ORTHODOX CLASSES NOW MANDATORY IN SOME RUSSIAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MOSCOW 010370

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/13/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL KDEM RS
SUBJECT: ORTHODOX CLASSES NOW MANDATORY IN SOME RUSSIAN
REGIONS


Classified By: Minister-Counselor for Political Affairs Alice Wells.
Reasons: 1.4(B/D).


1. (C) SUMMARY. Public schools in the Bryansk, Kaluga,
Smolensk, and Belgorod regions have incorporated a mandatory
Orthodox culture course into their curriculums. Eleven other
regions are offering the subject as an elective. Supporters
say the move is needed to counter the spiritual vacuum left
by Soviet atheism and replace the ideology of communism with
a new Russian ideology that will protect traditional Russian
culture and values. Critics, on the other hand, claim that
such a course goes against the Russian Constitution and
fosters the growth of Russian nationalism, which will drive a
wedge between ethnic and non-ethnic Russians. END SUMMARY.

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What Happened To Church/State Separation?
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2. (C) Moscow City Duma Deputy and Science and Education
Commission Chairman, Evgeniy Bunimovich, told Embassy
September 14 that the mandatory "Foundations of Russian
Orthodox Culture" course, which was publicized only two days
before the school year began on September 1, contradicts the
Russian Constitution, which explicitly endorses the
separation of church and state. Bunimovich explained that
the ROC was taking advantage of the ten to twenty percent of
a region's curriculum that is not federally mandated to avoid
having to obtain the Education Ministry's approval of the
course. He said Education Minister Andrey Fursenko has long
opposed mandatory Orthodox classes and backs the idea of an
elective on the history of world religions, even preparing a
textbook on the subject. Fursenko this week called on the
Public Chamber to take a look at the issue. However,
President Putin has consistently encouraged the Russian
Orthodox Church's (ROC) ascendant role in society, saying
recently that "today the ROC is not only a keeper of the
centuries-long spiritual and cultural traditions of our
people ... it plays an important role in the education of
young people - educating them in the spirit of patriotism,
justice, and commitment to family values."


3. (C) Father Zacchaeus, Representative of the Orthodox
Church in America to the Moscow Patriarchate, in a September
8 meeting, said the course is just the latest example of the
growing influence of the ROC, which in the past few years has
forged an increasingly close alliance with federal and local
governments. "The trend is very troubling," he said.
"Despite the resistance from the Education Ministry, the ROC
is pressing very hard to advance its interests in schools and
wants to assume the dominant ideological role in society." He
expressed concern about what might happen if Putin's
successor were not as religiously inclined, stressing that
the ROC needs to look beyond the short-term benefits of
cooperating with the regime (i.e., obtaining funds for church
restoration).


4. (C) Another Orthodox priest, Father Georgiy Chistyakov, in
a separate meeting told Embassy that many in the
intelligentsia think the Moscow Patriarchate serves Putin, so
they stay away from the ROC, some converting to other faiths.
He opposes teaching any religion in schools because it
creates a barrier in an individual's personal relationship
with God. In addition, he said Orthodox classes might pull
impressionable young people away from God and towards
nationalism. Chistyakov thought that many new ROC converts
joined the church for nationalistic reasons, and they have an
"aggressive-defensive" attitude toward the ROC that is
similar to communism -- that the country is surrounded on all
sides by enemies and needs to be protected at any cost.


5. (C) According to Sergey Filatov, Senior Research at the
Institute of Oriental Studies and head writer of the
Oxford-sponsored Encyclopedia of Religious Life in Russia
Today, the attempt to create a national philosophy to unite
all Russians has a long history. He told us that from the
16th-century idea of Moscow as the Third Rome, through the
19th-century concept of "Orthodoxy, autocracy, and the
national idea" and on to the Stalinist concept of "building
Socialism in one country," Russia's leaders have tried to
develop national philosophies that were effective in
mobilizing the population behind state policies. In
Filatov's opinion, Vladislav Surkov's creation -- sovereign
democracy -- whose basic idea is that Russia is a sovereign
nation with its own traditions and the right to determine its
own path and stand up for its interests where it feels they
are threatened by the activities of other actors, internal or
external, is a 21st-century rehash of the previous concepts.
Filatov worried that if Orthodoxy and a national idea in the
form of sovereign democracy were resurrected, history might
repeat itself and autocracy would not be far behind.

