APPETITS OF THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHY GROW: NOW IT LICKS ITS LIPS IN ANTICIPATION OF THE INCOME TAX PAID BY THE CITIZENS, AT THE SAME TIME IT AGAIN ENCROACHES ON SECULAR CHARACTER OF THE RUSSIAN STATE. AREN'T DUTY-FREE VODKA, CIGARETTES AND CHICKEN DRUMSTICKS ENOUGH FOR THE CITIZEN GUNDYAEV (WHO APPARENTLY DIDN'T READ THE CONSTITUTION)?

STATEMENT OF NIKOLAJ KHRAMOV, RUSSIAN COORDINATOR OF THE RADICAL PARTY

Moscow, March 21, 2001

"Today's statements of the metropolitan Kiril Gundyaev, the real owner of the Moscow patriarchy, that it would be desirabl that the state transfer a part of the income tax paid by the citizens for the benefit of "religious organizations", are a real scandal. The appetits of the patriarchy brotherhood grow before our eyes: now it licks its lips in anticipation of the income tax paid by the citizens, at the same time it again encroaches on secular character of the Russian state.

The citizen Gundyaev apparently did not read the Russian Constitution as unnecessary, otherwise he'd know that the article 14 reads that the Russian Federation is a secular state and religious associations are separated from the state. It is the constitutional and legal aspect of the question.

As to the moral evaluation of the demarche of the "tobacco metropolitan", there are no due words to express unlimited cynicism and impudence of these new pretensions of the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The comrade Gundyaev motivates the necessity to withdraw money of tax-payers for the benefit of newly appeared "princes of church" by the fact that otherwise the church wouldn't have means for social programs. And these are the words of the figure who executes worth billions duty-free acrobatic focuses importing "under flap of his cassock" vodka, cigarettes, chicken drumsticks and other material signs of immaterial relations, which became the talk of the town for all the country! However, the comrade Gundyaev apparently doesn't care a pin about all these trifles..."

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