KREMLIN SEES NO RIFT WITH ORTHODOX CHURCH OVER LAW

By Anatoly Verbin

MOSCOW, July 28 (Reuter) - The rejection by Russian President Boris Yeltsin of a controversial law on religion does not indicate a rift between the Kremlin and the Orthodox church, the president's press secretary said on Monday.

``There can be no talk about a crisis in relations between the president and the Orthodox Church,'' Russian news agencies quoted Sergei Yastrzhembsky as telling reporters at Yeltsin's Volzhsky Utyos holiday retreat in central Russia.

Yastrzhembsky said the draft law had to be amended to conform with the constitution.

``If it corresponded to the constitution, the president would surely have signed it regardless of various opinions from abroad,'' Yastrzhembsky said.

Patriarch Alexiy, head of the influential Orthodox Church, said in a statement last week that Yeltsin's veto of the draft law ``On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations'' risked stirring up religious tensions in Russia.

``The decision of the president has evoked regret among believers of the Russian Orthodox Church,'' said the statement. ``(The veto) could create tensions in Russia between the authorities and a majority of the people.''

Yeltsin threw out the bill last Tuesday, saying it contravened Russia's post-Soviet constitution guaranteeing equality for all confessions and also its international pledges on human rights.

The bill, overwhelmingly approved by both chambers of parliament, favoured traditional faiths. Apart from Orthodoxy, which Russians closely associate with their culture and national identity, these include Islam, Buddhism and Judaism.

It said only faiths registered at least 15 years ago -- when religion was tightly controlled by the atheistic Communists -- could qualify as ``religious organisations.'' Others would have had to wait 15 years before applying for full legal rights.

Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who heads the biggest faction in the State Duma (lower chamber), forecast on Saturday that parliament would overturn Yeltsin's veto. Each of the two chambers needs a two-thirds majority to do so.

Communists, who in the Soviet era harassed and persecuted religious believers, have now become strong defenders of Russian traditions including resurgent Orthodoxy.

In separate reports, Russian news agencies quoted Yestrzhembsky as saying Yeltsin had summoned First Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais to meet him on Wednesday and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin to visit him on Friday.

They would discuss plans for the 1998 budget. By law, the government must present a budget to the Duma before August 26.

Yeltsin, 66, has been on holiday since early July. He says his heart works like clockwork after quintuple heart bypass surgery last November and that he has a firm grip on power.

Yastrzhembsky also said Yeltsin was pleased with the result of an election of a governor in the the vast Siberian industrial region of Irkutsk where a candidate backed by a pro-government party defeated the local Communist Party chief.

``The crushing defeat of the communist candidate shows once again that the policy of real deeds, small as they are, in implementing reforms...brings success to reformers,'' Interfax news agency quoted Yastrzhembsky as saying.

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Johnson's Russia List

#1094

29 July 1997

djohnson@cdi.org