31.10.2006
BELARUS: LUTHERAN COMMUNITIES, REAL AND IMAGINED


By Geraldine Fagan, Forum 18 News Service

As Lutherans in particular today (31 October) commemorate Reformation Day,
when Martin Luther launched the Protestant Reformation in 1517, Forum 18
News Service finds their organisational development hampered by Belarus'
restrictive 2002 Religion Law.

The Law's preamble recognises the Evangelical-Lutheran Church as
"inseparable from the common history of the people of Belarus." Due to the
great complexity of the country's small present-day Lutheran community,
however, it is perhaps hit more than any other confession by the same
Law's bureaucratic straitjacketing of the spontaneous growth of religious
activity.

Under the Law, a religious confession must register an association of at
least ten affiliate communities in order to found a mission or theological
educational institution. This restriction contributed to a recent complaint
by the Society for Krishna Consciousness - which has five registered
communities - to the United Nations Human Rights Committee (see 4 November
2005 and 3 August

2006 ). Also, religious
organisations - including associations with affiliate communities in at
least four regions and therefore recognised as republic-wide - must act in
accordance with their registered charters. They are obliged to inform the
state authorities of even minor changes or additions, and may be dissolved
by a court if found to have gone against their charter activity.

Most clearly demonstrated in the Lutherans' situation, these registration
requirements - coupled with officials' arbitrary application of them -
artificially preserve past organisational arrangements.

The two Lutheran associations which do hold state registration each have
fewer than ten affiliate communities, Pastor Sergei Heil, chair of the
unregistered Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Republic of
Belarus, told Forum 18. The fact that 26 Lutheran communities are
registered, however, means that the state authorities are loathe to
register any more associations, he explained, since this would highlight
their inconsistent application of the law. "Officials need to understand
that the Church lives not according to their decisions, likes and
dislikes," he remarked, "but God's will." State pressure has been brought
to bear against those seeking to register communities the authorities
dislike (see F18News 26 October 2006
).

Pastor Nikolai Badrusev of the Union of Evangelical-Lutheran Communities
in the Republic of Belarus on 23 October confirmed to Forum 18 that his
association now has only six affiliate communities - two in Grodno
[Hrodna], and one each in Mogilev [Mahilyow], Vitebsk [Vitsyebsk]
(registered as "the Evangelical-Lutheran community in Vitebsk"), the
capital Minsk, Zhodino (the Church of Christ's Resurrection, Minsk
region). He emphasised that the Union and its individual communities have
had no difficulty obtaining state registration.

Until earlier in 2006, the Union of Evangelical-Lutheran Communities was
formally linked with the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Russia, Ukraine,
Kazakhstan and Central Asia (ELKRAS), the largest umbrella body for
Lutherans in the former Soviet Union. According to Badrusev, the six
Belarusian communities severed this tie in April, but four - all except
his own communities in Minsk and Zhodino - renewed it in July. This is in
line with a 21 July 2006 ELKRAS report. To Forum 18's knowledge, no other
Lutheran communities in Belarus are linked with ELKRAS.

According to Pastor Heil's calculation, the second registered association
- the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Republic of Belarus - now has a
maximum of only four registered affiliate communities. He suggested that
those in Narovlya (Gomel [Homyel'] region), Orsha (the Community of St
Matthew, Vitebsk region) and Novka (Vitebsk region) either have a handful
of members and/or exist only on paper. The Narovlya church - on the edge
of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster exclusion zone - is, he stated, omitted
from a December 2005 presidential decree exempting religious organisations
from land and property tax (see F18News 15 December 2005
). "Even the state
Religious Affairs Committee understands that there isn't anything in
Narovlya and never was." In addition, writes Heil, the Community of St
John in Grodno is reputed recently to have transferred to the Union of
Evangelical-Lutheran Communities. This concurs with Pastor Badrusev's
statistics for that association, as compared with an exhibition viewed by
Forum 18 at ELKRAS' St Petersburg headquarters in May 2005, which
identified only one affiliate community in Grodno.

Pastor Vitali Sozinov of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Republic
of Belarus told Forum 18, in 2004, that his association has 11 affiliate
communities (see F18News 17 November 2004
). Forum 18 has since
been unable to contact either him or the Church's acting bishop, Kastus
Mardvincau, however. Several Lutheran sources have told Forum 18 that both
have left Belarus.

In 2000, according to Pastor Heil, the State Committee for Religious and
Ethnic Affairs facilitated the initial registration of the
Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Republic of Belarus - then with nine
affiliate communities, "as the first, reborn Lutheran association in
Belarus." Then with four affiliate communities, he continued, the Union
was registered prior to the adoption of the Religion Law in 2002. "In time
both turned out to be unviable, with only documents attesting to their
republic-wide status," Heil maintained. He added, however, that if
officials were now to grant the registration requests of his "de facto
republic-wide association," the state would "in practice be declaring the
activity of the first two [associations] to have not brought about the
consolidation of communities and the revival of Lutheranism, as was
planned."

According to its website, the Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church in
the Republic of Belarus was refused registration as a republic-wide
association on 14 September 2006. Since October 2004, the Church's synod
has held four founding sessions in Bobruisk (Mogilev region) in its
efforts to comply with registration procedure, attended by representatives
of all ten affiliate communities and observed on at least two occasions by
officials from the local district Ideological Department. According to
Pastor Heil, the Church's ten registered communities are located in Lida
(Grodno region), Bobruisk [Babruysk], Glusk and Klichev [Krychaw] (Mogilev
region), Gomel, Khoiniki [Khoyniki] and Dubrovitsa (Gomel region) and
Vitebsk (the Community of Martin Luther), Orsha (the church of Christ's
Resurrection) and Polotsk [Polatsk] (Vitebsk region). None of the
communities, affiliated to the Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church in
the Republic of Belarus, are claimed by representatives of other Lutheran
formations whom Forum 18 has been able to contact.

