PETITION
OF THE HIERARCHAL SYNOD, CLERGY, MONASTICS AND LAITY OF RUSSIAN ORTHODOX AUTONOMOUS CHURCH TO THE GOVERNING BODY OF THE STATE OF RUSSIAN FEDERATION, WORLD COMMUNITY INSTITUTIONS, INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENTS

Dear Sirs, Brothers and Sisters,

Our Orthodox Church has found Herself in an alarming and distressing position and this disturbing fact is forcing us to appeal to you. Anticipating the devastation of the ROAC that may happen soon, we appeal, like the Old-Testament prophet David "from the depth" of our heart to God and to you.

God knows about the unjust things that happen - but the people must know, too, especially the people on whom the destinies of countries and people depend. We believe that any political leader who cares about freedom and justice will not remain indifferent to such a scandalous and outrageous violation of the most elementary human right - the right to confess the faith in our Creator and belong to His Church.

We confess the Holy Orthodox faith that has as its basis Divine Revelation, given to us through Apostles and the Holy Fathers, which is preserved in the Holy Gospel, in the decrees of the Holy Councils and in the writings of the Fathers and teachers of the Church. We confess our affiliation with the Orthodox Church that has existed in Russia since the 10th century.

As we all know, in the 20th century that has passed, the Orthodox faith and Church had to undergo terrible ordeals that were unprecedented in world history. The Church was almost completely destroyed; small communities of Orthodox Christians were preserved in USSR mainly in the underground - in the "catacombs".

We stayed in the catacombs through all the Soviet years as we could not accept the path of compromise, the path of refusal to witness to one's Faith, which the Moscow Patriarchate - legalized by the bolsheviks - embarked upon in 1943. Besides, we always thought and still believe that in questions of internal church life, such as dogmatics, canon law, church administration, the Church cannot submit to the state authorities. We were able to return to an open and legal existence only at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, when the government of the USSR renounced persecutions against the faith and the Church.
Unfortunately, even after our legalization the state authorities periodically put pressure on the ROAC. Unlawfully, with the help of OMON (Riot Squads) they took away our churches, people were driven away from their places of worship (for example, we can name churches in the following cities: Trubchevsk (Briansk oblast), Volgograd, Zheleznovodsk (Stavropol krai), Belgorod, Nizhny Novgorod, Kainsk, Novosibirsk, Ussuriyisk, Noginsk (Moscow oblast), Kineshma (Ivanovo oblast), Votkinsk (Udmurt oblast), St. Petersburg, Moscow etc.) The churches that were taken away from us were all transferred to the Moscow Patriarchate.

In accordance with the law of nonacquisitiveness and humility that is natural to all Christians, we have obeyed the decisions of the powers that be, although their decisions were unjust to us. We never wanted to take revenge on anybody or infringe upon anybody's rights. We never hindered anybody's right to confess his faith (however "wrong" we considered it to be), we only strove to keep the Orthodox faith that we confess undamaged, and humbly live as befits the Orthodox Christians.

The Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church has both state-registered and catacomb parishes and communities of believers. We have monasteries, convents and sketes. Besides, we have parishes, communities and monasteries in Ukraine, Belorussia, USA, England, Palestine and other foreign countries and CIS-members.

The believers of the ROAC are the law-abiding citizens, we do respect the political choice of the majority of the Russian people, and we have not called, nor do we intend to call upon anyone to commit "disobedience to the State". Everywhere and at all times we strive to obey the law of God and the law of man, preaching that obedience to the law is a major Christian virtue, with the exception of the principal aspects of Christian moral choice, when such obedience becomes contrary to the Christian understanding of good.

We do not understand why such a position should be seen by anyone as dangerous or harmful to the Russian State. And the fact that some influential political leader thinks this follows from the unexampled persecution of the ROAC that started as if by command more then a year ago. Our Church has not suffered such persecutions since the times of Soviet antitheism.

Now things are starting again - provocations and arsons, beatings and murder threats, open hostility from the authorities and slander in the press. And finally - the court prosecution of the First-Hierarch of our Church Metropolitan Valentine (Rousantsov), which is appalling in its absurdity and cynicism And all the above is not taking place in pagan Rome which did not know Christ, and not in the Communist Soviet Union! All this is taking place now in Russia, where so much is being said about the consolidation of the State organization and law and order, about the "dictatorship of law", about the returning of respect to religion and the regeneration of Orthodoxy.

