Churches may get reprieve

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia — The Kremlin might back away from a new law that would force churches and religious groups to report to the government on their services, sermons and sources of income.

The rules, contained in a law passed in April, have sparked outrage among human rights groups, churches operating in Russia and Western governments, including the European Union.

The Russian government passed the law in an effort to monitor the activities of organizations such as Amnesty International and Doctors Without Borders, foreign-funded groups that President Vladimir Putin has warned might interfere in domestic politics.

During his seven years as president, Putin's government has asserted greater state control over independent Russian media and business. It also has eliminated most political opposition in parliament and turned the country's governorships from elected to appointed jobs.

In a rare reversal, the Federal Registration Service, which is responsible for enforcing the law, announced Friday it would discuss reviewing the rules as they apply to religious groups.

"I don't know whether we'll be able to (change the regulations) before April," says Victor Korolyov, head of the division overseeing religious organization registration at the Federal Registration Service. Parliament or the president must approve any changes to the law. Korolyov concedes the law will be difficult to enforce on nearly a million religious branches across Russia. He says the government won't demand that religious groups fully comply for now. Churches are supposed to provide details on their operations by April 15.

The country's religious leaders say the reporting requirements are onerous and a painful reminder of the religious suppression of the Soviet era. "We think it's wrong and even impossible to comply," says Thaddaeus Kondrusiewicz, the Catholic archbishop in Moscow.

Metropolitan Kliment, chancellor of the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church — the country's largest religious group — warned at a presidential council meeting two weeks ago that the requirement could presage a return to the persecution common during more than 70 years of Soviet rule, when atheism was the official ideology. "We shouldn't return to the Soviet practice, when the state controlled every step of a religious organization, when they checked the contents of the sermons and all the documents," Kliment said.