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UNREGISTERED RELIGIOUS GROUPS IN RUSSIA

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND 

COOPERATION IN EUROPE

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 14, 2005

Printed for the use of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

[CSCE 109–1–6]

(

Available via http://www.csce.gov 
COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

House Senate

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey,

Co-Chairman 

FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia 

JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania 

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

LOUISE McINTOSH SLAUGHTER,

New York 

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida 

MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas,

Chairman 

GORDON SMITH, Oregon 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York 

VACANT 

VACANT 

VACANT

EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

VACANT, Department of State 

VACANT, Department of Defense 

WILLIAM HENRY LASH III, Department of Commerce 

(II) 
C O N T E N T S 

APRIL 14, 2005

COMMISSIONERS 

Page 

Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Co-Chairman, Commission on Security and

Cooperation in Europe ......................................................................................... 1

Hon. Mike McIntyre, Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation 

in Europe .............................................................................................................. 3

Hon. Joseph R. Pitts, Commissioner, Commission on Security and

Cooperation in Europe ......................................................................................... 10

WITNESSES 

Hon. John V. Hanford III, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious 

Freedom, U.S. Department of State ................................................................... 4

Larry Uzzell, President, International Religious Freedom Watch ...................... 11

Paul Goble, Senior Research Associate, Eurocollege—University of Tartu,

Estonia .................................................................................................................. 13

Andrew Okhotin, Member, Independent Christian Baptists ............................... 16

Boris Perchatkin, President, American-Russian Relief Committee ..................... 21

Sergei Cherpanov, Deputy Chairman, Presiding Committee,

Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses—Russia ................................... 25

APPENDICES 

Prepared statement of Hon. Sam Brownback, Chairman, Commission on

Security and Cooperation in Europe .................................................................. 30

Prepared statement of Hon. Benjamin L. Cardin, Ranking Member,

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe ........................................ 32

Prepared statement of Hon. John V. Hanford III ................................................. 34

Prepared statement of Larry Uzzell ....................................................................... 42

Statement submitted for the Record by Forum 18 News Service ........................ 48

Prepared statement of Boris Perchatkin ............................................................... 51

Material submitted for the Record by Andrew Okhotin ....................................... 56

Material submitted for the Record by Sergei Cherpanov ..................................... 59

Material submitted for the Record by Hon. Christopher H. Smith: 

Letters dated February 18, 2005 ........................................................................ 62

(Russian translation) ........................................................................................ 64

Letters dated May 3, 2005 .................................................................................. 66

(Russian translation) ........................................................................................ 68

House Congressional Resolution 190, introduced in the House of

Representatives on June 23, 2005 ................................................................... 70

(III) 

(1)

UNREGISTERED RELIGIOUS GROUPS

IN RUSSIA 

APRIL 14, 2005

COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE

WASHINGTON, DC 

The hearing was held at 11:31 a.m. in room 2200, Rayburn 

House Office Building, Washington, DC, Hon. Christopher H. 

Smith, Co-Chairman, presiding. 

Commissioners present: Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Co-Chairman, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; Hon. Joseph R. Pitts, Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe; and Hon. Mike McIntyre, Commissioner, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. 

Witnesses present: Hon. John V. Hanford III, Ambassador-atLarge for International Religious Freedom, U.S. Department of 

State; Larry Uzzell, President, International Religious Freedom 

Watch; Paul Goble, Senior Research Associate, Eurocollege—University of Tartu, Estonia; Andrew Okhotin, Member, Independent 

Christian Baptists; Boris Perchatkin, President, American-Russian 

Relief Committee; and Sergei Cherpanov, Deputy Chairman, Presiding Committee, Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses—

Russia. 

HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, CO-CHAIRMAN,

COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

Mr. SMITH. The hearing will come to order. 

And I want to begin by expressing my apologies for being late. 

Congressman Joe Pitts, Congressman Pence, and I were summoned 

to a meeting over with the House leadership that just broke up. So 

I do want to apologize for having you here for so long. 

I do want to welcome our very distinguished Ambassador, Ambassador Hanford and, before going into my opening statement, 

just say how grateful I and other Commissioners are for the tremendous work that you’re doing, Mr. Ambassador. 

The Helsinki Commission, as well as my subcommittee, the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations, which has as a primary part of its jurisdiction and portfolio 

religious persecution and religious tolerance, recognize that you are 

a leader in the world on religious freedom. 

And we do thank you for your tireless efforts on behalf of the 

persecuted churches, the Uighurs, the Muslims, the Buddhists, the 

Falun Gong. Anyone who is oppressed anywhere in the world, you 

have been a great leader. Thank you so much. 
2

I also want to acknowledge Father Gleb Yakunin, who I first met 

in the push for religious freedom in the Russian church. 

Father Gleb, thank you for being here. 

I remember long hours spent in his apartment, me and members 

of the Commission and members of the staff, and Father Gleb is 

a great friend of religious freedom as well. 

In convening this, I would like to just point out that on February 

18, along with Chairman Brownback, we wrote the Governor of a 

region near Moscow expressing our serious concerns about problems faced by the Baptist church in that area. Their troubles began 

in August 2004 when the congregation erected a tent to host a religious meeting. Their story is indicative of problems experienced by 

various other religious communities across the vast Russian Federation. 

What we’re trying to do, something that has been an ongoing 

concern of this Commission, is to ensure that Russia, as an OSCE 

participating State, upholds the fundamental right of religious freedom to which they have agreed to. The Universal Declaration on 

Human Rights and the Helsinki Final Act and all of the follow-on 

declarations have always had an accord that religious freedom be 

preserved and protected. 

Let me just point out to my colleagues that after—again, talking 

about the Baptists—after the tent was up, local authorities demanded the tent be removed from private property in contravention of the Russian law on religion. 

When the Baptists did not comply, the Governor reportedly deployed some 200 law enforcement personnel, including police, FSB, 

riot police and officers of the organized crime squad. Wearing camouflage, helmets, and gas masks and carrying machine guns, this 

small army cordoned off the field and forcibly removed the tent. 

When, undaunted, the Baptists met anyway, authorities established checkpoints and refused entry into the region to Russian 

citizens without local residence registration, shut off the water and 

the power, and attempted to intimidate worshipers by checking 

identity papers and recording names. 

This excessive use of force was shocking and more appropriate 

for dealing with terrorists, not peaceful Baptists. 

Tragically, just 3 weeks after these troubling events, a Baptist 

house church was torched by arson. Instead of receiving condolences and assistance from local authorities, the congregation was 

threatened. They were told the authorities will seek a court order 

to bulldoze it to the ground if the Baptists persist in rebuilding 

their lost prayer house. 

And I would just point out, parenthetically, bulldozing churches 

is reminiscent of Nicolae Ceausescu in Romania. Ambassador Hanford would remember the terrible church desecrations and 

bulldozings that occurred during his tyrannical rule. I remember 

standing on a church that had been leveled by a bulldozer in Bucharest, Buni Cocar’s church that had been bulldozed, and it was 

such a desecration of a house of God. 

I would point out that this incident is not unique to a single village. There are numerous examples of non-Orthodox religious communities being harassed by local officials or assaulted by vandals 
3

or both without any intervention by federation authorities to ensure respect for the rights of religious believers. 

For example, the problems faced by unregistered Pentecostals 

throughout Russia often mirror those of unregistered Baptists. 

The Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow have also had to fight for 

basic religious freedoms. The international community was stunned 

by the June 2004 de-registration and banning of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Moscow branch, as many believed such actions had passed 

with another era. 

I am also very concerned with how this decision will be interpreted at the local level, as other regions may copycat this approach to ban other non-Orthodox religious groups. 

There is also growing concern about the free practice of Islam in 

Russia today, as Islam practiced outside the control of the government-approved Muslim bodies is increasingly repressed by secular 

authorities. 

Because of these concerns, I’m very happy with the body of experts gathered here today. Much needs to be done to protect religious freedom for all, as protection not only varies from region to 

region, but even from village to village. 

I’d like to recognize Mr. McIntyre, good friend and colleague and 

fellow Commissioner. 

HON. MIKE McINTYRE, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON 

SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I’ll be brief in the 

interests of time. I know we’ve got some votes coming up shortly. 

Let me just say, religious freedom is at the very core of human 

dignity and human rights. And we have enjoyed new and positive 

relationships with Russia, but we are concerned, obviously, about 

this very personal issue, which also becomes a very public issue in 

terms of the expression of religious freedom. 

So I’m pleased that we’re having this hearing today, Mr. Chairman. I’m also pleased that we have friends from the Commission 

on International Religious Freedom here with us, and I’m very 

pleased our first person to testify, Ambassador Hanford, who I 

know does an excellent job. 

And we look forward to hearing your testimony. 

Amb. HANFORD. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SMITH. We will now welcome John Hanford, Ambassador-atLarge for International Religious Freedom. The U.S. and persecuted believers around the world, as I said in the opening, are 

very fortunate to have this dedicated public servant who works 

tirelessly to ensure that all peoples may enjoy their religious liberty. 

John’s hard work and the work of his staff is paying off. And I 

credit him with moving the State Department to designate Saudi 

Arabia, Vietnam, and Eritrea as ‘‘Countries of Particular Concern,’’ 

a decision that just a few years ago, especially in the case of Saudi 

Arabia and Vietnam, would have been unthinkable. 

No stranger to the Congress, John worked on the staff of Senator 

Richard Lugar from 1987 to 2002 and was intimately involved with 

the drafting of the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. 
4

John has served as Ambassador-at-Large since May 2002. He 

holds a B.A. from the University of North Carolina and a Master’s 

of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. 

Ambassador Hanford? 

HON. JOHN V. HANFORD III, AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE

FOR INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM,

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Amb. HANFORD. Thank you, Chairman Smith. And thank you for 

being such a champion for religious freedom all over the world, as 

is, of course, Congressman Pitts, who’s coming in right now. 

And I want to also mention in the case of Commissioner McIntyre that he’s a fellow University of North Carolina grad. We were 

there at the same time. We’re both in a very good mood these days, 

after the basketball championship. And his two sons have had the 

wisdom to go back. And one of them had the extraordinary wisdom 

to marry a gal from my hometown. 

Mr. MCINTYRE. Thank you, sir. We’re very excited about that. 

Amb. HANFORD. I welcome the opportunity to be here today to 

discuss the problems experienced by unregistered religious groups 

in Russia. 

It’s my hope that today’s hearing will draw attention to the 

plight of unregistered religious groups and that by working together we can improve the treatment of these communities 

throughout the country. 

I’m going to give some brief remarks here, but let me ask, if I 

may, that my entire statement be placed in the record. 

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, it will be made a part of the 

record. 

Amb. HANFORD. First I want to say that we take the state of religious freedom in Russia with the utmost seriousness. The U.S. 

Government’s democracy and human rights strategy in Russia is to 

promote awareness of and respect for the entire range of human 

rights, including freedom of religion. 

Since passage of the International Religious Freedom Act in 

1998, we’ve made important strides in advocating for religious freedom as a part of our foreign policy. 

President Bush has worked to strengthen this commitment, stating in his national security strategy that the U.S. Government will 

take special efforts to promote freedom of religion and conscience 

and defend it from encroachment by repressive governments. 

My office closely follows religious freedom developments in Russia. We’re in touch regulatory with religious and human rights 

groups. Embassy Moscow has two political officers dedicated to promoting human rights and religious freedom. And with assistance 

from the Consulates General in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, and 

Vladivostok, they investigate reports of incidents and stay in close 

contact with religious groups and human rights advocates. 

Our Ambassador and our senior officials regularly raise our concerns about the rights of religious minorities with Russian leaders. 

Russia’s constitution recognizes freedom of religion, and the Russian Government generally respects this right in practice. However, 

the 1997 Law on Freedom of Conscience and on Religious Associa-
5

tions and its amendments have had the practical effect of restricting religious freedom for a few groups and organizations. 

The law imposes restrictive registration requirements that prevent new and minority faith groups from gaining legal status. 

Nearly 1,000 faith groups were unable to meet the registration requirements and were dissolved and prohibited from conducting activities. 

In Russia, people are free to belong to the state-favored organizations: the Russian Orthodox Church, under the auspices of the 

Moscow patriarch; Judaism; Islam; and Buddhism. 

Although the majority of Russians feel free to worship, many religious minorities encounter restrictions and harassment, including 

some of those that are registered. We’ve received reports of difficulties experienced by Old Believers, members of the Autocephalous 

Orthodox Church, Roman Catholics, unregistered Baptists, 

Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and independent Muslims. 

You will hear today from representatives of some of these groups 

who will confirm their difficulties. 

Many in this room represent groups and organizations with 

whom I worked when I served on the staff of Senator Lugar. In 

1997, Senator Lugar led an effort in both Houses of Congress to 

dissuade the Russian Government from passing the 1997 law on 

Freedom of Conscience and on Religious Associations. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I remember that you were prominently involved in that effort, as was the leadership of both the Senate and 

the House, on both the Republican and Democratic sides of the 

aisle. And all told, we had 169 Senators and Members of Congress 

who joined in that appeal to Boris Yeltsin to veto the 1997 law. 

And initially Yeltsin did, in fact, veto the law. But later he settled for a compromise that really was no compromise at all, and 

that’s why we find ourselves where we are today. 

The portrait of religious freedom in Russia today would not be 

balanced, however, if we did not mention some positive developments. Despite the increase in difficulties for some minority religious groups over the past 4 years, Federal authorities have sometimes reprimanded discriminatory actions by local officials. 

Federal officials have provided instructions to regional officials, 

including a publication on the rights of foreign religious workers. 

To its credit, the Government of Russia maintains a human 

rights ombudsman’s office, albeit a weak one, which has a division 

devoted to religious freedom complaints. 

Minority religious groups sometimes benefit from a less strict implementation of the Federal law on religion. For example, some 

representative offices of foreign religious organizations have opened 

and not formally registered with state authorities. Others have affiliated with an existing registered organization. 

None of these foreign offices, however, are allowed to conduct religious activities. 

Let me take this opportunity to cite two specific instances of recent positive developments concerning religious groups on whose 

behalf we have advocated. 

Although previously the Russian Federal Security Service harassed the Family of God Pentecostal community, that harassment 

ended last year and the group was allowed to re-register. 
6

In addition, we note that the Vanino Baptist Church in 

Khabarovsk was allowed to re-register last summer. Dan Pollard, 

the church’s pastor, who has been trying to return to Russia since 

he was banned in 1999, was recently told by the Russian Consulate 

in Seattle that his name was removed from the blacklist. We will 

watch with interest and concern as these developments continue to 

unfold. 

Mr. Chairman, let me now turn to the problems faced by several 

minority religions in Russia that have both experienced registration difficulties and have also been subject, as you were alluding 

to earlier, to violence, abuse or harassment. 