The Church's website also emphasises that information pertaining to the
Church as an association "will take effect from the moment of its
registration." In a 26 October message to Forum 18, Pastor Heil is
optimistic that the Church will be registered as a republic-wide
association following a further synod meeting on 11 November.

Asked why the Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Republic of
Belarus was refused registration in September, Aleksandr Kalinov, of the
staff of the Plenipotentiary for Religious and Ethnic Affairs (reformed by
a 15 July 2006 Council of Ministers decree from the State Committee for
Religious and Ethnic Affairs), said that it had not been refused, but that
its application had contained "technical problems - minor errors - they are
submitting new documents." There was a long silence when Forum 18 enquired
why the Union of Evangelical-Lutheran Communities and the
Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Republic of Belarus held the legal
status of republic-wide associations with a maximum of four and six
communities respectively, whereas the 2002 Religion Law stipulates a
minimum of ten. Kalinov then pointed out to Forum 18 that this requirement
applied only since the adoption of that Law: "They were registered before
the new Law came into effect and then they were re-registered." When Forum
18 noted that the 2002 Religion Law states that religious organisations'
previously registered statutes are valid only in so far as they comply
with its provisions, Kalinov replied: "Do you have any suggestions for
measures to be taken? They have been re-registered and have legal status,
so they may function."

This is not the first instance in which religious affairs officials
selectively consider the 2002 Religion Law to have or not to have
retroactive force. For example, Christ's Covenant Reformed Baptist Church,
the Belarusian Evangelical Church and the Belarusian Evangelical Reformed
Church have all been refused re-registration and dissolved by Minsk courts
because their previously legitimate worship premises do not comply with its
provisions (see 30 September 2005
).

Another apparently defunct Lutheran grouping, bureaucratically preserved,
is that of three registered communities in Vitebsk listed in the December
2005 presidential decree. The communities of the Holy Trinity, St Mary and
St Luke, according to Pastor Heil, are legally headed by Leonid Zwicki, who
was bishop of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Belarus following its
foundation in 2000 until his dismissal in 2002 by then ELKRAS head
Archbishop Georg Kretschmar. According to Heil, they in fact constitute "a
single community artificially split into three." Leonid Zwicki refused
Forum 18's request for an interview in Vitebsk in 2003.

Pastor Valeri Hryhoryk, with whom Forum 18 has been in contact this year,
heads a newly emerged fifth Lutheran formation, the Belarusian Lutheran
Missionary Fellowship. Featured in its February 2006 newsletter, an
English-language statement addressed to the US-based Lutheran Church
Missouri Synod and the German-based Independent Evangelical Lutheran
Church (SELK) is signed by representatives of the Fellowship's seven
constituent communities: St John the Baptist (Mazolovo, Vitebsk region),
Christ's Nativity (Vitebsk), SS Peter and Paul (Polotsk, Vitebsk region),
Insight (Minsk), Christ's Resurrection (Zhodino, Minsk region), Renewal
and St Matthew (Orsha, Vitebsk region).

According to Pastor Heil, Insight did not pass re-registration and has
been dissolved. He believes that the Union of Evangelical-Lutheran
Communities also claims the church of Christ's Resurrection in Zhodino (as
was confirmed to Forum 18 by Pastor Badrusev) and that the church of St
Matthew in Orsha is one of those few communities claimed and legally
controlled by the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Republic of Belarus.

Asked whether these disputed two communities are registered and legally
part of the Belarusian Lutheran Missionary Fellowship, Hryhoryk told Forum
18 that the church of St Matthew in Orsha is re-registered as an autonomous
community, while he does not know about the one in Zhodino. He did not
respond to Forum 18's query about whether Insight church in Minsk has been
dissolved. Like Heil, Hryhoryk commented that many Lutheran communities in
Belarus "exist only on paper and are used by people who claim to lead the
Church."

Hryhoryk also maintained to Forum 18 that his Fellowship is not seeking
state registration as a religious association. "As a spiritual movement we
do not need registration, since the emphasis is on spiritual unity.
Nevertheless, as autonomous, registered communities we work together on
the basis of an agreement on spiritual co-operation." He acknowledged,
however, that the formation of a seminary or invitation of foreign
missionary from abroad would require religious association status. "An
autonomous community - even registered in the legal manner - cannot do
this."

Heil maintained to Forum 18 that the absence of registration as an
association "does not at all stop us from doing the main activity of the
Church - preaching the Gospel, helping our neighbour, teaching followers
of the Lutheran confession - and I don't think the Apostle Paul would have
tried to register his communities under Nero." He noted, however, that the
authorities' refusal to register one of its affiliate communities in
Berezovka (Grodno region) means that its parishioners have been unable to
meet there for services for three years, instead travelling some 30km (20
miles) to the registered church in Lida (Grodno region).

While the Reformation movement in sixteenth-century Belarus was
predominately Calvinist, this is not reflected in the 2002 Religion Law's
attempt to define the nation's "traditional" confessions. The small
present-day Calvinist community has also been hit by its restrictions
(see, for example, F18News 31 October 2003
).

Many other religious communities also face state pressure against their
activities. These include other Protestants (see eg. F18News 20 October
and 28 September 2006
), Catholics (see eg.
F18News 3 October 2006
), Orthodox Christians
(see F18News 26 October 2006
), Jews (see F18News 13
June 2006 ) and Hare
Krishna devotees (see F18News 18 October 2006
).