Religious groups and organizations in Russia that are not legally registered and re-registered before December 31 this year will be “deprived of their legal status” under the terms of a statutory amendment signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The provision amends Russia’s restrictive 1997 Religion Law, which established mandatory re-registration for all religious groups and organizations.
An estimated 8,000 of the 17,000 religious organizations in Russia have not yet re-registered.  Many congregations have charged that their re-registration attempts have been tied up in unnecessary red tape by local authorities.

“Despite the fact that the re-registration law does not effect the Adventist Church, we have expressed our concern about some of the articles that do not correspond with the Russian Constitution, which protects religious freedom,” says Victor Krushenitsky,  public affairs and religious liberty director for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Euro-Asia region.  He points out that Article 27 of the Religion Law restricts legal status to religious groups that have less than 15 years existence in Russia and that have no “centralized structures.”  Such groups, if they fail re-registration, will be deprived of their legal status by the court, but they will be able to worship in their buildings.”

“We believe that religious freedom is a basic right that should be guaranteed by the state, not something that is contingent on whether a group of believers can comply with difficult registration laws,” says Krushenitsky.