Prominent among these groups are the unregistered Baptists, the 

Old Believers, Pentecostals, and certain independent Muslim 

groups. 

Unregistered Baptists, in their case, in most instances, they are 

opposed on principle to cooperating with the Russian Government, 

and they fear contacts with the U.S. Government could further 

complicate their situation. 

During the past 2 years, there have been an estimated 10 arson 

attacks on unregistered Baptist churches. In September of last 

year, an unregistered Baptist church was burned down in 

Lyubuchany in what was ruled an arson. No one has been arrested, 

though eyewitnesses saw law enforcement officials in the area just 

before the fire. Local officials tried unsuccessfully to prevent the rebuilding of a new church, and the building is nearing completion. 

Embassy Moscow has raised our concerns about the arson with 

the Russian Government. We continue to urge the Russian Government that the perpetrators be brought to justice and that adequate 

protection be provided so that unregistered Baptist churches are 

not attacked. 

Mr. Chairman, I thank you and your colleagues for the letter you 

wrote to the acting head of administration of Chekhov oblast. You 

raised this issue with Russian authorities, and that may provide 

them with additional protection. 

Old Believers are Orthodox Christians who did not join the Russian Orthodox Church in cooperating or officially registering with 

the Soviet regime. In general, they do not experience direct harassment from the Russian Government. Nevertheless, they sometimes 

face difficulties in property restitution. 

There are currently two active church restitution cases under 

way, in Samara and St. Petersburg, and in the Samara case there 

have been some positive developments. 

Some Pentecostal communities have also refused to register because of conviction. Others have been offered and refused the opportunity to join other registered central organizations, such as 

Protestant unions. 

Pentecostals have experienced arson against their churches as 

well, with no actions taken by law enforcement. 

African-born Pentecostals in Moscow have suffered as victims of 

religious and racial prejudice. 

Many local Muslim groups were unable to register as local organizations when the 1997 religious registration law went into effect. 

We also have reports of Muslims in some regions protesting the fre-
7

quency with which they have been stopped and asked for identity 

papers. 

The security service has continued to treat the leadership of 

some minority religions and in particular some Muslims as security 

threats and conducted campaigns of harassment against them. 

Now I’d like to turn my attention briefly to several religious organizations and groups that have experienced political interference 

and adverse rulings by local courts. 

While the Russian legal system has made strides since Soviet 

times, further progress is needed in achieving judicial independence. I will briefly review the problems faced by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Salvation Army, the Church of Scientology, and the Mormons. 

In June 2004, a Moscow district court banned all organized activity of the city’s 10,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses on the grounds that 

they posed a threat to society. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have also 

faced difficulties in other Russian communities when they have attempted to rent buildings and contract for services. 

Anti-cult organizations and the Russian Orthodox Church are attempting to initiate legal action to close the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ 

administrative center in St. Petersburg. 

The Salvation Army is currently fighting a legal battle in Russian courts to defend its right to exist. In 2001, local authorities 

brought the Moscow branch of the Salvation Army to court to liquidate it. With the assistance of a lawyer from the Slavic Center 

for Law and Justice, the Salvation Army continues to try to re-register in the Moscow oblast while it operates under its old registration. The organization has brought its case before the European 

Court of Human Rights. 

The Church of Scientology is also defending its right to exist in 

court. Moscow authorities refuse to register the local organization 

and use the 1997 law to try to liquidate Scientologists. 

In a series of court cases over the past 8 years, there have been 

findings in favor of the church, though in each case the Procuracy 

has appealed the decision, usually successfully. 

These successful appeals led the Scientologists in the fall of 2004 

to file suit in the European Court of Human Rights against the 

Moscow liquidation order. 

In St. Petersburg, the Scientologists have been denied registration and threatened with liquidation. 

The Church of Latter Day Saints have experienced mixed results 

in their registration attempts. To date, they’ve successfully used 

the court system to register approximately 50 local organizations. 

Mr. Chairman, let me conclude by thanking you again for holding this important hearing. Your activism and advocacy on religious freedom and human rights over the years have been incredibly impressive. And all of us who labor on religious freedom issues 

are indebted to you for your leadership. 

We welcome your suggestions to work together to improve the 

treatment of minority religious groups throughout Russia. And we, 

of course, would be happy to work with the Helsinki Commission 

to establish communication with the appropriate Russian parliamentary committees to encourage dialogue to address our religious freedom concerns. 
8

As Secretary Rice has pledged, we will continue to talk about religious freedom when we visit other countries not because we, 

quote, ‘‘believe we should use religion as a weapon, but because it 

is very often a basis for compassion and decency in a society.’’ ‘‘It 

is essential,’’ she goes on to say, ‘‘to the proper functioning of democracy.’’

In Russia today, we see restrictions of religious freedom, and this 

directly relates to the lack of a properly functioning democracy in 

that country. 

So, Mr. Chairman, thank you again for highlighting the situation 

of minority religious groups in Russia, and I’m happy to take your 

questions. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. And thank 

you for comments and statements. 

Let me just ask you—Larry Uzzell, who will be testifying momentarily, from International Religious Freedom Watch—is a great 

champion of human rights and religious freedom. He writes in his 

testimony, ‘‘The U.S. Government should be making it clear that it 

cannot have a full-fledged partnership with the Russian Government as long as that government is trampling on the religious freedom of its own citizens.’’

While Russia may not at present rise to the level of a CPC country, it’s an open question whether or not they should. If harassment is not being directed by the Federal Government but local jurisdictions and local political bodies are repressing religious freedom, then there is a collective responsibility. The Federal Government, or in this case the local government of Moscow, needs to be 

taking a much more proactive approach, particularly as it relates 

to their own constitution. 

How do you respond to that? You mentioned the two political officers at Embassy Moscow for whom their portfolio is religious freedom and they are very activist-oriented. And I know that our consulates are raising it as well. But how often do they get out to 

these areas where the churches are being repressed? 

I’m also considering reforms to IRFA—as you will recall, I was 

author of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. One of the additions we made when we did an expansion in 2003 was to establish 

a watch list, because we found there were a number of countries 

that really didn’t quite make it to the point of tier three—egregious 

violator of trafficking—but they did a few things, a flurry of activity right before the review period was over and then went right 

back to business as usual, or close to it. 

Would a watch list be helpful with the International Religious 

Freedom Act as a reform so that we put people on notice, ‘‘You’re 

in an enhanced scrutiny stage’’? 

Amb. HANFORD. Right. Well, first, you and I, I know, are in 

agreement that our government should use the entire range of our 

diplomatic tools to be pressing the Government of Russia. 

And, yes, our human rights officers and others at our embassy 

move vigorously around the country to check out the problems on 

the ground. They stay in close touch with the various religious 

groups. They maintain close relations there. And if ever we discover there’s a group they haven’t done that with, let us know and 
9

we’ll let them know. And we want to make sure they’ve build those 

ties. 

Often, behind the scenes, diplomacy is most effective with Russia. And, yet, we need to be pressing them in international fora. 

Trips by Members of Congress are very, very helpful, and we encourage that. 

And I’ve been involved in the past in having Presidents raise 

these issues directly with the heads of state of Russia. And I would 

think that will continue to occur, as well. 

So I think all of those levers need to be utilized fully. 

Things could be worse in Russia, but they’re not where they 

ought to be, and we need to nip this problem in the bud as best 

we can. 

On the watch list question, I am continuing to take your suggestion very seriously and am polling people, so to speak, both in my 

office and elsewhere on this, and I’m getting mixed opinions on it. 

Of course, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom keeps a watch list, which I think serves a valuable purpose. 

It puts countries on notice—it gets their attention. They start complaining to us about that, which is a good thing. It gets us even 

more of an opportunity to share why the Commission might be putting them on the watch list. 

Whether the State Department should have a watch list, as well, 

I’m not sure in my mind yet how I feel about that. 

We have been very, very busy on the CPC countries, with our 

small staff, vigorously pursuing diplomacy with the designees there 

to try to get changes. And that’s where our work has been focused. 

But we can continue talking about this in the future. 

Mr. SMITH. We have about 3 minutes before the vote is over. Let 

me ask you a question. I’ll leave the record open, and then we’ll 

go into a brief recess until Joe Pitts or I get back to reconvene it. 

But the question is this: One, do you have enough staff, do you 

have enough resources to do the job? 

And when it comes to priority with our relationship with Russia, 

are religious persecution issues raised? We know that President 

Bush is going to meet with Putin very shortly. Will he be raising 

these concerns? Will it be on his list of action items when he meets 

with Putin? 

And I know that you personally—and I can’t thank you enough—

are tireless in your efforts, but it does help when the President and 

when Secretary Rice, everyone else, take your information and resources and elevate it to that level. 

Amb. HANFORD. All right. Well, that’s an important——

Mr. SMITH. If you could put that on the record, and I’ll——

Amb. HANFORD. OK, good. OK. 

Mr. SMITH. Answer it, please. 

Amb. HANFORD. I sure will. 

Well, it’s an important part of our mission to be looking for opportunities to place religious freedom issues on the President’s 

agenda and his talking points whenever he’s having those kind of 

meetings, and we pursue these opportunities vigorously. 

And I know in the past these are the sort of issues that have 

been regularly raised. This issue of religious freedom is very dear 

to the heart of the President. You can tell that when you meet with 
10

him. It’s something that just flows from the heart that he’s very 

natural about. 

I’ve had the experience of running into him in a more informal 

setting in the White House and having come up and pursue me to 

tell me about the latest head of state he’s raised religious freedom 

with. 

And it’s clear, in just the early weeks of Secretary Rice’s time at 

the State Department, that she’s made statements about religious 

freedom, that this is also a very high priority for her. And her comments to me have suggested that as well. 

So I think this is something that we have reason to feel will continue. 

Mr. THAMES. [H. Knox Thames, Counsel, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.] Thank you, Ambassador. 

We’ll now take a brief recess. 

[Recess.] 

HON. JOSEPH R. PITTS, COMMISSIONER, COMMISSION ON 

SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

Mr. PITTS. Ladies and gentlemen, if we can reconvene, please. 

First of all, I would thank you for putting up with our schedule 

here. The Chairman asked me to continue the hearing. I tried to 

make it back before he left but couldn’t quite make it. We’re in a 

series of votes. 

First of all, I’d like to thank Ambassador Hanford for his testimony. 

And I would like to say that if any members or staff have questions, please submit them in writing, and we’ll get them to Ambassador Hanford so he can address them. 

We’ll now convene the second panel. And on our second panel it’s 

my pleasure to introduce Larry Uzzell, who’s a tireless advocate for 

religious liberty around the world. 

Larry is President of International Religious Freedom Watch, an 

independent research center which conducts in-depth analysis with 

regards to freedom of conscience in totalitarian or authoritarian 

countries. And he has visited Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, 

Chechnya, and many other places in the former Soviet Union to report on state policies toward religion. 

Larry was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his articles on the 

enactment and enforcement of Russia’s 1997 law restoring state 

control over religious life. And he’s conducted many guest lectures, 

briefings for policymakers at the U.S. State Department, the Commission on International Religious Freedom, the Congress, the Helsinki Commission, and elsewhere. 

Second, Paul Goble, who has also testified before this Commission, is a Senior Research Associate at the Eurocollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. Prior to assuming that position in 

2004, Mr. Goble worked in a variety of positions in the U.S. Government and U.S. international broadcasting, specializing on ethnic 

and religious minorities in the countries of the former Soviet 

Union. 

And he trained at Miami University and the University of Chicago. He’s the editor of four volumes on ethnic and religious issues 

of the Soviet states. 
11

I’m particularly pleased to recognize Andrew Okhotin, who was 

born in Uzbekistan in 1975 in a family of a Baptist minister. His 

father was imprisoned by the Soviet authorities for his religious activities from 1984 through 1987 in a starvation prison. In 1989 his 

family immigrated to the United States. 

In 1998, following the arrest of a Baptist preacher in 

Turkmenistan, Andrew dedicated himself to full-time advocacy for 

the pastor’s release and currently serves as a youth pastor in 

Southwick Baptist Church in Westfield, MA. 

He continues to direct the advocacy work at the Russian Evangelistic Ministries. He holds a B.A. in Economics from U.C.-Berkeley, a Master’s in Religion and Human Rights from Harvard and 

is a 2007 J.D. candidate at the University of Connecticut as well. 

Boris Perchatkin is President of the American-Russian Relief 

Committee in Washington, a former Soviet prisoner of conscience, 

and a leader in the struggle of unregistered Pentecostal believers 

to immigrate from the Soviet Union. 

Mr. Perchatkin arrived in the United States in 1987, and his organization continues to monitor the status of religious liberty in 

the former Soviet Union with a particular focus on unregistered 

evangelical and Pentecostal faiths. 

Finally, Sergei Cherpanov is currently serving at the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia as the Deputy Chairman of the Presiding Committee. 

He has been a full-time minister of Jehovah’s Witnesses since 

March 1993. From 1996 to 2000 he supervised the translation department, where he organized technical and linguistic support 

translation teams involving some 34 languages spoken throughout 

the Russian Federation and other countries of the former Soviet 

Union. 

Since 2000 has served as a member of the Russia branch committee. In 2000 he was appointed overseer of the legal department, 

where he served until 2004 when he was appointed as primary 

overseer. 

Welcome to you. 

And at this point, Mr. Uzzell, if you will begin your testimony. 

LARRY UZZELL, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS 

FREEDOM WATCH 

Mr. UZZELL. Thank you very much, Commissioner Pitts. It’s a 

great pleasure and privilege to be back before this Commission. I’ve 

been here many times, both formally and informally. But I can say 

in all honesty, of all the times that I have provided information 

and analysis to the Commission, today is the occasion that gives 

me the most personal satisfaction. 

Just by holding today’s hearing, sir, you and your colleagues are 

helping to correct what I think is a serious imbalance in U.S. Government coverage of religious repression in Russia. 

This is the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union that 

you’ve focused specifically on the plight of the unregistered groups 

in Russia. And it’s the first time, to my knowledge, that you’ve invited testimony from a representative of the unregistered Baptists. 

And I think this is really crucial, to show that the U.S. Government cares not only about those groups that have well-organized 
12

lobbies in Washington and partnerships with American missionaries but for the poorest and weakest in Russia. 

With your permission, I will ask that my full text be inserted 

into the record. 

Mr. PITTS. Without objection. 

Mr. UZZELL. I also have an article that I wrote for ‘‘World’’ magazine that I brought with me. If that could be entered into the 

record as well. And then I will shorten my remarks. 

Last week I phoned a couple of pastors in Moscow among the unregistered Baptists and asked them if either they or their fellow 

pastors had had any contact from the U.S. Government with regard 

to the persecution that they have been enduring lately. They said, 

no, they had not had any contacts whatsoever. 

I realize this is delicate. There are times when members of persecuted minority faiths would prefer not to be contacted directly by 

the government. But it varies from one community to another, it 

varies from one person to another. 