We not with special alarm the open participation in the ROAC's persecution of representatives of the local authorities - city and regional officials, officials from the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the secret services. We even receive information about the highly-placed protectors of the persecution, who abuse the plenary powers they have supposedly received from the President of Russia.

Why do representatives of the State authorities think it is appropriate for them to participate in the persecution of a small Church, and of their own law-abiding citizens who confess Orthodoxy, the traditional religion of Russia? Since we well know that the ROAC's activity is absolutely legal and within the law and can not be of any danger to the State, we can only think that the principle of the secular state that we didn't establish is now being violated in Russia and the authorities wish to accept the Moscow Patriarchate as the "only lawful Orthodox Church" - a church denomination that we do not belong to.

So in a hidden way the constitutional order of our country is being destroyed, for it is clearly stated in our Constitution that Russia is a secular country and all the religious communities - small and large, Orthodox and non-Orthodox, ancient and modern - all exist on equal terms in the face of the law.

Neither the ROAC nor the Moscow Patriarchate nor any other confession, according to the Constitution, can use any special privileges and be treated by the State as "the only true one", "the only canonical one" or the "the state-forming" religion. Moreover, in a secular country where all the confessions are equal, the ROAC cannot be considered as "opposed" to the Moscow Patriarchate, as in the face of the law our legal status is the same. In the preamble to the acting Federal law "On liberty of conscience and religious organizations" (passed in 1997) the State even declares its particular respect for Orthodoxy, the religion that our Church confesses.

Russian legislation contains non hint that the State recognizes the Moscow Patriarchate as the only Orthodox confession in Russia. The Old-Believers, who have existed as a separate community for 350 years, call themselves Orthodox. And the secular state definitely may not act as a judge in a theological and a church-canonical dispute and decide for their own citizens who has the right to call himself Orthodox and who hasn't. But even if the State were to become the judge in such a case, it should listen attentively and without bias to both sides. And in such case we, the hierarchs, clergy and laity of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church would have been ready to prove, using every fact in our possession, that our Church indeed keeps traditional the Orthodox faith, has a canonical hierarchy and has the full right to be considered one of the traditional confessions in Russia.

It is obvious that the participation of the state authorities in the persecution of our Church is not a legal, official position, but a political decision of certain people. The local authorities openly protect a terrorist organization "Our Deed" (Nashe Delo), the gangster members of which freely appear in the city of Suzdal, the spiritual center of the ROAC, wearing uniforms, openly beating up priests in the street, setting church buildings on fire, spreading the extremist leaflets and threatening to kill our First-Hierarch.

The present critical situation threatens to force our Church into an underground position, into the catacombs, forces us once more clearly and unambiguously to formulates the ROAC's attitude to the present Russian State.

The present persecutions (just like any others) are unable to destroy the Church of Christ. It will just have to search once more for other forms of its existence in the changed external conditions. Persecutions and especially feats of confession and martyrdoms have strengthened the Church and have shamed its prosecutors in all periods of its history.

According to article 14 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation: "1. The Russian Federation is a secular State. No religion may be established as the state-religion or obligatory. 2. Religious organizations are separated from the State and are equal under the law". This means that the relations between the State and religious organizations are based on the principle of liberty of conscience as no religion in Russia can be established as obligatory. That means that the State, its bodies and officials must not interfere in the lawful activity of the Church organizations and may not entrust them with any state functions.

The second clause of article 14 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation points to the equal rights of religions and religious organizations, which have no privileges, and are not subject to any restrictions, in comparison to others. Moreover, it is not important what the religion is called, how many years it has existed on the territory of the Russian Federation, how many parishioners and parishes it numbers. The State is neutral in questions of the freedom of religion and conscience; it does not stand on the side of one religion or ideology, regardless of the personal beliefs of the State leaders and their personal preferences. The State issues the laws that provide protection and the realization of the principle of religious freedom and determines the responsibility for its violation, and for offenses to the religious feelings of the believers. To have the right to practice on the territory of Russian federation the religious organization must have its Charter (Ustav) and be registered by the Ministry of Justice.

Article 28 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation states: "Everyone is guaranteed freedom of conscience and freedom of belief, including the right, individually or along with others, to confess any religion or no religion at all, to freely choose, acquire and spread any religious and other beliefs and act in accordance with them".

These statements are consolidated in article 18 of the International pact on economic, social and cultural rights issued on December 16, 1966 and article 9 of the European convention on the protection of human rights and primary freedoms issued on November, 4 1950 and in its protocols.

