As part of a two-week program on religious freedom, a group of Russian delegates visited the site of one of the most notorious church-state showdowns in U.S. history Friday.
The group visited the site of the Branch Davidian compound on a tour led by Baylor University officials.
"This is history. Unfortunately, this is sort of what identifies Waco in the minds of most people," said Derek Davis, director of the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies at Baylor. "This is a part of the religious history of the United States."
Then-Davidian leader David Koresh and 75 followers died the morning of April 19, 1993, after a fire swept through their compound at Mount Carmel. The fire was preceded by a 51-day standoff which began after a gunfight between Davidians and ATF agents on Feb. 28, 1993. The agents were trying to arrest Koresh for owning automatic weapons. A small chapel was built on the site in 2000 and the group continues to have worship services there.
Davis said the trip brought up discussions about the government's role in relation to a group that is accused of breaking the law.
"In many ways, I think of this as kind of a lesson in mistakes that a government can make about how you treat a group like this," he said. "(The Davidians) should have been investigated, without question, but it should not have ended up in a large conflagration with ... people being killed. It shouldn't have happened that way. So we learned some hard lessons."
The Russian delegates were a mix of scholars, religious leaders and government workers. They will be responsible for helping ensure religious freedom in their country, Davis said.
Managed by the Center for Russian Leadership Development at the Library of Congress, the "Open World" program gives Russian leaders an introduction to American democratic and economic institutions in U.S. communities.
At Baylor, the delegates attended seminars that addressed Russian church-state issues, such as church property and registration. They also discussed the future of religious freedom in Russia.
Although Russia is a democracy, the government still requires church groups to officially register.
Davis said there is some prejudice against smaller congregations in the Russian Orthodox-dominated religious landscape. It can be a trial to even rent out building space for a small Baptist or Mennonite group to hold services, he said.
"Some people get the impression that in this new democratic Russia, it's just like it is here, complete freedom," Davis said. "It's not true."
Tatiana Tomaeva, who works at the non-governmental Institute for Religion and Law in Moscow, said sometimes the government still tries to impose religions that are traditional in various parts of the country.
"By law, it is not supposed to do so, but in fact, they do," Tomaeva said.
The group also visited Washington, D.C. and Salt Lake City, Utah, before coming to Waco on the last leg of the trip.
While in Waco, the group visited Homestead Heritage, a group of a few hundred people who live communally on 350 acres outside Chalk Bluff, about 10 miles north of Waco.
The Heritage congregation has been compared to the Mennonites. They’ve actually only been around for 25 years, but the roots of their creed go back to the Anabaptists — whose members were part of the Reformation movement of the 16th century.
It's something that would have a hard time getting started in Russia, delegates say.
"People can exercise their religion freely (in the United States) and no one really cares what they believe and what they do unless they break the law," Tomaeva said.
That conflict weighed on everyone's mind as they read markers and listened to a brief history lesson about the events of early 1993.
"I just think that there was something here, a building and people lived here and now its kind of a desert," Tomaeva said. "No one's here."