I think, on balance, the U.S. Government has not made as much 

of a proactive effort as it should have to reach out to these people. 

This is something that I hope my friend, Andrew Okhotin, can address in more detail. 

I think perhaps even more telling is just the texts of the last four 

reports of the State Department on religious freedom in Russia. 

The last four annual reports cumulatively have had a total of five 

references to the True Orthodox Church, the Orthodox who were 

underground during the Soviet years, or one of those underground 

Orthodox groups; seven references to the Old Believers, whose history in Russia goes back to the 17th century and who are perhaps 

the most uniquely Russian form of Christianity; and only six references to the unregistered Baptists. 

I compare that with 65 references to the Mormons over the last 

4 years, who are less numerous than the unregistered Baptists 

and, I think the Mormons themselves would agree, less oppressed 

than the unregistered Baptists. 

Now, I want to stress that I don’t think the Mormons are mentioned too much. If I were writing these reports myself, there’s not 

a single mention of the Mormons that I would omit. The problem, 

rather, is that certain other groups which don’t have the same 

media savvy, don’t have the same inside-the-beltway presence are 

mentioned too little. 

And I think that’s something that we really need to go out of our 

way to correct. It’s not just a matter of justice but even more than 

you might think a matter of perception within Russia. 

I constantly run into Russian journalists, Russian religious leaders, Russian Government officials who sincerely believe—this is not 

just propaganda—they sincerely believe that American missionaries are in Russia as part of a concerted plot of U.S. cultural and 

political imperialism. 

They’re mirror-imaging the social and political structure of their 

own country. These people, when I talk to them, they act as if the 

CIA station chief in Moscow and the McDonald’s executive in Moscow and the Baptist missionary in Moscow and the New York 

Times bureau chief in Moscow and myself, as if all of us got together once a week to plot our common strategy. 
13

And they link that with considerable erudition sometimes to the 

unfortunate history of West European missionaries in the 19th century when missionaries really, honestly, one has to say, were often 

agents of French or British imperialism. 

One Russian scholar, Nikolai Trofimchuk, has written an entire 

book on that theme which is widely circulated among the government officials who make decisions about how to treat minority religions and foreign missionaries in Russia. 

If we want to prove that that paranoid argument is wrong, then 

we should be going out of our way to speak up for the Old Believers, the unregistered Baptists and these other groups that don’t 

normally have a very loud voice in Washington. 

It is our duty as Americans to show that we are committed to 

religious freedom as an objective principle, to the rule of law for everyone, not just for our fellow citizens and that we should be giving 

top priority to defending the poor and the weak. 

Thank you. 

Mr. PITTS. Thank you. 

Mr. Goble? 

PAUL GOBLE, SENIOR RESEARCH ASSOCIATE, 

EUROCOLLEGE—UNIVERSITY OF TARTU, ESTONIA 

Mr. GOBLE. Commissioner, thank you. It’s a great pleasure and 

honor to have the chance to speak to this group again. 

I am especially pleased to be asked to talk about a group that 

is perhaps the most neglected among the religious communities of 

the Russian Federation, namely that country’s more than 20 million Muslims. 

Most people are not aware at the present time Muslims not only 

are the fastest-growing community in the Russian Federation but 

that the city of Moscow is the largest Muslim city in Europe. 

And that will continue to evolve. Therefore our failure up to now 

to pay attention to Islam as a religious question and not just an 

ethnic one I think is very serious. 

I was asked to speak rather late in the day so I have a very short 

statement, and I will read it because that way I will go off on the 

least number of tangents. 

The Russian Government’s requirement that all Muslim groups 

register with the state is contributing to the repression of many of 

those that do and the radicalization of the many more that do not. 

To be sure, this situation, which reflects both the nature of 

Islam, Moscow’s more general approach toward Muslims, is different in kind and not just in degree from the situation confronting 

other faiths in that country. 

But it serves as a useful reminder that it is important to consider the content and consequences of Russian Government registration requirements and not just the ability or inability of a particular congregation to gain that registration. 

At the present time, there are roughly 8,500 Muslim religious 

communities in the Russian Federation. Only just over 3,000 of 

them are currently registered with the authorities either in Moscow or the regions. The others either have chosen not to apply for 

such registration or, much more rarely, have been turned down by 

officials in Moscow or in the regions. 
14

Let me just stress here, the policy of Moscow as opposed to the 

policy of the regions is not between a central government committed to good things and regional governments committed to bad 

things, but you have a mixed picture in both cases. You have some 

people in Moscow who really do believe in religious freedom and 

many more there who do not, and in the regions the reverse is also 

to be found. It is a mistake to counter-preface a central government 

committed to religious freedom with regional authorities who are 

committed to its suppression. 

On the one hand, the situation reflects the relatively recent appearance of these groups. More than 95 percent of the 8,500 Muslim groups now in operation in the Russian Federation have appeared only since 1990. Consequently, many of them are not in a 

position to meet all the requirements for registration that the Russian authorities impose. 

And on the other hand, this pattern is the product of the complicated interrelationship between Islam and the Russian state 

over the past 250 years, a relationship in which the government 

has repeatedly attempted to control its Muslim citizens by imposing a set of bureaucratic hierarchies and procedures which are utterly foreign to the fundamentally nonclerical Islamic faith. 

As the Russian empire expanded into Muslim regions in the 17th 

and 18th centuries, desirous governments struggled to regulate 

Islam by the establishment of a set of institutions that came to be 

known as Muslim spiritual directorates. These bodies, which continued to exist in Soviet times, have no basis in Islamic theology. 

Islam does not have a clergy, as often as people say to the contrary. 

As a result, Islam and the Russian empire and then the Soviet 

Union remained divided between these tiny official structures. 

These links to and reliance on the state inevitably deprived them 

of the authority that the faithful might be expected to extend to 

natural leaders in their communities on the one hand, and on the 

other, a much broader, formal set of beliefs and practices among 

the country’s large Muslim population. 

Because the latter stood outside the official hierarchies and thus 

were illegal from the point of view of the Soviet state, those who 

took part in them were inevitably doing something inherently political, and that politicization has led to radicalization. 

Muslims in the Russian Federation as well as many Soviet, postSoviet, and Western analysts have described this division as one 

between a typically deracinated and security police-controlled official Islam and a popular or more radical, underground Islam on the 

other. 

Many Muslims expected that with the fall of Soviet power, that 

division would disappear and that Muslims would be allowed to organize themselves as they had before the Russian state imposed 

the MSD system. 

That has not happened. Instead, Muslim leaders have organized 

ever more Muslim spiritual directorates—there are now 60, more 

than 60 in the Russian Federation—and sought to sell themselves 

to the Russian state as the guardians of traditional Russian Islam 

in exchange for both official recognition and increasingly for state 

financing of their activities. 
15

At the same time, and especially since September 11, Russian 

President Vladimir Putin has sought, in the name of fighting terrorism, to use Muslim spiritual directorates and the registration 

process to impose greater control over the Muslim communities in 

the Russian Federation. 

Indeed, we know that the percentage of FSB officers working in 

Muslim spiritual directorates is probably higher than even in the 

central offices of the Patriarchate, except in the office of external 

relations, where it is 100 percent. 

Often, this Putin policy has taken the form of insisting that Muslim groups register and subordinate themselves to one of the progovernment Muslim spiritual directorates controlled by the police 

or face the use of police powers of the state against them. 

The reality is that the Russian state is routinely and frequently, 

on a daily basis, imposing these requirements on Muslim communities. It is not true that there are only a few reports of this. Indeed, in the Muslim communities of the Middle Volga, as well as 

in the North Caucasus, people say that the last part of Friday services at the mosque is to show your identification card to the policeman who will be at the door. 

And that is, in fact, a reality that is something that Mr. Putin 

has supported, as have many of the Governors. This is not something that is being done by rogues locally. 

The widely reported misbehavior of officials, both in the Middle 

Volga, which is the more traditionally calm area, and the North 

Caucasus has prompted many groups which had registered to try 

to seek to exit from that registration process as the only way to 

avoid being penetrated by the police. 

But instead of gaining greater control over the Muslim communities that it seeks, both Moscow and the regional governments, by 

their latest actions, have only further undermined the authorities 

of the MSDs, showing a large number of them to be little more 

than the handmaidens of the authorities. And Moscow has 

radicalized opinion among unregistered Muslim groups, many of 

whose members now accept the arguments of those, including both 

mullahs trained abroad and missionaries from Middle Eastern 

countries, that both the Russian Government and its MSD allies 

are enemies of Islam. 

The situation has now moved toward a vicious circle in which official repression of Islam has leaned to ever more radicalization. 

And that in turn is being invoked by officials to justify even harsher actions. 

Is there any way out? Can we in the West make a positive contribution? I think the answer to both of these questions is potentially, yes, there is a way out. 

The Russian state needs to move from a politically defined registration system to one in which religious groups will provide information about themselves on an informational basis. And the only 

thing they will have to offer is to agree to obey the laws of their 

country that govern all social organizations. 

That is something—the idea that religion should be treated fundamentally different than all others and more restrictive is a 

unique contribution of the Putin regime. And we in the West can 

make a contribution to this by insisting on the inclusion, not only 
16

of representative of official Muslim spiritual directorates which is 

what normally happens, but also unofficial Muslim groups, unregistered and unofficial, wherever there are international meetings 

about religious and human rights such as the upcoming session in 

Cordoba. 

In the current environment, one in which many in Russia and 

elsewhere justify anti-Islamic attitudes and actions by pointing to 

Muslim involvement in terrorism, neither of these steps will be 

easy, either here or in the Russian Federation. 

But both are necessary if we are to avoid a situation in which 

the further alienation of the Muslim community of the Russian 

Federation from both their government and the West will inevitably lead to the rise of dangerously radical Islamic group there 

which, within 20 years, will have close to a majority of the population of the Russian Federation. 

Consequently, what we do today with respect to registration of 

Islamic communities, the way they are treated by the Russian 

state, will have important foreign policy consequences for the 

United States, not just in the next 2 years but critically in 2030 

and beyond. 

Thank you, sir. 

Mr. PITTS. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, I’ll turn it over to you. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Okhotin? 

ANDREW OKHOTIN, MEMBER,

INDEPENDENT CHRISTIAN BAPTISTS 

Mr. OKHOTIN. I’m thankful for the opportunity to be here today. 

Before I begin, I just wanted to express my special thanks and 

appreciation for the continued involvement in this work. Some comments have been made about how, perhaps, these things are coming to the attention of the House on this level somewhat late, as 

we see more persecution taking place. 

I just wanted to express thanks to those who have maintained 

attention during these past years and were involved in the plight 

of Baptist minister Sergei Oshkov and ensured his early release 

from prison and then ensured that certain egregious violations, 

that they would not worse than they were when they did take 

place, that they would receive attention. And I just wanted to 

thank Congressman Pitts and Congressman Smith for your attention to this. 

A few comments that I would like to make right from the beginning is Ambassador Hanford said something about the reluctance 

of the independent Baptists in making contacts with the U.S. Embassy officials. And I just wanted to clarify that to make sure that 

that comment is understood in the context. 

That contact with representatives of foreign governments is a 

delicate issue in Russia. That issue I did talk about with one official in the U.S. Embassy, and I said that as far as the independent 

Baptists in Russia are concerned, they do make contacts with journalists, including Western journalists, because those are perceived 

to be neutral. 

Given not-too-distant past history in Russia, where the independent Baptists were always labeled and accused of being spies 
17

for the West, of being American spies, and given the very uncertain 

climate of religious liberty in Russia today and not knowing where 

that is going to lead, so there is some issue as to having very explicit contacts with U.S. officials in Russia. That definitely is the 

case. 

And there are channels for communication when information is 

released, if it comes out here. And that’s one of the reasons I’m 

here, for instance, is because, being a U.S. citizen, I can speak on 

behalf of the independent Baptists of Russia without necessarily 

making any one of them vulnerable and, at the same time, share 

the information that is publicly available but making sure that 

that information gets to the people who might be able to do something with it that would benefit the people in Russia, the Baptists 

and the public in general. 

Also, one other thing that I need to say is that as far as the attention of the U.S. Embassy in Russia is concerned, I hear that 

there were two political officers whose primary responsibility is to 

monitor religious liberty over the past—I would say over the past 

10 years. I received the first phone call last week about issues pertaining to potential problems happening to Baptists in Russia. 

And that sort of highlights—I know that there are probably other 

contacts within Russia, but yet that does highlight the amount of 

attention that group is receiving, despite the fact that it’s perhaps 

the largest Baptist denomination in Russia, numerically speaking. 

And so that needs to be mentioned. 

Also, one other detail, and that would bring me into what I want 

us to talk about today. There was no—the bombing of the church 

in Tula, that was a very significant development which, for whatever reason, went almost unnoticed as far as the reaction outside 

the independent Baptist church. 

There were many petitions that flowed from Baptist churches 

within Russia and outside, and yet there was not much official condemnation of the attack that took place. 

Some of the details of this, I think, need to be identified to put 

things in perspective, to recognize what actually took place on that 

night. 

The event which took place on the night of January 13 in 

2004,the bomb went off at 4 o’clock in the morning. It went off on 

the morning of the gathering of the church’s council the following 

morning. 

The key members of that council were planning to spend the 

night. They were planning to be spending the night inside the 

sanctuary. And they had a late-night meeting, which lasted after 

midnight. 

About 3 o’clock in the morning, someone suggested that they 

move to an adjacent building and spend the night there. They 

moved at approximately 3 o’clock, and at 4 o’clock the bomb went 

off. And practically speaking, if they had stayed in the building, the 

leadership of the independent Baptists would have been assassinated. 

And there were two watchmen and one other person who stayed 

behind in the building. At approximately 4 o’clock, they heard broken glass and went to investigate what it was. 
18

And then minutes after the explosion took place, shortly thereafter, when the fire trucks—and you can see this on the pictures 

here on the display—the collapsing of 52 of the enforced concrete 

slabs separating the basement area and the first floor of the sanctuary. 

When the fire trucks and the police and the FSB, when they 

came, along with the media, the FSB men were disseminating the 

scenario that this was an explosion of a natural gas pipe. They said 

there must have been a leak of the natural gas that caused the explosion. 

The people who came from the natural gas company measured 

the residue in the area. And they said, ‘‘We’re not finding any residue of natural gas. This was not caused by natural gas. This was 

caused by another explosive agent, not natural gas.’’

As far as the evidence of the bomb, the area was sealed off until 

the FSB went in and kept people out and they could do whatever 

they felt appropriate. And after they left, there was not any other 

evidence left. 

That was the first direct attack against—this church symbolizes 

the place where national congresses of independent Baptists take 

place every 4 years. This is where it takes place. This is the largest 

place. It also is the birth place of Enid Zarkiniki of the independent 

Baptist movement in Russia, which originated in 1961. 