The given statement of the Constitution of the Russian Federation determines our society as being free and democratic, a society in which a person has the right freely and openly to confess his faith, without being subject to persecution and discrimination from the State and society.

And the Declaration on the liquidation of all forms of bias and discrimination on the basis of creed and convictions issued on November, 1981 says that bias and discrimination on the basis of religion means any difference, exception, limitation or preference, based on religion or convictions and aimed at or causing the destruction or lessening of recognition, use or realization on the basis of the equality of human rights and primary freedoms.

No one should be under compulsion in his choice of religion or in changing his creed, where compulsion may take different forms, including physical, psychological, administrative, criminal influence etc.

Violations of the clauses of article 28 of the RF constitution leads to a criminal prosecution according to article 148 of the RF Criminal code for preventing of implementing of the right of freedom of conscience and creed, and also for offending citizens' feelings and convictions with the use for this purpose of the mass media or any other public means, and also by means of the destruction and damage of the temples, cult buildings, constructions, other objects of ideological symbolism, monuments, burials, covering them with offensive inscriptions and images (criminal responsibility is assessed in accordance with article 214 of the RF Criminal code).

We must witness that there has been a massive violation of constitutional rights and freedoms in relation to the ROAC and its faithful people. We witness to a failure in executing international treaty clauses that were ratified by the Russian Federation and to a total permissiveness on the part of the Office of the Procurator of Vladimir Oblast towards people who violate the Constitution and the law of the Russian Federation.

For more then a year the ROAC has suffered numerous insults - both in the public press and on the walls of historical architectural monuments of the Museum-City of Suzdal where the spiritual center of our Church is located. Here the criminals regularly set monasteries, churches, and dwelling houses on fire: Local and regional authorities are persecuting all the ROAC's faithful; our priests are being beaten up and receive threats to their lives.

We sincerely ask you all to stand up for the protection of believers' rights and give us an opportunity openly to enjoy our right of freedom of belief without hindrance in accordance with our religious beliefs.

On the basis of the above-expounded position of our Church, we ask our Russian government, Governments of the other countries of the world and international human rights organizations to concentrate on the problems that have been created by certain Russian officials, problems that prevent the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church from enjoying its constitutional right of religious freedom.


Chairman of the Hierarchal Synod
of Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church
Valentine, Metropolitan of Suzdal and Vladimir

Members of ROAC's Hierarchal Synod:
Archbishop Theodore
Archbishop Serafim
Archbishop Viktor
Bishop Hillarion
Bishop Timothey
Bishop Anthony
Bishop Ambrose
Bishop Gregory
BishopAnthony
Bishop Geronty

Secretary of Hierarchal Synod protopriest Arkady (Makovetsky)
Secretary of the Diocese Archimandrite Irinarch (Nonchin)
Secretary of the First-Hierarch protopriest Nikolay Novoselov

Archimandrite Evfimy, archimandrite Anthony, rural dean of Moscow region and senior priest of Tsar Martyr Nicholai protopriest Michail (Ardov), rural dean of Stavropol region protopriest Georgy (Novakovsky), rural dean of Udmurt region protopriest Nikolai (Hirny), schimonun of the Robe-laying convent Evfimia, abbess of the cloister of charity of St. John Maximovich, Serafima, abbess of St. Elizabeth convent, hieromonk Theofan, rector of the theological school, archimandrite Sebastian, archimandrite Jacob, protopriest Nikolai (Kobychev), protopriest Vladimir (Kovtun), protopriest Anatoly (Novakovsky), protopriest Roman (Novakovsky), protopriest Michael (Makeev), protopriest Andronik, priest Stanislav Skalsky, abbot Partheny, abbot Trophim, protopriest Valentin (Nonchin), hieromonk Simon, priest Viktor, hieromonk Gregory, priest Alexei, priest Roman (Pavlov), priest Viktor (Rou), priest Sergey (Evchik), priest Anatoly Monakov, protopriest Evgeny (Starostin), priest Sergy, protopriest Gennady (Varlamov), hieromonk Augustine, archimandrite Seraphim, hieromonk Feodosy, priest Andrey (Valevsky), priest Valery, protodeacon Vladimir, protodeacon Sergey, hierodeacon Kiprian, protodeacon Sergey, hierodeacon John, hierodeacon Iliya, protodeacon Alexei, priest Gennady (Komarov), priest Viktor (Zaika), protopriest Vladimir (Shishkov), deacon Paul, priest Dionysi, protopriest Georgy, Mariam, abbess of the Holy Apostles convent, hieromonk George and the other clergy, monastics and laity.