harassment, vandalism and physical violence against Jews have been registered in the United States," Gennady Askaldovich, Special Representative of the Russian Foreign Minister for cooperation in ensuring the right to religious freedom, said in a comment to the annual report of the US Commission on Religious Freedom in the world.

"The one who has a clear conscience and everything is in order in his own house is free to give advice. This cannot be said about the United States," the diplomat said.

The representative of foreign ministry pointed out that the authors of the American report gave Russia "hackneyed cliches of recommendations" again. "Without considering it necessary to justify ourselves, we would nevertheless like to note the following. Our country has a clear and verified system of legislation regulating the sphere of religious activity. These are our laws, and they apply to our country. And who better than us to know how tough they should be," Askaldovich continued.

The diplomat mentioned how Russians suffered in the recent past from various kinds of destructive religious organizations. "In Russia, they remember how, for example, in the 1990s, representatives of "Scientologists" literally knocked on every door and imposed their religion, and then deceived people and siphoned multibillion-dollar sums abroad. We also remember well the rampant radical extremism in the North Caucasus, which, under the cover of fashionable religious trend in Islam - Wahhabism, created a hotbed of international terrorism there, literally devouring our country," the representative of the foreign ministry cited examples.

According to him, now the United States is pushing Russia again to be lenient towards terrorists and radicals from Hizb ut-Tahrir, figures of the so-called Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, reproach for the expulsion of Scientologists, the closure of the Jehovah's Witnesses sect.

At the same time, Askaldovich noted that more than 31 thousand religious organizations representing more than 60 different faiths are functioning normally and successfully engaged in their activities in Russia. "Russia has achieved lasting confessional peace in society, and we value it because we know what religious strife is fraught with. A simple human example shows how united our people look now – during the liberation of Donbass during a military special operation, Orthodox people prayed for the well-being of Chechen special forces soldiers, Muslims by religion, and then for themselves," the diplomat writes.

According to him, the American representatives are acting selectively again for Ukraine was not included in the list of countries of "special surveillance", where schismatics commit seizures of churches of the canonical Orthodox Church, commit arbitrariness and violence against priests and parishioners. "We understand why, we know that it was the Americans who stood at the origins of the church schism in Ukraine, covered up and are covering up the lawlessness committed by their wards," the representative of the foreign ministry added.

Funny thing is - the Russians are woke as heck when lecturing the US. This is from RT.com:

Ferguson protests: lack of justice at the very fabric of US society’: The lack of civil rights, the lack of equality, the ‘ghettoization’, the institutionalization of racism are fundamental and making what is called ‘America in the 21st century’,…

Also from RT.com::

Ferguson violence: When riots are the answer: “Unfortunately, from my perspective you’re not going to solve this in a top down fashion, there needs to be social vibrant social movements that refuses to be suppressed by the media and by the police. Those social movements need to continue doing what they have been doing, THEY NEED TO GROW…

Also from RT.com::

The Ferguson riots are a confluence of circumstances, including the ghastly economics of the African American community that are driving rage into the open and triggering a larger movement in the US, … this undercurrent of rage and anger in the US, at the government and at the institutions of the US for many, many years. There is a long and rich history of this sort of fighting back against police brutality,…over the murders of young black and brown people for decades.

Guess where this one’s from?

Africans in the USA never got a slice of the pie, and now Blacks in poor communities are expected to remain calm while the very same state which exploited them, now guns down Black people in the street with complete impunity. Black Americans have every right to resist, defend themselves and fight what is quite simply, the ongoing colonization and social control of Black people in America.

Whaddya know, another one from RT.com:

Today, as we see Ferguson we see African-Americans coming out to the street saying “We are not going to the back of the bus on this police brutality issue.” A recent study has shown that every 28 hours a black male in the US is killed by the police somewhere.

""The one who has a clear conscience and everything is in order in his own house is free to give advice. This cannot be said about the United States," the diplomat said...At the same time, Askaldovich noted that more than 31 thousand religious organizations representing more than 60 different faiths are functioning normally and successfully engaged in their activities in Russia. "

Pure hypocritical propaganda.

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Moscow church destroyed in sign of new Russian repression Posted on Sep 26, 2012 | by Jill Nelson

MOSCOW (BP) -- It was in the early hours of the morning on Sept. 6 when Pastor Vasili Romanyuk's phone rang. A group of men backed by local police were demolishing his Holy Trinity Pentecostal Church, housed in a three-story building nestled in a Moscow suburb. As word spread, congregants arrived at the scene hoping to save the building, but their efforts were futile. By dawn the church was in ruins and some of its most valuable contents were missing.

An isolated incident? A misunderstanding? Analysts watching the current climate in the former Cold War country don't think so: "This destruction of the church is about as concrete of evidence as you can get that something very bad and very troubling is taking place," said Katrina Lantos Swett, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. "This could not have happened without the backing, support, and implicit blessing of the police."