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ROC Claims No Student Forced To Study A Specific Religion
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6. (C) In contrast to other high-level ROC interlocutors,
Father Vsevolod Chaplin, a spokesperson for the Russian
Orthodox Church's Moscow Patriarchate, stressed to us that
discussions about the nature and content of religious or
moral education in Russian schools were ongoing. There was
no unanimity in the Education Ministry or even within the ROC
about what schools specifically should do. The ROC's broad
preference is that students be given an option to choose
among several courses that would be based on the differing
Russian religious traditions or on secular principles. He
pointed to the example of Serbia, where students can choose
among six religious traditions or opt for a course in secular
ethics. No student would be forced to study a specific
religion, but students should have grounding in some moral
teaching. Chaplin did not foresee clergy teaching such
courses, noting that the ROC did not have enough priests to
minister to existing congregations. Instead, the government
in consultation with religious groups should develop
curricula for moral education.

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Why Teach Orthodoxy In School?
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7. (C) Father Zacchaeus thought that one reason for the push
to teach Orthodoxy in schools is that, while most ethnic
Russians identify themselves as Orthodox, only a fraction of
them actually attend church regularly. He said it was a
"lazy and dangerous way" to solve the problem of educating
young people about Orthodoxy. He was also concerned that the
end result would be that more young people would be bored
with being forced to take several years of mandatory classes
and turned off from the ROC rather than attracted to it.


8. (C) Most of the interlocutors believed that religion does
not belong in public schools, although they were unanimously
in favor of a mandatory course on the history of Russian
peoples, which would take the focus off of religion and
promote increased inter-ethnic tolerance. They said religion
was better taught by parents or at Sunday school, during
elective after-school courses, in private schools, at
spiritual seminars, etc. And, if the course continues to be
taught in schools, they worried that the teachers would not
be qualified. According to Landysh Latfullina, a Muslim
expert from the Moscow State Pedagogical University,
approximately 10,000 instructors will be trained at divinity
schools and secular pedagogical colleges by 2010, but the
teachers or clergy currently teaching the course are
ill-prepared. Father Chistyakov said that there are too many
conservative elements in the Orthodox Church who could take
advantage of the course and push their own religious
interpretations and agendas.

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Feedback From Non-Orthodox Religious Denominations
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9. (C) Latfullina joined others with whom Embassy spoke in
maintaining that mandatory Orthodox classes could drive a
wedge between Russians and non-ethnic Russians. She claimed
that non-ethnic-Russian students are often treated with
condescension in the classroom, and any course that
highlighted who is Orthodox and who is non-Orthodox would
only make matters worse. The official opinion of the Council
of Muftis, Latfullina averred, was that the introduction of
such coursework could threaten the relative stability of
Russia's various religious communities. She reported that
the Council recently announced it would push the government
to expand instruction of Muslim culture beyond the Muslim
republics in the North Caucasus to other regions with
established Muslim communities and that it has already
developed a textbook and curriculum on Muslim culture, which
is taught in Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, and Tatarstan.
However, she personally does not approve of such an
initiative, saying that it would likely lead to less
tolerance, while a world religions or history of Russian
peoples course could improve mutual understanding.


10. (C) Despite their personal differences, Jewish leaders
Berel Lazar and Adolf Shayevich agreed that it is necessary
to teach respect for people of different nationalities, and
if the basics of culture and religion are taught in school,
it should be all the traditional religions of Russia. In an
interview with a Moscow radio station Lazar contended that
the Orthodox course will "divide children into different
classes" and ostracize minorities. In addition, Shayevich's

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Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Communities of
Russia (KEROOR),an umbrella group for non-Chasidic Orthodox
congregations, stated that Jewish parents should report cases
where Jewish children are pressured in any way in the
classes. The group said it was not protesting the course
itself, but that it had been made mandatory.


11. (C) The Roman Catholic Church supports including the
course in the curriculums of Russian schools. Reverend Igor
Kowalevski, general secretary of the Conference of Catholic
Bishops in Russia, told Interfax that "whatever the private
opinions of representatives of various confessions may be,
they still should remember that we live in Russia in which
Orthodoxy is a culture-forming religion." Therefore, the
teaching of Orthodox culture "cannot harm anybody."


12. (C) COMMENT. Although teaching Orthodox classes in public
schools has been debated for several years, it appears the
ROC is beginning to gain the upper hand over the Education
Ministry. The ROC is successfully pursuing a new strategy of
mandating classes from the bottom up (i.e., via local and
regional governments) rather than from the top down (i.e.,
via the federal government). It is adopting a parallel
ideology to sovereign democracy, playing on ethnic Russians'
insecurities about their demographic situation in order to
convince school administrators that making the course
mandatory will help preserve Russian (Orthodox) culture from
being diluted. However, the danger in this strategy is that
it might add to the increasing tensions between Orthodox and
non-Orthodox citizens in the regions instead of trying to
foster tolerance for all religions and ethnic groups.
BURNS