Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 23 – In apparent
deference to the Russian Orthodox Church, the Russian enlightenment ministry
has dropped plans to eliminate courses in specific religions and give parents
and children in the primary grades only a choice between a survey of the
cultures of the traditional religions of Russia and foundations of civic ethics.
Instead, a new draft of the Federal
Educational Standards leaves unchanged the current system in which parents and
their children can choose from among Orthodox culture, Islamic culture,
Buddhist culture, Jewish culture, foundations of religious cultures of the peoples
of Russia or civic ethics (rbc.ru/society/21/11/2019/5dd51ab99a79477a38b9c311).
The Moscow Patriarchate of the
Russian Orthodox Church had complained about the earlier draft, and the decision
to keep the course choices where they have been for several years appears to reflect
its intervention. Earlier this month, Patriarch Kirill called for the introduction
of an additional course for all students on Russian culture.
Representatives of the Muslim and
Jewish communities, on the other hand, generally support the original plan to
move from religion-specific courses to the two more general ones. Rushan Abbbyasov, deputy head of the Union of
Muftis of Russia (SMR) and Yury Kanner, president of the Russian Jewish
Congress, are among them.
Abbyassov says that “we consider
that one must think about a subject which will unite all Russian residents.
Russia is a multi-national state and one needs to know the habits and culture
of one’s neighbors.” An additional reason is that in many schools there aren’t
enough instructors for many of the religion-specific modules.
Kanner for his part takes an even
broader view. He says he would leave only one course in this module, “Foundations
of World Culture” because “religion and culture and indivisible.” RBK did not report speaking with anyone from
the Buddhist community, the fourth “traditional” religion of the Russian Federation.
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