The incident is just one sign of deteriorating freedoms in Russia, and behind the scenes a cozy relationship between the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church has raised more than a few eyebrows. As President Vladimir Putin digs into his third term, a number of Kremlin crackdowns involving vague interpretations of the country's extremism law and other human-rights abuses are troubling signs that the country has slipped into a familiar, repressive era.

"When you have unknown people backed by the police coming out at midnight to begin tearing down a church, you know something doesn't smell right," Lantos Swett said.

Officials evicted Holy Trinity Church from its original building in 1995 and relocated the church to the eastern Moscow suburb. The congregation used its own funds to construct a new building and repeatedly battled officials over permits. The church demolition and its history reflect an emerging pattern: Authorities confiscate land from non-favored religious communities and force the congregation to relocate to a remote suburb, the religious leaders apply for permits that are subsequently denied, and officials confiscate (once again) or demolish the relocated congregation, citing lack of proper documentation.

Pastor Romanyuk and a small group of the church's 550 congregants arrived on site around 3:30 a.m. as about 45 men claiming to be civil volunteers blocked them from the building and threw stones. "When I arrived, I just burst into tears," 25-year-old Natalya Cherevichinik told The Moscow Times as she surveyed the destruction. "I couldn't believe that something that had been built over several years could be destroyed in a few hours."

Russian Evangelicals Leery of Orthodox Church, Friday, December 30, 2011:

class="adjusted">MOSCOW, Russia -- For decades, the Russian Orthodox Church was persecuted under the Soviet Union's Communist Party.

Since the early 1990s, the church has grown in size and influence as its relationship with the Russian government has improved significantly.

However, that cozy relationship worries the country's evangelicals.

Threats Against Evangelicals

For eight years, Yuri Sipko ran one of the largest Baptist organizations in Russia. Now, 20 years after the fall of Communism, he worries about the growing threats against the country's evangelical movement.

"The collapse of Communism was supposed to usher in an era of greater religious freedom, but I'm concerned we are moving in the wrong direction," Sipko said.

What makes the Russian evangelicals very concerned is an emerging relationship between the Russian government and the Russian Orthodox Church.

"For example, the government recently introduced religious classes based on the principals of the Orthodox Church in public schools," Sipko said.

"Then late last year, the Russian president announced an initiative to appoint Orthodox chaplains to all army units," he said. "Our constitution clearly states no religion can be the state religion."

Russia Church-State Relations

Russia watchers credit two men, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitry Medvedev, for elevating the church's prominence. The state media has also played a key role, often showing the leaders attending church services.

Sergey Ryakhovski knows both men well. As head of Russia's Pentecostal Union, he meets regularly with top government and Orthodox Church leaders.

Ryakhovski worries that the Orthodox Church's influence is coming at the expense of religious freedom, especially for minority groups such as Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists.

"There are so many laws and by-laws that regulate religious life in Russia," Ryakhovski said. "For example, evangelical Christians just can't go out and buy a church building or buy a piece of land to build a church."

"Plus, criticizing or challenging the Orthodox Church is not a task for all," he added.

Orthodox Church Revival

The Russian Orthodox Church on the other hand has had it easy in recent times after decades of state persecution.

Church buildings that were destroyed during the Soviet era have been rebuilt with Russian taxpayer money. In the past 20 years, the government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars restoring some 23,000 churches.

Most Russians say they belong to the Orthodox Church. Yet CBN News found mixed reactions on the streets of Moscow to the growing bond between church and state

At Expense of All Others, Putin Picks a Church

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY Published: April 24, 2008

STARY OSKOL, Russia —

It was not long after a Methodist church put down roots here that the troubles began.

First came visits from agents of the F.S.B., a successor to the K.G.B., who evidently saw a threat in a few dozen searching souls who liked to huddle in cramped apartments to read the Bible and, perhaps, drink a little tea. Local officials then labeled the church a “sect.” Finally, last month, they shut it down.

There was a time after the fall of Communism when small Protestant congregations blossomed here in southwestern Russia, when a church was almost as easy to set up as a general store. Today, this industrial region has become emblematic of the suppression of religious freedom under President Vladimir V. Putin.

Just as the government has tightened control over political life, so, too, has it intruded in matters of faith. The Kremlin’s surrogates in many areas have turned the Russian Orthodox Church into a de facto official religion, warding off other Christian denominations that seem to offer the most significant competition for worshipers. They have all but banned proselytizing by Protestants and discouraged Protestant worship through a variety of harassing measures, according to dozens of interviews with government officials and religious leaders across Russia.

Russia's De-Facto State Religion : Persecution : http://www ... www.persecution.org/?p=9350&upm...‎ International Christian Co... Putin frequently appears with the Orthodox head, Patriarch Aleksei II, ... Baptists, evangelicals, Pentecostals and many others who cut Christ's robes like bandits, ...

Government Returning Land to Religious Organizations to Favor Orthodox Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009: An ambitious draft law on the transfer of property of religious significance to religious organisations may reignite a process begun in 1993.

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