When compelled by the government, the church decided to refuse 

registration, which was given to them on condition that they not 

raise children, not raise teenagers as Christians, that they do not 

baptize people under the age of 30, that they do not preach on certain doctrines of the gospel. For instance, they could not preach 

about the second coming of Christ because, in their view, that 

might cause anxiety with people, and a number of restrictions 

which were essential to Christian faith. And so, the church went 

underground. But that is the area where the movement began. 

We have suffered, as independent Baptists, we have suffered 

through the Soviet time, numerous arrests. Our ministers have 

spent more than 5,000 years in total in prison over that period of 

time, with the last prisoner leaving prison in the 1987–88 period, 

my father being among the 200 pastors who were released at that 

time. 

Since then, the Baptists have enjoyed time of relative peace and 

freedom, relative freedom, religious freedom, and were able to engage in evangelism, which was something special to any church, 

without much restriction coming from the state. 

And yet, starting in 1997 and then with much acceleration under 

Putin, religious liberty was gradually being eroded, and eroded not 

so much on the local level as far as following directives coming 

from the center, coming from Moscow. 

And especially, if you were to look today, for instance, and compare the opportunities that existed or just evaluate religious freedom in terms of whether or not the persons could conduct public 

preaching events, say, in 1997 and today, you’d find that back then 

that was permissible, today it is not. Back then, you could rent a 

facility for religious purposes. Today the independent Baptists 

would not be able to rent a facility. 
19

Back then, they would be able to rent a facility, for instance, to 

have a church to hold church in. Today, a prime example of that, 

for instance, is the church in Moscow, which was after 7 years of 

meeting in the rented facility expelled from the place in central 

Moscow. They found another place, were expelled from there. And 

the owner said, ‘‘Well, the FSB men came and they said we cannot 

continue your rent. You have to leave.’’

And one of the reasons that is used is because, well, these are, 

quote, unquote, ‘‘public facilities,’’ and they cannot be allowed for 

religious use. In Russia, given its state of economy, there are not 

any private facilities that could accommodate churches of size. 

But yet, we, as independent Baptists, we have tolerated this 

gradual erosion of religious liberties, trying to make good of what 

we had, until 2004 came, when this was the first direct attack 

against the facility and against leadership, directly against the 

leadership of the church, potentially assassinating the leadership of 

the church. 

And it was incredibly significant and highly symbolic that it took 

place. The church made every effort to rebuild that sanctuary and 

not to retreat from its position of independence vis-a-vis the state, 

of maintaining an independent stance vis-a-vis the state. 

The two pictures on the bottom you see there are the church as 

it is taped. Within a year the sanctuary was rebuilt, the church 

was rebuilt. And exactly a year from the day of the explosion a 

missionary conference took place, hosting 700 or so missionaries in 

that sanctuary. And it was a principled stance for the church not 

to retreat in response to that attack. 

Within 7 months from the events in Tula, we have the events in 

Lyubuchany, which you, Mr. Chairman, spoke about. And I thought 

looking at the pictures would give a better idea of the events that 

took place. 

I brought with me today a letter that came from the prosecutor’s 

office for the Moscow district. And they tried to explain the rationale behind their actions in Lyubuchany. What they’re trying to do 

is they’re trying to say that based on the law on freedom of conscience, they do not recognize independent Baptists as a religious 

organization. And because of that, they should not give them the 

right to gather. 

Instead, they want us to comply with the law of regulating political rallies. Well, our church will never grow to be recognized as a 

political organization, because we’re not; we’re a church. And if 

they do not recognize us as one, we do not want to be recognized 

as a political organization, then they mentioned the law on stopping extremist activity in this letter. So they term independent 

Baptist as an extremist organization which has a radical statement 

to be made. And in here mentioned that extremist activity is prosecuted as a criminal offense under the Russian legislation. Since 

when is the Baptist church recognized as an extremist organization 

in Russia? 

And they conclude with the words that what their soldiers, what 

their FSB, the police was doing there was protecting the public, 

protecting the citizens. And you can see the children, you can see 

mothers, you can see everyone else gathered there peacefully. And 

who were they trying to protect by preventing people from coming 
20

to attend essentially a rally which I had attended in the past? I’ve 

been to those rallies, and it is a purely religious gathering where 

people come to pray, to worship, to sing hymns, to hear sermons. 

And they’ve held this rally here for a number of years, since 

1991. The government is well aware of the nature of these rallies, 

and yet they now are trying to characterize as extremist and take 

action against them. 

So these are the events which are highly significant in terms of 

development. In Russia there’s a tactic in the military which is 

known as intelligence by direct attack. So you attack them, then 

by judging by response you figure out what forces are there. And 

the way we view attacks against Tula and Lyubuchany is as the 

equivalent of that. 

They had struck at the independent Baptists twice in 2004. And 

they’re carefully waiting to see what will be the response—response 

from within the church, whether the church will cave in, and the 

response from the international community. 

Following the events in Lyubuchany, as you had said, they 

burned down the church 3 weeks later. And I need to make mention of this, is that the next court hearing is scheduled for April 

18, which is 4 days from today. And it might be worthwhile if a 

letter were sent within 4 days of the court hearing to determine the 

status of the church to ensure it gets finished, to ensure that is not 

(inaudible). 

And so these are just some of the comments. 

And one more point that I wanted to make is there were certain 

statements made earlier today about the various declarations of 

human rights and upholding human rights. Declarations based on 

one level, but then there are also obligations, which Russia did find 

and which Russia should observe. 

And I believe that if it is not held accountable within Russia—

and there are very few, practically nonexistant—there are no, with 

some exception, institutions that can hold the government accountable for its treatment of citizens, then it is the responsibility of 

international organizations and other governments to remind Russia of its international obligations in respect to religious liberties 

and treatment of its citizens. 

And those, as Larry Uzzell said, who are weak, who are poor, 

who may not have the representation and who often cases are not 

heard, were not heard, and yet to ensure that that those groups are 

protected as well. 

Thank you. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you so very much. 

Before we go to Mr. Perchatkin, let me just say the one thing 

that I’m planning on doing, as a result of this hearing and the 

input from all of you, is a resolution on religious freedom in Russia 

and to bring specific focus to these kinds of atrocities that have 

been committed. 

So this hearing will have an action item, at least one, as a direct 

result of it. So I do thank you for that testimony. 

Mr. Perchatkin? 

INTERPRETER for Mr. Perchatkin. To save a little bit of time because he reads a little bit slow, I’ll just go ahead and read what’s 

going on right now. 
21

BORIS PERCHATKIN, PRESIDENT,

AMERICAN-RUSSIAN RELIEF COMMITTEE 

Mr. PERCHATKIN [through interpreter]. Dear ladies and gentlemen, the American-Russian Relief Center requests that you take 

notice of the condition of former nonregistered Pentecostal churches 

in Russia. 

To be able to understand the situation of nonregistered 

Pentecostals in Russia, it is important to know their recent past. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Perchatkin? If we could, we have about 7 minutes remaining on the clock for this, and then there will be an immediate vote right thereafter, and then we could all come back. 

So that Mr. Pitts and Mr. McIntyre and others can hear your testimony, as well as myself, I’d like to suspend again. And I apologize 

for the interruption, but we’ll come right back. 

We stand in recess. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. THAMES. I’ve spoken with Mr. Smith’s office, and unfortunately he’s been tied up on the floor and will not be able to come 

back. 

There’s another hearing that’s coming into this room at 2, and 

we’ve been asked to vacate as close to 1:30 as possible. So under 

these unique circumstances, I’ve been directed to reconvene the 

hearing. 

And so, at this point, I’ll ask Mr. Perchatkin to give his statement. And then we’ll go on to Mr. Cherpanov. 

Thank you. 

Mr. PERCHATKIN [through interpreter]. Dear ladies and gentlemen, the American-Russian Relief Center requests that you take 

notice of the condition of former nonregistered Pentecostal churches 

in Russia. 

To be able to understand the situation of nonregistered 

Pentecostals in Russia, it is important to note their recent past. 

Pentecostals in Russia began in the beginning of last century from 

an American missionary by the name of Voronaev. This gave a 

good reason for the Soviet agencies to proclaim Pentecostals as 

American agents. 

Pentecostals were forbidden to register their churches in 1927. 

And this law was in force until the fall of USSR. 

There’s a good reason to affirm that Pentecostals in USSR were 

prosecuted, since it is hard to find a family in Russia that has not 

been repressed in any way. For example, my grandfather was shot 

to death. My grandmother and her family was exiled. My father did 

not return from the camp. Mother was sentenced three times. My 

wife was sentenced twice, and I was sentenced twice. 

If my family did not immigrate to the United States, I cannot 

imagine what would have happened to my family and me. This 

type of family biography is not rare in Pentecostal families. 

But this is not all. In the 1970s, Soviet agencies opened up a new 

program of spiritual prosecution. This meant that Pentecostal children were not allowed to attend schools. The plan was to make 

Christians absolutely ignorant, thus having them drawn away and 

isolate themselves from the community. 
22

Captain of KGB, Klimenov, in 1977, in the city of Nahodka, proclaimed, ‘‘You were not allowed to learn in schools in 1970s, and 

now you think that to learn is a sin. And this is our job.’’

Besides, the community cultivated a notion that Pentecostals are 

retarded, illiterate section—a sect which brings human sacrifices 

and which organizes religious sexual organizations. 

Each sectarian is an enemy to the population. This is the way 

several generations were brought up. 

Because of their illiteracy, Pentecostals knew nothing about the 

legislative or executive agencies. They did not have journalists. 

And they did not have access to the agency. They were only taught 

to preach and not defend themselves. This kind of action toward 

the Pentecostals was not only persecution but also even a sort of 

entertaining for the community. 

Now, it is difficult to see who actually sanctions the prosecution. 

The common hatred in Russia’s inheritance of the past, it is either 

the communist nationalism or the tolerance of government agencies. 

Either way, this does not change the situation. Churches are 

being burned down. Church properties are being robbed. Criminal 

files against Christians. And children are being taken away from 

their parents. 

Here are some examples in the past few months. In the end of 

2004 and the beginning of 2005, what is known to our organization 

is as follows: 

Church in the city of Podalsk has been burned twice. A church 

in Buretia has been robbed and burned. The church in Oshkar Ola 

was burned. The church in Bratsk, in Erkutskaya region, was 

burned. 

The church in Novokuznetsk has been confiscated. A trial is 

being held whether the church should be confiscated in 2005. The 

church was bought in 1997. Ilya Bontseev is the pastor of the 

church. 

The church in Izhevsk was burned. The bottle with the solution 

that was used to burn that church was found. 

And the fact that churches are not allowed to register is nothing 

compared to the fact that churches are not allowed to be built. The 

church in the town Nekrasivoe was robbed and burned in December 2004. Boris Sinebabnev, a bishop of the 97 nonregistered 

churches in the Voronezhskaya region. Two years ago, they purchased a piece of land to build a church. On April 12, 2005, the 

land was confiscated and no money was returned to them. 

In the city of Lisky on September 2004, 11 criminal cases were 

filed against Pentecostals for preaching the gospel. Eleven people 

were beat up and falsely accused for attacking the policemen. But 

when the USA got involved in this matter, the process was quickly 

stopped. 

Authorities in Lisky refused to allow Pentecostals to build 

churches. Russia is driving us down to a point where we will have 

to start an underground church, says Sinebabnev, thus forcing 

them to gather in congregational members’ houses in secret. But if 

they are discovered, they would have to pay a fine. Sinebabnev 

says there is anywhere between 800 to 1,000 nonregistered church-
23

es across Russia. There are up to 50,000 members of Pentecostal 

congregations throughout the regions where he serves as bishop. 

There are also many nonregistered Pentecostal churches of which 

no one knows about that gather and preach the gospel in congregation members’ houses. There are barely any churches in Russia. A 

church cannot be built, because it will get burned as soon as it gets 

built. 

The letter below is a testimony of a Christian Pentecostal group 

called Little Israel in Siberia. When a group of Russian people 

which called themselves ‘‘Little Israel’’ moved to Yakutin, 

Ustmansk district, in the year of 1996, they found a job at a government company as lumbermen in the forest. 

The police took all of their passports and documents away from 

them for registration, so people of Little Israel did not even suspect 

that something was not right. 

They were getting very little pay for their job for the first 2 years 

and none at the third year. They were literally turned into slaves. 

They were fooled. ‘‘We fell into the hands of the Russian mafia,’’ 

they said. 

The third year of their life in Yakutin was extremely difficult, because of nothing to eat and nothing warm to wear during winter. 

During summer, they picked berries and mushrooms. 

When they went to the head of the company to ask if they could 

have their documents back, they were told that they should then 

skirt across Russia. 

Because of no help from the head of the company, they decided 

to go to the neighborhood in the town called Voldan, to the administrative building and ask for their documents. The sheriff told 

them that in that situation if they want to have all of their documents returned to them, then police will close their church and 

take off the registration, even though neither church has not been 

registered. 

Police also arose a criminal file against the whole group of Russians for beating up a 12-year-old boy. Vitaly Kozar, the pastor of 

the Christian group, says that this in fact was a true incident 

which happened 2 years ago in one family. But police should only 

deal with the one family alone and not the whole congregation. 

Unfortunately, all were deprived their rights as parents, and all 

children were taken away and divided among several orphanages. 

All parents were taken to prison. Vitaly Kozar was sentenced to 10 

years of imprisonment. 

Boris Perchatkin talked with Shpakovskiy, who is the advocate 

of Kozar, and tried to find out everything else that was happening 

to the Russian group. Shpakovskiy tried to pretend that he does 

not remember anything but later said that Kozar did not even 

touch that 12-year-old boy that he is fingered. He had nothing to 

do with beating up the boy and he disapproved of the beating. So 

he is truly not guilty. 

And the real reason why he’s in prison is because of his religious 

beliefs. Russian authorities continue to pursue Christian groups 

Little Israel in Siberia. In the spring of 1999, the pastor of the congregation, Vitaly Kozar, was sentenced to imprisonment for 10 

years. 
24

Deacon Aleksander Vasilev was sentenced for 5 years of imprisonment. 

During imprisonment, both pastor and deacon got sick with tuberculosis. Thirty-eight children were taken away from their parents, and the rest of the congregation were banished to Taksimo, 

in the Muyskiy region of the Buryatia Republic. 

Children, as mentioned before, were divided among several orphan agencies. Any communication between children and parents 

is forbidden. Some children were given away to other families. The 

only parents who were able to keep their children were those who 

agreed to leave the congregation and to witness fraud against the 

pastor and the deacon. 

At the current time in the congregation of Little Israel, there are 

only 23 members left. And I have the list of those names here. I’m 

not going to read them, but I’ll just go ahead and continue——

Mr. SMITH. Without objection, That will be made part of the 

record. 

