Bills currently before the Duma could open the way to the creation
of churches and chapels inside Russian schools and institutes of higher
learning. The Moscow Patriarchate has welcomed draft proposals to reform laws on education and freedom of conscience, Russian news agencies report, but the latter have been met with scepticism by other religious denominations.
In mid-November, the Duma (the lower house of the Russian) passed in first reading a government-sponsored education bill and a number of amendments to the law 'On freedom of conscience and religious associations.'
Under the terms of these changes, Russian schools could authorise worship services and religious rituals in buildings intended for that purpose inside their facilities.
Sister Kseni Chernega, director of the legal service of the Moscow Patriarchate, told RIA Novosti that schools would be able to do this on the request of students and their parents.
The planned amendments are part of a wider programme to return Church assets seized in Soviet times and given a different, non-educational function.
According to Sister Chernega, now these buildings "may be renovated and services conducted there."
One example, the Russian news agency noted, is the chapel of Saint Tatiana, which is attached to Moscow State University (MGU).
Recently in fact, some liturgical services were held on its premises.
"This amendment in no way violates the secular character of education in state educational institutions," Sister Chernega said. "It does not infringe on the prohibition of creating structures for religious associations in state schools."
The latter however already exist in hospitals, prisons, and nursing homes.
More importantly, the proposed changes, she explained, are in line with a decision of the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR), which in 2007 ruled that services could be conducted in schools in allocated areas outside of class time as long as the involvement of students or teachers in religious communities is not required.
Other religious denominations do not share the Patriarchate's favourable view.
For Farid Asadullin, deputy chairman of the Ecclesiastical Board of Muslims of the European Part of Russia, "schools should be separate from religion. Sunday schools exist for this, where pupils who profess one or another religion can practice those convictions that are dear and natural to them," he told RIA Novosti.
Borukh Gorin, director of the Department of Public Relation of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia (FEOR), noted that giving areas and buildings a religious function was comparable to the introduction of a course on the 'Foundations of religious cultures and secular ethics,' which proved ineffective because of poor teaching.
More to the point, "such innovations sow religious strife and xenophobia and sometimes even aversion to religious organisations," he lamented.