01.03.09

The Economic Development Ministry has drafted a bill which gives every religion registered in Russia the right to own buildings, land and property, including that impounded by the Bolsheviks. If the bill is approved, the Russian Orthodox Church will be one of the largest proprietors in the country, and the authorities will never have to support religious buildings, which is important amid the financial turmoil.

All the religions welcome the initiative, while the public fears that the Church may go in for business on one hand and appear to be unable to support historical and architectural monuments on the other.

Representatives of the Economic Development Ministry did not deny in 2007 when the work on the prospective bill's concept started that the document would stop budgetary allocations for Church buildings.

The draft law "On the Transfer of Religious Property to Religious Organizations" cited by the newspaper Kommersant stipulates Church ownership of religious buildings, land and movable property, which is now being used gratis for an indefinite period. A supplementary note to the bill says that the Church should regain all property impounded after the Bolshevik Revolution.

Modern Russia has 234 monasteries, 244 nunneries, 16,000 parishes and 4,696 Sunday schools of the Orthodox Church. The Roman Catholic Church has 220 parishes in Russia, and a third of them have no temples. There are over 4,000 mosques and about 70 synagogues in Russia, as well. The size of religious buildings varies from 5,000 to 50,000 square meters, while Church land is from 0.3 to ten hectares in size.

The Church has become the owner of more than 100 temples in the past 15 years by order of executive authorities. The new bill is bound to legalize this process.

If the bill is approved, the Church may become a leading private owner in Russia, real estate agents say. "The only possible rivals of the Church in that case would be Gazprom and Russian Railroads," Development Director of the Prime City Properties consulting company Roman Cheptsov said. "In Moscow alone an average cost of one hectare of land stands at approximately $6-7 million."

"A religious organization shall maintain religious property in an appropriate condition, i.e. conduct current and major repairs and bear all the maintenance expenses," the bill runs. The new owner will have no right to change the focus of the acquired property or to transfer it to third persons in the period of ten years.

The Church will also be unable to own particularly valuable monuments and architectural sites on the UNESCO World Heritage list (for instance, the St. Basil Cathedral on Red Square or the Moscow Kremlin cathedrals). In all, there are about 20 sites of the kind on the list.

However, the bill will enable religions to lease out their buildings or land.

One should not fear Church commerce or a sharp growth of Church revenues, Deputy Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate's Church External Relations Department Bishop Mark of Yegoryevsk said as quoted by the NEWSru.com website.

"Most of our parishes are located in the countryside. As for temples in cities, where land is expensive, they are usually pretty tight and have no vacant space for elementary needs, such as toilets, let alone a parish building or a Sunday school," he said.

Meanwhile, Co-Chairman of the Russian Council of Muftis Mufti Nafigulla Ashirov does not conceal that "the community will have a so-called Waqf domain, which will be leased out for community benefit."

"We will lease out vacant space," Chairman of the Congress of Jewish Religious Communities and Organizations of Russia Rabbi Zinovy Kogan said. "The earned money will be spent on social projects, such as canteens for the poor."

Religious organizations' ownership of their property "is a worldwide norm," Deputy Chairman of the Russian Council of Muftis Damir Gizatullin said.

"There won't be an eruption of commerce" because traditional religions use their churches, mosques and synagogues "only for religious purposes," he said.

The massive return of property nationalized in the Soviet period to religious organizations began in April 1993 with then President Boris Yeltsin's ordinance "On the Transfer of Religious Buildings and Other Property to Religious Organizations."

Believers will own not only real estate but also cultural values. In 2006-2007 then President Vladimir Putin personally handed over to the Russian Orthodox Church the Icon of Our Lady of Smolensk and a fragment of the Lord's Robe stored at the Moscow Kremlin. In December 2007 the Russian Orthodox Church regained all the relics stored in the Kremlin.

A number of museums are trying to impede the process. For instance, the Tretyakov Gallery did not permit the Church to minister services with the Holy Trinity Icon by Andrei Rublev in November 2008. The museum administration said that the masterpiece created in the 15th century might be damaged.

"Such masterpieces as icons, paintings and sculptures are stored at museums all over the world. The Church is able to preserve them duly," Pushkin Fine Arts Museum Director Irina Antonova said.

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Source: Itar-Tass