Mr. PERCHATKIN [through interpreter]. No. 1 would be Kozar, 

Vitaly, born in 1930, father of the pastor, after 3 months of imprisonment was taken under convoy to the building for the disabled. 

No. 2, Kozar, Lidia, born in 1923, mother of the pastor; No. 3, 

Kozar, Vitaly, born in 1955, pastor, is currently in prison; Kozar, 

Natalya, born in 1954, was in prison for 3 months. Nikitenok Vera, 

born in 1946; Nikitenok, Yelena, born in 1973. 

Mr. SMITH. No, I have them right here. And we’ll put this into 

the record. [Off-mike.] 

Mr. PERCHATKIN [through interpreter]. And children of the members of the congregation are currently in an orphanage in Aldan. 

Part is in army. Five children live with other families. Some information about the members of Little Israel and about Pastor Vitaly 

Kozar may be found out from the advocate Shpakovskiy. 

He assured that all of the process and materials are falsified. 

The congregation underwent persecution because of their religious 

beliefs. 

Before everything that has occurred in Aldan, the congregation 

consisted of 75 members. But after police began taking children 

away, many people left the congregation. 

Now, our addresses and telephone number of the prison where 

Vitaly Kozar is at the current time. And there was the number 

where you can reach him. 

I will just leave the number and the address here. The telephone 

number is 411–5–4059. And the address is Russia, Yakost 611023 

Mushara Maroka. 

And Alexander Vasilev can be reached on Sundays from 7 in the 

morning, Moscow time. His telephone number is 40–0204. The telephone number of the advocate Shpakovskiyin Aldan is 411–4534–

324. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Perchatkin, thank you very much for your testimony. 

And I would like now to turn to Mr. Cherpanov for your testimony. 
25

SERGEI CHERPANOV, DEPUTY CHAIRMAN, PRESIDING

COMMITTEE, ADMINISTRATIVE CENTER OF JEHOVAH’S

WITNESSES—RUSSIA 

Mr. CHERPANOV. I’d like to take this opportunity, Mr. Chairman, 

to thank the members of the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe for allowing me to testify on behalf of 140,000 

Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia. 

Jehovah’s Witnesses desire to worship freely, as do other recognized religions in Russia. However, after the banning decision in 

Moscow, we have strong reason to believe that steps are being 

taken to ban our activity throughout Russia and in particular to attack the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in St. Petersburg. 

The truth is that the ban is having a negative impact on the worship of Jehovah’s Witnesses in other republics of the former Soviet 

Union as well. During the Moscow trial and in other court cases 

throughout Russia, the persecution has turned slander into a legal 

argument. 

False statements have also been spread about Jehovah’s Witnesses to incite religious intolerance. 

Herein, I would like to share with you some information about 

the situation facing Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia. 

After the Moscow courts banned the activity of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow in June 2004, the anti-cult organizations, which 

provided much of the so-called evidence in the case, filed an application with the Russian prosecutor general. The application requested that widespread criminal investigations be initiated into 

the activities of the religious communities in all the regions of the 

Russian Federation, with the goal to ban their activity. 

The prosecutor in the Moscow case, Tatiana Kondratyeva, declared at one point during the trial that the court decision to ban 

Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow would be the basis for further banning decisions on religious communities of Jehovah’s Witnesses. 

Thus, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow now face major problems 

with holding their weekly religious meetings. Only one building in 

Moscow, obtained in 1995 by our administrative center, is still in 

use for religious meetings. It was inadequate for the over 11,000 

Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow. 

The Moscow City Committee for Culture has ordered the management of all meeting rooms, sport facilities and conference halls 

not to sign rental agreements with Jehovah’s Witnesses. As a result, almost all the rental agreements for holding weekly religious 

meetings that had expired prior to the banning decision have been 

canceled, including many occasions where a congregation had been 

holding meetings for many years. 

In several cases, the decision of the Golovinsky district court 

banning the activity of Jehovah’s Witnesses was given as the reason for canceling the agreements. 

As a result of this, many Jehovah’s Witnesses have been forced 

to travel many miles to places outside of Moscow for worship, gathering in small groups and private homes for a meeting, or forested 

section of a park, as they did when under ban, during the Soviet 

era. 
26

In addition, Jehovah’s Witnesses regularly encounter problems 

with holding their larger religious assemblies. 

For example, in Moscow on November 14 and 20, 2004, assemblies for over 4,000 invited delegates were scheduled to be held in 

the Izmailovo Sports and Performance Complex, where such gatherings have previously been held for 10 years. 

However, the local chief of the police, Major General Dubenskiy, 

canceled the religious assemblies and declared that the events of 

Jehovah’s Witnesses could not be held in the complex because they 

were a banned sect. 

Jehovah’s Witnesses are regularly facing similar problems in 

other parts of Russia. 

For instance, on July 24, 2004, an assembly in Yekaterinburg 

was interrupted by 25 young men. The men ran onto the field 

while the stadium management turned up music so loudly that it 

was impossible to continue the program. The police simply stood by 

watching. 

On August 6, 2004, when 1,600 delegates arrived at the Voskhod 

Sports Complex in Chelyabinsk for a 3-day assembly, they found 

all the entrances to the stadium were locked. Police officers stood 

guard both outside and inside the stadium to prevent access. The 

stadium director refused to meet the convention organizers. 

While sharing their faith with others, Jehovah’s Witnesses in 

Moscow are now regularly detained and questioned by the police. 

For instance, just 3 weeks ago, on March 26, 2005, 60-year-old 

Tatiana Safonova and another Witness were arrested and held behind bars for 2 hours in the Kotlovka police department. 

Police officers ordered them not to preach in the area. When releasing them, police failed to provide them with any documents 

confirming the reason for their arrest and detention. 

National newspapers and major Russian television stations continue to spread negative information, inciting aggressive behavior 

toward the Witnesses. As a result, there have been several incidents of assault of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow. 

However, in many cases the law enforcement agencies have 

failed to take any action whatsoever against the perpetrators of 

these attacks. 

In the city of Nalchik, a slanderous leaflet entitled ‘‘Danger—Jehovah’s Witnesses’’ was widely distributed. As a result there have 

been attacks on Jehovah’s Witnesses and their literature, including 

two arson attacks on November 23, 2004, and February 20, 2005, 

where large amounts of literature were destroyed and serious damage was sustained to the premises rented for meeting purposes and 

for storing literature. 

On April 7, 2004, the Russian ministry for culture informed the 

St. Petersburg Customs Office that all printed matter of Jehovah’s 

Witnesses no longer qualifies for exemption from value-added tax. 

Prior to this, for several consecutive years, the ministry for culture 

had recognized the religious literature of Jehovah’s Witnesses as 

covered by the Florence Agreement of 1950, and thus was exempt 

from this tax. 

Therefore, in 2004, Jehovah’s Witnesses paid $771,000 U.S. in 

value-added tax in order to import their religious literature. Separately, companies that had previously assisted with audio and 
27

video production for Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to do further 

business. 

In conclusion, local tax authorities are currently carrying out audits of the Administrative Center of Jehovah’s Witnesses in St. Petersburg. The St. Petersburg prosecutor’s office has initiated investigations against the administrative center based on complaints 

lodged by anti-cult organizations. However, such actions present a 

warning sign, since the prosecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow began the same way, with similar investigations by law enforcement agencies. 

It is our hope that the European Court of Human Rights considers the application of the Moscow community of Jehovah’s Witnesses promptly. If the court makes a clear statement condemning 

the violations of the rights and freedoms taking place in Moscow 

and in other parts of Russia, the situation will improve with regard 

to rights of all religion minorities. 

Once again, Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe for allowing me to testify about the current situation facing Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia. 

Mr. SMITH. Thanks very much, Mr. Cherpanov. 

And thank you all for your excellent testimonies. 

As I indicated earlier, we will be following up with a resolution 

on Russia. And I think the testimony that you all have presented 

gives us an enormous amount of ammunition to bring to the Russian authorities, to let them know that we’re very, very displeased 

and very deeply concerned about this deterioration of religious freedom. 

When you mentioned, Mr. Cherpanov, about ‘‘promptly,’’ I think 

it was December 2001 that you brought that action at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. And I know justice 

moves slowly and judicial processes are very slow, but 2001 December and still nothing. 

And I would ask you very briefly, because we do have a hearing 

coming in here at 2 o’clock and so we’ll have to be out in about 10 

minutes or so. 

If you could, what are the prospects? Are they going to take up 

this? 

Then let me ask Mr. Uzzell—and I thank you again for your tremendous work for many years at the Keston Institute. You have 

been a great leader of religious freedom throughout the European 

theater, including Russia—especially Russia and the former Soviet 

Union. 

If you could, what other levers and tools are we not using that 

we should be using? 

I was very distressed to hear one of our witnesses say that despite the fact that we have two people dedicated to this portfolio 

of religious freedom at Embassy Moscow, that only recently—you, 

I think mentioned it, Mr. Okhotin, that you just got a call a week 

ago. So that’s not encouraging at all. And you might want to speak 

to that. 

As a matter of fact, very briefly, has there been any prosecutions 

as a result of that? 

Nothing. 
28

Does the Kremlin give persecution in your view overt or tacit approval? Because we keep hearing it’s happening out there. It’s not 

a Moscow-driven policy. 

Mr. OKHOTIN. When a group of believers came to the man who 

was in charge of this operation, who refused to identify himself, 

from the FSB, and they said, ‘‘You do realize there will be complaining to the Kremlin about these violations, because you’re violating the Russian Constitution.’’ And the man just laughed it off 

and said, ‘‘Do you really think we’d be doing this without approval 

from the Presidential administration’’? 

Mr. SMITH. How telling. 

Mr. UZZELL. Thank you. I’m delighted, Congressman Smith, to 

hear about the resolution you plan to put forward. That is exactly 

the kind of step that’s needed. 

Simply to tell the truth, especially with the unregistered Baptists 

and their equivalents in other denominations, such as the True Orthodox, who were underground during the Soviet years. These denominations have an importance beyond themselves. 

I think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great Lutheran pastor who 

was murdered by the Nazis just a few days before the liberation 

of Berlin. He’s honored by all Germans today. 

And I don’t want to make invidious comparisons between denominations, but both denominations behaved the way St. Paul 

would have behaved if he had been alive in the Soviet Union. He’d 

say, ‘‘We must obey God rather than men. We don’t make any compromises.’’

Those people should be honored today by everybody. They should 

be heroes to all Russians. But instead we’re seeing the opposite 

tendency. 

In the Russian school curriculum, authors like Evgenia 

Ginzburg, who was imprisoned in the gulag during the Soviet years 

and whose works were coming back into use in the 1990’s and 

being assigned to Russian schoolchildren, they’re now being 

squeezed out of the Russian curriculum. We’re seeing exactly the 

opposite of what one would hope to see in a free society. 

In answer to your specific question, I think it’s disappointing 

that so often documents from the U.S. Government are uncritical 

of Putin personally. The State Department reports seem to go out 

of their way to avoid talking about President Putin except in neutral or positive terms, even when they’re criticizing other things 

that the Putin administration is clearly responsible—I mean, the 

increasingly centralized vertical power that they’re setting up. 

I would mention the World Trade Organization, Russia’s aspirations for membership in the World Trade Organization. I believe in 

linkage, to quote President Reagan. I think there should be clear, 

concrete penalties for violations of human rights. The Russian Government should be denied things that it wants if it’s going to continue to trample on the rights of its own people. 

And then, finally, let me endorse the proposal of a watching 

brief, of setting up another category in between CPC and doing 

nothing, so that certain governments can be specifically alerted 

that especially close attention is being paid to them because of 

their past abuses in these areas. 

Thank you so much. 
29

Just one final comment, if I may. I was giving a talk to a bunch 

of university students a year ago, complaining about some of the 

things I’ve complained about today. 

One very bright student said to me, ‘‘Well, Mr. Uzzell, aren’t you 

being kind of utopian? Doesn’t a Congressman, the way our system 

works, the way it’s supposed to work, isn’t a Congressman going 

to pay more attention to the Roman Catholics and the Mormons 

and the groups that are well-organized, that make a difference to 

his own congressional district? Isn’t it naive to expect him to pay 

attention to these obscure religions in Russia that nobody ever 

heard of?’’

And I said, ‘‘Well, it isn’t necessary that every one of 435 Congressmen pay attention. What’s necessary is that the chairman of 

the Human Rights Committee pay attention.’’ And while it’s possible to be utopian, it’s also possible to be overly cynical. 

And I’m more grateful than I can possibly express that people in 

leadership positions in this body are paying attention to these 

issues. So thank you very much. 

Mr. CHERPANOV. Well, thank you for raising these issues with 

the officials. 

As to the European Court, they have a deadline of April 28th, 

Russia Government, to answer the questions posed by the European Court, but I think they will ask for an extension. In my opinion, if they would like to do something promptly, they could have 

answered already. But, well, we’ll wait and then we’ll comment on 

them, see how it turns. 

But European Court decisions, they were effectual in Russia because by Supreme Court decision they enforced in Russian legislation. So it remains to be seen. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Cherpanov. Justice delayed certainly 

is justice denied. 

I do want to thank our distinguished panelists. We will be submitting some additional questions to you, and if you could get back 

to us for the record. 

And I again apologize for all those intervening votes. Democracy 

is messy, and this is one example of it. 

I’d like to just make note that Pastor Nikitin is here with us 

today, and I thank you for being here. Pastor Nikitin is the President of the Association of Christian Churches in Russia, which has 

a membership of 300 churches throughout Russia. Pastor Nikitin 

and the ACCR are playing a major part in expanding Christian television throughout Russia. 

So thank you for joining us today. 

Again, I thank you for your testimony, your incisive remarks that 

you have provided to the Commission. We will use it. It’ll become 

the gist of a more robust response on our part, and hopefully the 

executive branch as well. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, the hearing adjourned at 1:49 p.m.]
30

A P P E N D I C E S 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. SAM BROWNBACK,

CHAIRMAN, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION

IN EUROPE 

Today’s hearing is particularly timely as the President prepares 

for meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, in 

early May. More and more people are asking the question: Is religious freedom evaporating in Russia? There are certainly indications that selected minority religious communities are facing increasing difficulty in freely practicing their faith. While in most instances these problems arise at the local level, the Government of 

Russia has done little to stop these violations of OSCE commitments. 

The reality is that unregistered religious communities throughout the country struggle regularly to enjoy their religious freedoms, 

as the right is not consistently protected for thousands of Russian 

citizens who belong to such groups. Meanwhile, the trends are not 

moving in the right direction. 

Indeed, reports coming from religious communities lead me to believe that the situation is certainly not improving. Last week, as 

Chairman of the Helsinki Commission, I convened a hearing on the 

efforts of the Chabad community and the U.S. Government to recover the ‘‘Schneerson Collection’’ of sacred and irreplaceable Jewish books and manuscripts from the Russian Government. That 

hearing reinforced my belief that Russia has no rightful claim to 

these books and no desire to return them, thereby preventing the 

Chabad community from benefiting from the wisdom contained in 

these texts. 

