Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 18 – The authorities in
the post-Soviet states have long recognized the role of Western-backed NGOs in
promoting disruptive change and even color revolutions, according to a
commentary on a Russian Orthodox site. But they have been slow to recognize
that Protestant sects are playing an equally important role in undermining
state and society.
Not only are sectarian groups more
difficult to track than NGOs – they remain unregistered, change their meeting
places frequently, and recruit one by one – in some places, such as South Osetia, the
Third Rome portal says, they now “outnumber the KGB, however anecdotal that
sounds” (3rm.info/publications/56979-zapadnye-sekty-usilili-podryvnuyu-deyatelnost-vdol-granic-rossii.html).
But
in the view of this Orthodox site, such groups are closely connected with
politics and in many cases have been dispatched by the US or by Ukraine for the
purpose of destabilizing Russia and its neighbors. Consequently, they must be a
matter of far greater concern than they are now if the threat of instability
and color revolutions is to be countered.
The
Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian authorities have always had a very
negative attitude toward Protestant denominations, but this article suggests
that support for repressing them is growing and that Moscow not only will come
down harder on these groups within its borders but push other former Soviet
states to do the same.
The
portal sites a variety of cases, including the recent detention of 12 foreign
Protestant missionaries in Kyrgystan. Five of the 12 were Americans; the
remainder were from Ukraine, Canada, Brazil, Sweden and South Korea. The group was
focused on ethnic Uzbeks rather than Kyrgyz, apparently out of a belief that
this could trigger a new round of nationality conflicts.
A
few days after this, the portal says, the Osh militia arrested a second group of
Protestant “missionaries,” whose ranks included a Russian, two Englishmen, and
three Ukrainians. Significantly, it adds, “both the first and the second group arrived
in Kyrgyzstan from Ukraine.”
The
Third Rome portal says that “if the activity of NGOs is quite easy to follow
and check, including their sources of funds, then the work of sectarian
structures as a rule is much more secret.” NGOs by their nature work in public,
while Protestant missionaries can operate well below the radar screens of the
police and security agencies.
That
of course makes the sectarians especially valuable agents for hostile foreign
powers like the United States and Ukraine, the portal says.
And
it says that while the subversive work of Protestant sectarians is clearly in
evidence in Ukraine, “neo-Protestant and certain quasi-Eastern sects in recent
years have become extremely active throughout the entire post-Soviet space.”
Even in Muslim Central Asia, it notes, actions by Seventh Day Adventists and
Pentecostals has been “extraordinary.”
In
the Caucasus, the Third Rome portal continues, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the
Salvation Army have been especially active now that, thanks to Mikhail
Saakashvili’s policies in Georgia, they have a base for operations. In
addition, it says, the Mormon church has become more active, including in
particular in South Osetia.
There,
at present, the portal says, the Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Pentecostals
have created “an abnormal religious disproportion,” one that threatens the
republic with a revolution: there are up to 5,000 adepts of these groups in
that republic, an enormous number given that the total population of South
Osetia is no more than 30-40,000.
Certain
sectarians “even occupy major government positions” in South Osetia, “including
in the force structures, despite the fact that their religious doctrines
prohibit them from taking part in military conflicts,” the portal says.
The
South Osetian authorities are having a difficult time controlling the
situation, the Orthodox site says, “the Jehovah’s Witnesses are not registered
as a religious community and consequently, one cannot prohibit that which doesn’t
legally exist.” As a result, these groups are growing and their membership now
exceeds that of the local security service.
Up to now, the portal concedes, “there have not been noted
any direct attempts from these sects to influence the political or social life
of the republic, but the situation itself is extraordinarily explosive, all the
more so because all the leading centers of the sectarians are located on the territory
of Georgia” and because Osetins have been afraid to talk about them.
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