Yesterday, Patriarch Alexy II and Russian Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev signed an agreement on cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Interior Ministry. Some observers note that the Russian Orthodox Church is striving to become a state structure, which is at variance with the Constitution, Kommersant writes.
The new agreement declares the intention of the Orthodox Church and the ministry to find joint solutions to problems that have become increasingly prominent recent years, above all - preventing terrorism from assuming global proportions. According to Mr. Nurgaliyev, the main objective in the interaction is not simply to solve the problem through force, but "to raise a reliable moral barrier to terrorism." Commenting on the Russian Orthodox Church's increasingly intensive contacts with state structures, representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate claim that relations between with the state do not entitle the Russian Orthodox Church to a special place among other faiths.
Human rights champions disagree with this opinion. "I see a danger in signing such agreements between the Moscow Patriarchate and power agencies," says Lev Ponomarev, executive director of the movement For Human Rights. "Parishioners of churches that do not belong to the Patriarchate apply to us. Churches are being illegally taken away from them in favor of the Russian Orthodox Church. After the signing of the agreement, there will be more such acts. I see all this as an attempt by the Russian Orthodox Church to become the state religion, which contradicts the Constitution."
In the opinion of Alexei Ryabtsev, an ex-chairman of the Rogozhskaya Old Believers' Community in Moscow, "any intensive religious activity in the law enforcement agencies inevitably takes on a political hue."