Another troubling development was the deregistration and banning of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Moscow last June, a culmination of over seven years of litigation. Banning does more than 

deregister a group and void its legal status—a group is actually 

prohibited from meeting collectively. The June ban technically applies to the 10,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses meeting in the Moscow region. However, the ruling creates a dangerous precedent for other 

regions and other minority communities. 

Baptists, Pentecostals and Muslims all face similar threats. For 

instance, in February of this year I, along with Co-Chairman 

Smith, wrote the governor of a region near Moscow concerning the 

troubling events surrounding an unregistered Baptist congregation. 

Authorities forcibly prevented this small Baptist church from holding an outside worship service, sending in police to take down the 

tent that was erected on private property. Later, when their house 

church was burned down by arsons, local authorities did not vigorously investigate the crime, but rather threatened to bulldoze any 

attempt to rebuild their place of worship. 

These local instances are alarming, but trouble may be brewing 

at the federal level. One ominous decision was the creation this 

month of a new agency, the Federal Registration Service. Its director stated the Service should work to get rid of ‘‘dead soul’’ NGOs. 

One wonders if religious groups will be targeted by what is, in effect, a deregistration commission? 
31

Religious freedom is truly a sacred human right. President Bush 

boldly made human rights and liberty the cornerstone of his foreign policy. He said, ‘‘America’s influence is considerable, and we 

will use it confidently in freedom’s cause.’’ As Secretary of State 

Rice visits Moscow early next week to prepare for the President’s 

trip there in early May, I urge the administration to ensure that 

the issues discussed at today’s hearing are raised with the Russian 

leadership.
32

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN,

RANKING MEMBER, COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND

COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this hearing today on 

a subject that is essential to the OSCE process. It is vitally important to examine the situation facing religious minorities in the 

OSCE today because treatment of religious minorities is part of 

that mosaic that constitutes a country’s human rights record toward its citizens. 

Human rights are not just something that the State Department 

talks about in its Country Reports. Human rights count. As we 

have seen of late, governments ignore human rights at their peril, 

especially when the citizenry (to use the language of the original 

Helsinki Accords) ‘‘know their rights and act upon them,’’ and rise 

up to evict repressive governments and governors. 

With regard to religious liberty in Russia, it is truly a mixed picture. Religious freedom is generally protected at the federal level, 

for example, in terms of law and a reasonably benign attitude by 

the executive branch. But the federal level is not where religious 

liberty is played out on a daily basis. Many unregistered religious 

groups throughout the Russian Federation must regularly overcome obstacles and discrimination at the local level to practice 

their faith freely. These communities face difficulties ranging from 

acts of violence to arbitrary prohibitions on public gatherings. One 

issue that the Commission has followed closely is that of an unregistered Baptists congregation in a region near Moscow. For reasons 

that remain unclear, local officials prevented them from meeting on 

private property, vandals burned their house church to the ground, 

and authorities have threatened legal action if the facility is rebuilt. This is only of several incidents where unregistered churches 

have mysteriously fallen victim to fire. 

In a decision that was truly chilling in terms of its logic, the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization of the city of Moscow was 

deregistered by a city court in March 2004. Now, every time adherents of that community exercise their fundamental right to meet 

collectively, they place themselves in legal jeopardy. Moreover, local 

Russian officials appear to be using the Moscow decision to place 

roadblocks in the way of public convocations of Jehovah’s Witnesses 

in other regions of the country. 

Mr. Chairman, these are two examples of repressive actions 

against unregistered or ‘‘deregistered’’ religious groups in Russia 

today. From a broader perspective, let me read one passage from 

the State Department 2004 country report on Russia: 

‘‘Conditions deteriorated somewhat for minority religious 

faiths—Some federal agencies and many local authorities continued to restrict the rights of various religious minorities. 

There were indications that the security services increasingly 

treated the leadership of some minority religious groups as security threats.’’

In the 108th Congress I introduced legislation, HR 1224, co-sponsored by Commissioner Pitts and others, which would graduate 

Russia from our Jackson-Vanik requirements and extend normal 

trade relations. In our legislation we noted that the Russian Federation had: committed itself to ensuring the freedom of religion; 
33

engaged in efforts to combat ethic and religious intolerance; and 

continued to restitute religious property. The legislation also urged 

the Russian Federation to ensure that ‘‘its national, regional, and 

local laws, regulations, practices, and policies fully, and in conformity with the standards of the OSCE—safeguard religious liberty throughout the Russian Federation, including by ensuring that 

the registration of religious groups, visa and immigration requirements, and other laws, regulations, and practices are not used to 

interfere with the activities or internal affairs of minority religious 

communities.’’

Today, Mr. Chairman, I have serious reservations about whether 

the Russian Federation is meeting the standards we have set out 

in our legislation to graduate them from Jackson Vanik and extend 

normal trade relations. 

I look forward to an update on these issues from Ambassador 

Hanford, and an informative discussion by all of our witnesses 

today.
34

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN V. HANFORD III,

AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE FOR INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS

FREEDOM, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE 

Thank you, Chairman Smith, distinguished Members of the Helsinki Commission, ladies and gentlemen. I welcome the opportunity 

to be here today to discuss the problems experienced by unregistered religious groups in Russia. It is my hope that today’s hearing 

will draw attention to the plight of unregistered religious groups in 

Russia and that by working together we can improve the treatment 

of these communities throughout the country. Russia has seen disturbing trends in this regard, as it has more generally with democratic development. We take the state of religious freedom in Russia with the utmost seriousness. The United States Government’s 

democracy and human rights strategy in Russia is to promote 

awareness of and respect for the entire range of human rights, including freedom of religion. 

Today, some of the greatest threats both to our national security 

and to international peace justify their violence in religious terms. 

Our work, in advocating societies based on respect for human 

rights, including religious freedom, offers a compelling alternative. 

Nations that respect religious freedom rarely pose a security threat 

to their neighbors. Nations that affirm religious liberty also lay a 

cornerstone of democracy and the rule of law. For these reasons 

alone, promoting religious freedom is as much in our national interests as it is our national ideal. Since passage of the International Religious Freedom Act in 1998, we have made important 

strides in advocating for religious freedom as part of our foreign 

policy. President Bush has strengthened this commitment, stating 

in his National Security Strategy that the U.S. Government will 

‘‘take special efforts to promote freedom of religion and conscience 

and defend it from encroachment by repressive governments.’’ Secretary Rice recently stated, ‘‘(A) part of my responsibility, both to 

my own country and in helping with others, is to recognize that it 

is freedom of religious conscience, freedom of religious conviction 

that is really the core value of democracy.’’ She also said that ‘‘the 

right to individual conscience is the key to democracy,’’ adding that 

‘‘people will never be truly free if this most personal of decisions 

is imposed upon them.’’

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN RUSSIA TODAY

My office closely follows religious freedom developments in Russia. We are in touch regularly with religious and human rights 

groups. Embassy Moscow has two political officers dedicated to promoting human rights and religious freedom. They follow events in 

this huge country, which spans twelve time zones, with the assistance of the Consulates General in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, 

and Vladivostok. They investigate reports of incidents and stay in 

close regular contact with religious groups and human rights advocates. Our Ambassador, Consulates General and our senior officials 

raise our concerns about the rights of religious minorities with 

Russian leaders on an ongoing basis. 

Russia’s constitution recognizes freedom of religion, and the Russian Government generally respects this right in practice. Unfortu-
35

nately, however, the 1997 law on Freedom of Conscience and On 

Religious Associations and its amendments have had the practical 

effect of restricting religious freedom for a few groups and organizations. The law imposes restrictive registration requirements that 

prevent new and minority faith groups from gaining legal status. 

Nearly one thousand faith groups were unable to meet the registration requirements and were dissolved and prohibited from conducting any activities. This registration requirement for religious 

organizations also exists in many neighboring Eurasian countries. 

In Russia, people are free to belong to the state-favored organizations, which include Russian Orthodox Christianity under the auspices of the Moscow Patriarch, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism. 

These religions were mentioned in the 1997 law on religion as constituting part of Russia’s ‘‘historical heritage.’’ Although the majority of Russians feel free to worship, many religious minorities have 

encountered restrictions and harassment, including some of those 

that are registered. We have received reports of difficulties experienced by (or privileges denied to) Old Believers, members of the 

Autocephalous Orthodox Church, Roman Catholics, unregistered 

Baptists, Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Muslim mosques 

that cannot get approval from one of the two sanctioning Councils 

of Muftis. You will hear today from representatives of some of 

these groups, who will confirm their difficulties. 

Many in this room represent groups and organizations with 

whom I worked when I served on the staff of Senator Lugar. In 

1997, Senator Lugar led an effort in both houses of Congress to dissuade the Russian Government from passing the 1997 law on Freedom of Conscience and On Religious Associations. Mr. Chairman, 

I remember that you were prominently involved in that effort, as 

was the leadership in both the Senate and the House and on both 

the Republican and Democrat sides of the aisle. In all, 169 Senators and Members of Congress joined in this appeal to President 

Yeltsin to veto the 1997 law. Initially, Yeltsin did, in fact, veto the 

law, but later he settled for a compromise that was really no compromise at all—and that is why we find ourselves where we do 

today. 

The 1997 law noted the ‘‘special contribution of Orthodoxy to the 

history of Russia and to the establishment and development of Russia’s spirituality and culture.’’ As Secretary Rice noted, ‘‘In the 

United States, we separate church and state. But not every democracy separates church and state.—(T)he real key is that people 

have to be able to choose this most personal of commitments. They 

have to be able to choose to worship in any way that they wish.’’ 

I regret to say that in Russia today the statutory registration requirements have been used in some cases to restrict religious freedom. 

SOME POSITIVE DEVELOPMENTS

The portrait of religious freedom in Russia today would not be 

balanced, however, if we did not mention some positive developments. Despite the increase in difficulties for some minority religious groups over the past four years, federal authorities have 

sometimes reprimanded discriminatory actions by local officials. 

Federal officials have provided information to regional officials, in-
36

cluding a publication on the rights of foreign religious workers, 

which has been used to instruct local officials unfamiliar with federal law. To its credit, the Government of Russia maintains a 

human rights ombudsman office, albeit a weak one, which has a division devoted to religious freedom complaints. Like his predecessor, the current Ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin, has criticized the 

law on religion, recommending changes to bring the law into line 

with Russia’s Constitution. 

The Presidential Administration continues to work towards consistent and strict application of federal laws. At the same time, minority religious groups sometimes benefit from a less-strict implementation of the federal law on religion. For example, some representative offices of foreign religious organizations have opened 

and not formally registered with state authorities. Others have affiliated with an existing registered organization. None of these foreign offices, however, were allowed to conduct religious activities 

and, even if affiliated with an already registered organization, they 

do not have the same status as a religious organization. 

Let me take this opportunity to cite two specific instances of recent positive developments concerning religious groups on whose 

behalf we have advocated. Although previously the Russian Federal 

Security Service harassed the Family of God Pentecostal Community, that harassment ended last year and the group was allowed 

to re-register. In addition, we note the Vanino Baptist Church in 

Khabarovsk was allowed to re-register last summer. Dan Pollard, 

the church’s pastor, who has been trying to return to Russia since 

he was banned in 1999, was recently told by the Russian Consulate 

in Seattle that his name was removed from the blacklist. We will 

watch with interest and concern as these developments continue to 

unfold. 

GROUPS THAT HAVE BEEN SUBJECT TO HARASSMENT, ABUSE OR

VIOLENCE

As you well know, Mr. Chairman, minority religious communities 

in Russia face many challenges and problems. Since I have been 

asked to speak today specifically about the problems faced by unregistered groups in Russia, I will confine my comments to those 

groups. 

Let me now turn to the problems faced by several minority religions in Russia that have both experienced registration difficulties 

and have also been subject to violence, abuse or harassment. 

Prominent among these groups are the unregistered Baptists, the 

Old Believers, Pentecostals, and certain independent Muslim 

groups. Many of the members of these groups experience fear and 

intimidation in their local communities. 

Much of the ill-treatment experienced by minority religious 

groups stems from the actions of regional and local government officials. At the same time, some minority religious groups and 

human rights advocates point to the atmosphere created by actions 

of the federal Prosecutor General’s office, which has encouraged 

local officials and organizations to take legal actions against some 

minority religions and to publish and distribute materials that are 

patently biased against some minority religious groups, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and others. The FSB has pressured 
37

landlords to break contracts, has pressured the tax services to investigate religious groups for evidence of criminal activity, and reportedly has influenced the Ministry of Justice to deny registration 

or re-registration to some groups. 

When violence does occur against minority religious groups, 

sometimes local officials fail to arrest those responsible, dismissing 

the attacks as ‘‘hooliganism.’’ Convictions for vandalism or attacks 

against minority religious groups are exceedingly rare. The climate 

of prejudice against minority religious groups often is spurred by 

statements by religious leaders of traditional faiths. For example, 

a number of anti-sect conferences have been held around the country at which representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church have 

suggested banning different minority faiths. One leader of another 

traditional faith suggested that the Government define which religious organizations are sects and then adopt a law to prohibit sect 

activities. 

Let me now turn to several of the groups that have faced violence 

and harassment. 

Unregistered Baptists: During the past two years, several unregistered Baptist groups have experienced varying degrees of intimidation and violence. In most instances, unregistered Baptists are 

those that are opposed on principle to registering or cooperating 

with the Russian Government, and they fear that contacts with 

representatives of the U.S. Government could further complicate 

their situation. The unregistered Baptists are sometimes called the 

‘‘separated Baptists,’’ which stems from their split from the Union 

of Evangelical Christians-Baptists in Russia in 1961. 

There have been an estimated 10 arson attacks on unregistered 

Baptist churches in the past two years. In September of last year 

an unregistered Baptist church was burned down in Lyubuchany in 

what was ruled an arson. No one has been arrested, though eyewitnesses saw law enforcement officials in the area just before the 

fire. The arson followed an incident in which about 80 local law enforcement and FSB officers with police dogs tried to intimidate several thousand Baptists convening from across Central Russia for 

their annual assembly. Local officials tried to interfere in the rebuilding of a new church by filing suit to block the rebuilding, but 

a February court hearing was cancelled, and the building is nearing completion. 

