Russia registers 9,000 religious groups
Text of report by Russian news agency ITAR-TASS
Moscow, 30 December: Russia has completed the re-registration of religious
associations. According to preliminary data of the Ministry of Justice,
more than 9,000 organizations have been registered in the three years
since the law "On freedom of conscience" was adopted. This is around 60
per cent of the number of groups that proclaimed themselves as religious in
the democratic process of the 1990s. The head of the religious associations
section of the Ministry of Justice, Viktor Korolev, told the ITAR-TASS
correspondent in an interview today that most of those have either broken
up or have failed to present sufficient information to get themselves
re-registered.
As regards the classification of faiths, there are now about 60 confessions
in Russia (there were 40 a decade ago). In addition to the traditional
Christian, Muslim, Judaic and Buddhist organizations, as well as
Protestants, some completely new faiths have appeared. These include the
Last Testament Church, Baha'i, the Salvation Army and the neopagan
organization (?Ashmari Chemari). Some organizations which have been the
subject of litigation in recent years, including the so-called Unification
Church established around 50 years ago by the Korean Sun Myung Moon, have
been registered.
Detailed statistics on the number of religious organization in Russia will
be published in February after data from all Russian regions has been
processed.
©Copyright 2000, Russian news agency ITAR-TASS
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