Embassy Moscow has raised our concerns about the arson attack 

with the Russian Government. The Embassy emphasized that 

while it was true that the unregistered Baptists had not provided 

authorities with advance notice of their meeting, as required by 

law, this can in no way be an excuse for abuse or arson. We continue to urge the Russian Government that the perpetrators be 

brought to justice and that adequate protection be provided so that 

unregistered Baptist churches are not attacked. Mr. Chairman, I 

want to thank you and your colleagues for the letter that you wrote 

to Mr. Chibeskov, the Acting Head of Administration of Chekhov 

Oblast, who oversees the area in which the destroyed church is located. Your raising this issue with Russian authorities serves to 

focus attention on the group and may provide them some additional 

protection. 
38

Old Believers: Old Believers are Orthodox Christians who did not 

join the Russian Orthodox Church in cooperating or officially registering with the Soviet regime. In general, they do not experience 

direct harassment or repression by the Russian Government. Two 

leaders of the largest branch of the Old Believers have told our embassy that registration has not been a problem for them. Nevertheless, due to the consequences of their separation from the Moscow 

Patriarchate, they face difficulties in property restitution from 

churches seized during the Soviet era. While requests for restitution have sometimes been granted, local officials are usually slow 

to respond to these requests. There are currently two active church 

restitution cases underway in Samara and St. Petersburg. In the 

Samara case, there have been positive developments. Post reports 

that the Russian Orthodox Church bishop for Samara said he was 

not opposed to return of the church to the Old Believers. As a result, the Old Believers are cautiously optimistic that this case will 

be resolved. 

Embassy Moscow reports that representatives from the largest 

branch of Old Believers in Samara indicated that churches in their 

branch are not having difficulties with registration. They said they 

were told their historic church will be returned to them. 

Pentecostals: Some Pentecostal communities also have refused to 

register out of philosophical convictions. Others have been offered 

and refused the opportunity to join other registered central organizations, such as Protestant unions, which would entitle the 

Pentecostals to register without waiting for 15 years. Pentecostals 

have experienced arson against their churches as well, with no actions taken by law enforcement. Fires were set against Pentecostal 

churches or prayer centers last year in Moscow Oblast, Chekhov, 

Balashikha, Tula, Pipetsk, and Nizhniy Tagil. 

African-born Pentecostals in Moscow have suffered both as victims of religious and racial prejudice. In 2001 one African pastor 

was beaten, and his church burned. The congregation continued to 

meet in private apartments for worship, but the members were 

forced to disband in 2003 as the violence and threats continued. 

Other African non-Orthodox congregations have also experienced 

vandalism, threats and violence based on the double prejudice 

against race and religion. 

Independent Muslims: Many local Muslim groups were unable to 

register as local organizations when the 1997 religious registration 

law went into effect. Many groups found the paperwork involved to 

be beyond their resources, and not worth the extra effort, since 

they were already meeting in a regular place of worship. An official 

spokesperson for the two Councils of Muftis claimed that all Muslim groups that sought to register as local organizations were able 

to do so. Some 3,537 Muslim organizations were registered with 

the Ministry of Justice as of mid-last year. New statistics are not 

yet available, but we note that at least 121 of these registrations 

took place in 2003 and 2004. The spokesperson asserted that registration was not needed for religious activity per se, so many regional Muslim organizations continue to operate without registration. 

We have reports of Muslims in some regions protesting the frequency with which they have been stopped and asked for identity 
39

papers. Government officials express concern about extremist 

groups such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir and groups of foreign Muslims in 

the North Caucasus that may be potential terrorists. The security 

service (FSB) has continued to treat the leadership of some minority religions, and in particular some Muslims, as security threats, 

conducting campaigns of harassment against them. 

GROUPS EXPERIENCING POLITICAL INTERFERENCE AND COURT

CHALLENGES

Now I would like to turn my attention briefly to several religious 

organizations and groups that have experienced political interference and adverse rulings by local courts. While the Russian legal 

system has made strides since Soviet times, further progress is 

needed in achieving judicial independence. I will briefly review the 

problems faced by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Salvation Army, 

the Church of Scientology and the Mormons. 

Jehovah’s Witnesses: In June 2004, a Moscow district court 

banned all organized activity of the city’s 10,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses on the grounds that they posed a threat to society. Reports 

indicate that this local ban has inflamed passions against the approximately 133,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses throughout Russia. The 

Jehovah’s Witnesses have appealed the ban with the European 

Court of Human Rights, and proceedings are underway. 

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have faced difficulties in other Russian 

communities as well. Reports indicate that they have confronted 

obstacles when attempting to rent buildings, have had contracts 

voided, and have faced other attempts to disrupt and/or liquidate 

them. Jehovah’s Witnesses report that anti-cult organizations and 

the Russian Orthodox Church are attempting to initiate legal action to close the Jehovah’s Witnesses Administrative Center in St. 

Petersburg. In addition, the Federal Security Services (FSB), the 

Prosecutor General, and other official agencies have campaigned 

against the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Prosecutor General’s office 

provided legal guidance to local Ministries of Justice on how to 

bring a case against them. 

The Jehovah’s Witnesses have also been the subject of harsh criticism. The Russian press and some Russian textbooks refer to the 

Jehovah’s Witnesses as a ‘‘sect,’’ and in one unfortunate comparison, the Governor of Stavropol Kray, which has been attacked by 

Chechen separatists, compared Jehovah’s Witnesses to Wahhabis. 

The Salvation Army: The Salvation Army is currently fighting a 

legal battle in Russian courts to defend its right to exist. Local authorities used the registration requirement of the 1997 law on religion to bring the Moscow branch of the Salvation Army before the 

Taganskiy District Court of Moscow in 2001. That court ruled to 

liquidate the organization, and the Moscow City Court upheld the 

decision. In February 2002, the case went before the Constitutional 

Court, which ruled that the Moscow City Court should not have liquidated the local branch because the organization had made many 

good faith efforts to re-register. 

In April 2003, the Constitutional Court found unconstitutional a 

ruling of a Moscow district court that had ordered the liquidation 

of the Salvation Army’s organization in Moscow on the grounds 
40

that it was a ‘‘militarized’’ organization. Local officials, however, 

have not complied with the Constitutional Court decision. 

With the assistance of a lawyer from the Slavic Center for Law 

and Justice, the Salvation Army continues to try to re-register in 

Moscow Oblast, while it operates under its old registration. The organization is working through the European Court for Human 

Rights (ECHR), which ruled last year that the Salvation Army’s 

complaint was admissible on the grounds that it had not been allowed to re-register. 

There has not yet been a hearing on the merits in the case before 

the ECHR. The Salvation Army offered the Government terms for 

an amicable settlement in the ECHR case, and the Government 

has not yet responded. Despite the favorable court rulings, Moscow 

authorities have not permitted the Salvation Army to re-register, 

although the group continues to operate based on documents filed 

under an earlier statute. 

The Church of Scientology: The Church of Scientology is another 

church defending its right to exist in the court system. The Moscow 

authorities refused to register the local organization and used the 

1997 law in an attempt to liquidate the Scientologists. In a series 

of court cases over the past eight years, there have been a number 

of findings in favor of the church. In each of these favorable rulings, however, the Procuracy has appealed the decision, usually 

successfully. These successful appeals led the Scientologists, in the 

fall of 2004, to file suit in the ECHR against the Moscow liquidation order. The ECHR agreed the appeal was admissible and 

agreed to consider the case on its merits. 

In St. Petersburg, the Scientologists have been denied registration and threatened with liquidation. Authorities have interfered 

with Scientology centers in a number of localities. The Supreme 

Court ruled that a liquidation case against the Khabarovsk center 

be re-tried. In Bashkortostan in March of 2003, the Supreme Court 

banned the local center, but the center remains open pending appeals to the Supreme Court and the ECHR. The ECHR ruled last 

year that the case was admissible. In total, three Scientology cases 

are now before the ECHR. 

The Church of Latter-day Saints (Mormons): The Mormons have 

experienced mixed results in their registration attempts. To date 

they have successfully used the court system to register approximately 50 local religious organizations. In one case in September 

2003, the church was finally registered in Chelyabinsk despite 

being turned down 12 times previously by the Department of Justice over five years. However, since 1998, the Church of Latter-day 

Saints has not been able to register in Kazan, Tartarstan. 

CONCLUSION

Mr. Chairman, let me conclude by thanking you again for holding this important hearing. Your activism and advocacy on issues 

of religious freedom and human rights over the years have been 

very impressive, and all of us who labor on religious freedom issues 

are indebted to you for your leadership. 

We welcome your suggestions to work together to improve the 

treatment of minority religious groups throughout Russia. We 

would be happy to work with the Helsinki Commission to establish 
41

communication with the appropriate Russian parliamentary committees to encourage dialogue to address our religious freedom concerns. 

As Secretary Rice has pledged, we will continue to talk about religious freedom with other countries, not because we ‘‘believe we 

should use religion as a weapon’’ against others, but ‘‘because it is 

very often a basis for compassion and decency in a society; it is essential to the proper functioning of democracy.’’ In Russia today, 

we see restrictions on religious freedom, and this directly relates to 

the lack of a properly functioning democracy. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for highlighting the situation of 

minority religious groups in Russia by holding these hearings. I 

will be happy to take your questions.
42

PREPARED STATEMENT OF LARRY UZZELL, PRESIDENT, 

INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM WATCH 

Of all the many times that I have given testimony and informal 

briefings to this Commission, today’s hearing gives me the most 

satisfaction. I believe that this is the first time since the fall of the 

Soviet Union that a Capitol Hill hearing has focused specifically on 

the unregistered religious bodies in Russia. It’s especially welcome 

that you are including testimony from a representative of Russia’s 

unregistered Baptists. Simply by holding today’s hearing you are 

helping to correct a serious imbalance in the U.S. government’s 

work on religious freedom in Russia. 

One of the defining moments in the campaign for international 

religious freedom in Washington came in the 1996, when the U.S. 

ambassador to China was asked about persecution of China’s unregistered house churches. It turned out that despite his briefings 

from the State Department he didn’t know what a ‘‘house church’’ 

was. That episode dramatically revealed one of the blank spots in 

State Department thinking that so many of the people in this room 

have worked to correct. 

Unfortunately, too many Americans still don’t realize that Russia 

has unregistered house churches of its own. Russian Baptists, in 

particular, are divided between the registered and the unregistered, each with hundreds of local congregations. The unregistered 

Baptists or ‘‘initsiativniki’’ split off from the registered Union of 

Evangelical Christians-Baptists in 1961 after the leaders of that 

group agreed to make certain concessions under pressure from the 

Soviet regime. For example, the registered Baptists agreed to cut 

back on missionary activities, to discourage baptisms of anyone 

under age 30, and to stop teaching religion to children. Many Baptists found these concessions to be morally unacceptable. They 

formed an ‘‘initsiativnaya gruppa’’ or ‘‘initiative group,’’ which ultimately became a separate denomination—now known as the Council of Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists, represented here 

today by Andrew Okhotin. As a matter of principle, these 

‘‘initsiativniki’’ still refuse even to apply for state registration in 

Russia. 

Let me stress that I am here today to speak out for the unregistered Baptists, not to denounce the registered Baptists. We Americans who have never lived under a totalitarian regime should be 

charitable in judging Russians who faced pressures that we can 

barely imagine. The registered Baptists often saw themselves as 

trying their best to practice their faith in a tragic situation, even 

if they made compromises that they now regret. As defenders of religious freedom, we should be committed to defending both the registered and the unregistered Baptists from oppression. But that’s 

precisely the problem. The U.S. government does not give the unregistered Baptists nearly as much attention as it should, just as 

it does not give nearly enough attention to the Old Believers, the 

True Orthodox Church, or other indigenous Russian religions that 

do not have well-organized lobbies in Washington or partnerships 

with well-connected American denominations. 

Last week I phoned two leaders of the unregistered Baptists in 

Russia—including the pastor whose congregation was harassed and 

whose house church in Lyubuchany, just south of Moscow, was 
43

torched last fall under extremely suspicious circumstances. I asked 

if anyone from the U.S. Embassy, or from any other part of the 

U.S. government, had contacted them or any of their fellow pastors 

to find out more about their situation. The answer was No. 

Recently I reviewed the State Department’s last four annual reports on international religious freedom. Over those four years, the 

section on Russia has included a cumulative total of 6 references 

to the unregistered Baptists, 7 to the Old Believers, and 5 to the 

True Orthodox Church. On the other hand it has included a cumulative 65 references to the Mormons—who are far less numerous in 

Russia than the unregistered Baptists, and clearly less oppressed. 

The 2004 report was more balanced than those of previous years, 

but still had as many references to the Mormons as to the other 

three groups combined. 

Let me stress that I do not think that religions new to Russia, 

such as the Mormons, are getting too much attention from Washington’s human-rights advocates. As a journalist I have never 

found the Mormons’ claims of repression in Russia to be inaccurate; 

if I were writing the State Department report I would not omit any 

of its passages about the Mormons. The problem is that the report 

gives too little attention to religious bodies that do not have wellfunded, media-savvy offices in places like Washington or close links 

with western denominations that do have such offices. It also fails 

to go beyond listing individual abuses, to analyze adequately the 

forces at work in those abuses; all too often the report catalogues 

the trees but misses the forest. 

One example of this weakness is the State Department’s flawed 

discussion of Russia’s 1997 law which restored state control over 

religious life. Its latest annual report on religious freedom states 

twice that the 1997 law discriminates against religions that are 

‘‘new to the country.’’ That is true, but it is not the whole truth or 

even the most important part of the truth. Key provisions of the 

1997 law target not only religions new to Russia such as the Mormons or Hare Krishnas, but also certain religions that are deeply 

rooted in Russian history. For example, if the law’s notorious 15-

year rule were strictly enforced it would deny major elements of religious freedom to Old Believer and underground Orthodox Christian groups that have traditions going back for centuries in Russia, 

but were not registered under the Soviet regime. (For more detail 

on this, see the excellent statement by Geraldine Fagan of the 

Forum 18 News Service which she provided in writing for today’s 

hearing record. You can also learn more about these and related 

issues from the Web site of my own organization, www.irfw.org.) 

The 15-year rule was diabolically clever in that it drew a base 

line in the early 1980s, making that base line the standard for distinguishing between religions today. By adopting that standard the 

1997 law artificially favored those religious bodies that were on 

good terms with the Soviet regime 15 years earlier—which of 

course was before the Gorbachev reforms—and artificially 

disfavored those that were on bad terms with that regime. Despite 

all the conservative, patriotic rhetoric that accompanied the law’s 

enactment, calling for the defense of Russia’s unique spiritual traditions against novel imports from abroad, in large measure what 

the law really did was to revive Soviet standards of church-state 
44

relations—the standards of an explicitly atheist, totalitarian state. 

What the drafters and defenders of the 1997 law really fear is not 

novel religions, but heroic religions that refuse to collaborate with 

tyrants. That is why they favor not just some religions over others, 

but some factions over others within the same religion. 

The State Department’s weaknesses in discussing these issues 

are even more important than you might think. It’s not just a matter of failing to speak up for the underdog, failing to defend the 

weakest of the oppressed as well as those with the strongest legal 

and public-relations machines. In today’s Russia there is a widespread perception that American rhetoric about human rights is 

simply a hypocritical cover for American cultural and political imperialism. You would be amazed at how many Russian scholars 

and government officials are knowledgeable about the history of 

European missionaries in the 19th century, especially about those 

missionaries’ roles in British and French colonialism, and at how 

they see today’s American missionaries as a direct extension of that 

history. A few years ago an influential Moscow specialist on religious studies, Nikolai Trofimchuk, wrote an entire book on that 

theme, called Expansion. Among other things he argued that American Protestant missionaries are in Russia’s Far East as agents of 

a U.S. government plot to seize control of that region and transfer 

it from Russian to American sovereignty. That may seem like nonsense to you and me, but Trofimchuk’s work has been widely circulated among Russian federal and provincial bureaucrats specializing in church-state relations. Perhaps it is no accident that American missionaries in the Far East seem to have had more difficulties with visas and the like than those in any other part of Russia. 

The easiest way to prove that Trofimchuk is wrong is to do what 

the U.S. government should be doing anyway. Washington should 

be going out of its way to monitor and speak out against threats 

to those faiths that are totally indigenous, not Russian branches of 

American denominations. We Americans should be making it clear 

that our goal is genuine rule of law with enforceable rights for all 

faiths in Russia, not just for those that have large numbers of adherents in America or joint programs with American missionary organizations. In recent years the State Department reports have 

paid far more attention than in the 1990s to the repression of Muslims in Russia; they need to show similar progress in their coverage of the less well-known Christian minorities. 

During the last five years I have had two experiences which I 

hope never to have again. In the summer of 2000 I visited the 

ruins of what had been a Seventh-Day Adventist church in the capital of Turkmenistan before the city authorities sent in bulldozers 

to tear it down in broad daylight. In September 2004 I visited the 

ruins of the unregistered Baptists’ house church in Lyubuchany, 

just a few days after it too had been destroyed. The Baptist church 

was not demolished so brazenly as the Adventist one, but the local 

government has since revealed its hand by trying to forbid the Baptists to rebuild their own church on their own property. This is the 

sort of thing that was supposed to end with the collapse of Soviet 

rule—the deliberate destruction of places of worship, whether openly or under cover of darkness. But it hasn’t ended, and Vladimir 

Putin’s Kremlin has shown no visible interest in making sure that 
45

it ends. Another defect in the latest State Department report on religious freedom is that it seems to go out of its way to avoid criticizing Putin: All the specific references to him are either neutral 

or positive. 

But with Putin centralizing so much more power in his own 

hands, he now has less room to dodge responsibility. Both by word 

and deed, the U.S. government should be making it clear that it 

cannot have a full-fledged partnership with the Russian government as long as that government is trampling on the religious freedom of its own citizens—even, perhaps especially, those citizens 

whose denominations are poor and weak. 

[WORLD, November 6, 2004] 

DIVIDE AND CONQUER 

RUSSIA: BAPTISTS IN POOR VILLAGES ARE THE LATEST VICTIMS IN

A NATIONWIDE STRATEGY TO AMPLIFY STATE CONTROL OVER RELIGION

By Larry Uzzell 

IN THE GRINDINGLY POOR VILLAGE of Lyubuchany, Russian Baptists are patiently rebuilding a house church that was deliberately burned down last month. The arsonists escaped, but evidence suggests that they were connected with Russia’s secret police. Earlier this year a house church of the same denomination in 

Tula, 60 miles farther south of Moscow, fell victim to a similar attack. Strikingly, both congregations have hosted major regional or 

national conferences for co-religionists from across Russia. 

The timing of the Tula attack was especially suspicious. In January the house church there was about to host two gatherings: a 

meeting of about 70 of the denominations pastors from places as 

remote as Kazakstan, then a conference on evangelization for some 

400 rank-and-file Baptists from various towns. Some of these visitors had already arrived, and were sleeping next door when an explosion devastated the house church’s interior between 3:00 and 

4:00 a.m. on Jan. 13. The explosion warped the brick walls and 

nearly collapsed the roof. Two church members were hospitalized. 

Pastor Aleksandr Lakhtikov told the Forum 18 News Service 

that the firemen who responded to the blast were accompanied by 

an official from the FSB secret police. Local officials and the statecontrolled media quickly announced that the explosion had been 

caused by a natural-gas leak. But the pastor noted that municipal 

gas inspectors who visited the site about five hours after the explosion found no trace of domestic gas. Such traces usually linger for 

days after an accident. 

One might think that this was just vandalism by petty criminals—but two well-targeted acts of vandalism within one year, 

against two different congregations seem unlikely. 

The Sept. torching of the Baptist house church in Lyubuchany 

was more directly linked to state harassment. Yelena Kareyeva, a 

member of the congregation, told International Religious Freedom 

Watch when we visited last month that just three days before the 
46

fire her son had seen two suspicious-looking men loitering in the 

adjacent forest. Her son recognized one of them: In August he had 

taken part in a massive police operation against a gathering hosted 

by the congregation for several thousand Baptists from all over 

central Russia. 

As many as 200 servicemen from various security agencies, including the local police and the FSB, showed up to disrupt that 

open-air gathering. They even brought along laborers to remove the 

Baptists’ tents and pews, and plainclothes personnel to film them. 

As pastor Nikolai Dudenkov told International Religious Freedom 

Watch, they came ‘‘prepared as if for a terrorist attack’’—with machine guns, helmets, and gas masks. They brandished an official 

decree barring ‘‘unsanctioned gatherings of a religious nature’’—

even though this gathering was on privately owned land with the 

landlord’s consent. They set up roadblocks to keep outsiders from 

arriving by car. 

The Baptists nevertheless persisted in exercising their constitutional right to preach and worship on private property; many of 

them traveled the last few miles on foot. The police in turn persisted in trying to intimidate the worshippers checking identity papers and recording names. One plainclothes official said ‘‘Do you 

think that all of this is taking place without the consent of the 

president’s administration?’’

Just three weeks later the Lyubuchany house church was burned 

down. The local Baptists believe that the government agent seen 

reconnoitering the site a few days earlier helped to plan it. 

Lyubuchany and Tula Baptists are especially vulnerable to a 

state-sponsored strategy of intimidation that plays into larger goals 

of restoring Kremlin control to everyday life. For the last decade 

the Russian government has followed ‘‘divide and rule’’ tactics of 

discriminating not just between religions but between factions 

within a single religion: Russia now has favored and disfavored 

Jews, favored and disfavored Orthodox Christians, and so on. 

Among the Baptists the disfavored group is the unregistered Union 

of Baptist Churches, which split from the larger Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists in 1961 after the latter agreed to compromise with the Soviet regime on issues such as a ban on teaching 

religion to children. Precisely because they chose a principled 

stance, following the apostles’ example to ‘‘obey God rather than 

men,’’ the unregistered Baptists still endure extra hardships under 

Russia’s current rulers. 

Sadly, the unregistered Baptists’ history makes them unattractive to many Western-based missionary organizations. Lacking 

good political connections, they are not nearly as useful as the 

mainstream Baptists in hosting foreign visitors and smoothing out 

legal difficulties and local access. Many American Protestants do 

not even know that they exist—or that lately their hardships have 

been growing. 

Since the mid-1990s the unregistered Baptists have faced difficulties in exercising the free-speech rights supposedly guaranteed 

by Russia’s 1993 constitution; for example, in distributing religious 

tracts in public. Until recently they were able to feel secure when 

meeting for prayer on their own property. Now even those overall 

prospects look increasingly grim. Though Vladimir Putin likes to 
47

invoke Christian imagery, especially when meeting with naive 

Western politicians, his first loyalty is to the secret police to which 

he continues to give more powers. His administration has little love 

for independent-minded religious minorities who refuse to function 

as extensions of the state.
48

STATEMENT SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD BY FORUM 18 

NEWS SERVICE—http://www.forum18.org 

In its submission to a 14 April hearing in Washington of the US 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe on unregistered 

religious groups in Russia, Forum 18 News Service looks at how 

Russia’s controversial 1997 religion law divides religious communities into two categories, restricting the rights of those with the unregistered status of ‘‘group’’. By requiring independent religious 

groups seeking registration to have existed for 15 years, the law effectively forced new individual religious communities to join older 

unions, often a burdensome and expensive formality and not an option for some communities. Registration can be denied on arbitrary 

grounds, as for example with 39 of Stavropol region’s 47 mosques. 

Denied registration, Belgorod’s Catholic parish cannot reclaim its 

historical church. Communities that choose not to register can function freely, but only if they remain inconspicuous, Forum 18 has 

found. Council of Churches Baptists—who reject registration on 

principle—are often denied the possibility to rent property for services and fined for holding evangelistic campaigns. 

UNREGISTERED RELIGIOUS GROUPS IN RUSSIA

[By Geraldine Fagan] 

Despite its claim to uphold a constitutional guarantee of equality 

before the law for religious associations (obyedineniya), Russia’s 

1997 religion law divides them into organisations (organizatsii) and 

groups (gruppy). 

A religious group has significantly fewer legal rights than a religious organisation. Defined as operating without state registration, 

it has the right to worship at premises provided by its own members (that is, not held as the property of or rented by the group in 

an official capacity) and teach its existing followers. It does not 

enjoy the following rights: 1) to request deferment from military 

service for its clergy; 2) to create educational institutions or to give 

extra-curriculum religious instruction to children in state schools; 

3) to invite foreign citizens for professional purposes or to have a 

representative body of a foreign religious organisation attached to 

it; 4) to conduct religious rites in hospitals, prisons, children’s and 

old people’s homes; 5) to produce, acquire, export, import and distribute religious literature, printed, audio and video material and 

other articles of religious significance, or to create organs of mass 

media 

While state registration is not compulsory, a religious group 

wishing to register and so obtain the full legal personality status 

of a religious organisation must either prove 15 years’ existence in 

its locality or affiliation to a central religious organisation of the 

same creed. (A central religious organisation is made up of at least 

three local religious organisations.) 

This categorisation of religious associations has had a negative 

impact upon religious freedom, although far less than originally 

feared. In the immediate wake of the law’s adoption, hundreds of 

Protestant communities founded since the abolition of Soviet restrictions enrolled into centralised Protestant unions as the only 

protection against the reduction of legal rights under the 15-year 
49

‘‘probationary period’’. Some have told Forum 18 that the unions 

concerned have allowed them to retain de facto independence. Others, however, resent having had to jettison theological opposition to 

hierarchical structures, as well as the sometimes considerable 

membership fees levied by such unions. 

The main reason for the much-reduced impact of the 15-year rule 

is that successive constitutional court rulings in 1999, 2000 and 

2002 determined that it did not have retroactive force. Consequently, its limitation of legal rights now applies to the far narrower category of religious communities who either: 1) were founded or sought initial registration after the adoption of the 1997 law 

and are not in a position to join a centralised religious 

organisation; or 2) reject state registration on principle. 

In time, though, the impact of this 15-year rule can only increase 

as new groups are founded. 

Forum 18 has encountered few instances of either category. However, in an example of the first, the True Orthodox parish of St Elijah in the republic of Chuvashiya was denied initial registration in 

late 2003. While a local court noted the group’s claim that it ‘‘existed in private flats from 25 March 1988 because their confession 

was persecuted under the communist regime,’’ it concluded that 

‘‘confirmation by organs of local government of the existence of a 

religious group for no fewer than 15 years is possible only after 15 

years has elapsed from the moment when they inform [the authorities] of the creation of the group.’’ The authorities thus deemed the 

15-year period to have begun when the parish first formally contacted them in spring 2003. Due to the issue of disputed apostolic 

legitimacy, the community has no Orthodox central religious 

organisation which it could join as an alternative. 

While other True Orthodox and some Old Believer groups are unregistered because they reject all contact with the state on theological grounds, they are able to function unimpeded because they 

are inconspicuous. Baptist communities belonging to the Council of 

Churches, however, who similarly refuse to register on principle, 

routinely report fines and property confiscation when they stage 

evangelisation campaigns, even though the 1997 law does not state 

explicitly that a religious group may not preach in public. In early 

2003 a large Moscow congregation belonging to the Council of 

Churches had a long-running rental contract cancelled on the 

grounds that it did not hold state registration, even though the official commentary to the 1997 law specifies that an individual member may rent worship premises on behalf of a group. 

Sometimes religious groups are denied the full rights of a legal 

personality despite being affiliated to central religious 

organisations. While affiliated to the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims of Karachai-Cherkessia and Stavropol Region, for example, 39 

out of 47 Muslim communities in Stavropol region have not been 

granted state registration. One, a Pyatigorsk mosque visited by 

Forum 18, was five times asked for additional information in its 

registration application rather than issued an outright refusal 

against which it could mount a legal challenge. Founded in 2000 

and affiliated to a federal Pentecostal union, Victory Chapel 

Church in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk has been refused registration four 

times since 2001 and was obstructed from holding and advertising 
50

public evangelisation events in 2003 on the grounds that it was a 

religious group. 

Absence of legal personality status has proved an impediment to 

claiming historical places of worship confiscated by the Soviet 

state. Denied registration—despite being part of the Catholic 

Church in Russia—the Catholic parish in Belgorod has been unable 

to claim a small former Catholic church in the city centre, which 

has meanwhile been transferred to the local Orthodox diocese. 

While often elderly Old Believer communities have found the 1997 

law’s bureaucratic registration requirements an impediment, the 

Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) has had no difficulty in registering its parishes and has successfully claimed some 

Old Believer historical church property as a result. 

On the other hand, many religious groups have chosen their unregistered status as it avoids potentially intrusive and bureaucratic 

contact with the state. As described above, a group’s rights are not 

usually restricted—despite the letter of the law—unless it is conspicuous. Access to prisons, for example, normally depends more 

upon personal relations with the institution’s administration rather 

than whether a religious community is registered. State registration is not in itself a guarantee of full rights in any case, as 

disfavoured religious organisations may be obstructed, for example, 

by being denied permission to acquire land or build. Another indication of a lack of systematic application of the 1997 law is that, 

while the 2004 ban of the Moscow Jehovah’s Witness community 

should mean a complete prohibition of its activity, it has by and 

large been allowed to function as a religious group. 

The head of a government working group drafting proposed 

amendments to the 1997 law, Andrei Sebentsov believes that the 

15-year rule is a violation of the Russian constitution and should 

be removed. One of the law’s major lobbyists, Metropolitan Kirill 

(Gundyayev) of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) last year publicly rejected this call, insisting that society 

must be allowed 15 years to see whether or not a religious group 

was harmful: ‘‘This is not the time or the place to experiment upon 

our people.’’ It remains unclear which argument will prevail. In 

this context it should be noted that the 1997 law still gives religious groups a key space to operate because it allows home worship 

and does not make registration compulsory, unlike in Belarus, 

where the current religion law was also successfully lobbied for by 

the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate). 

For more background see Forum 18’s Russia religious freedom 

survey at http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article—id=509
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