A Justice Ministry letter demanding that churches provide lists of their congregations to the ministry last month caused panic among priests across the country.
The ministry has now said that the letter was sent out by mistake, but representatives of churches other than the dominant Russian Orthodox Church said they were scared the government may be planning to restore the Soviet practice of religious persecution.
"The letters requesting lists of believers were sent to a range of churches [across the country]," Igor Nikitin, head of the St. Petersburg-based Association of Christian Churches in Russia said Tuesday in a telephone interview.
"The situation, as you may understand, is quite delicate," he said. "The Constitution guarantees freedom of belief, so the letter could be considered as an attempt by the state to intrude on people's private lives.
"Freedom of worship is a specific indicator of democracy and if [the authorities] try to interfere in [citizens'] private lives it would set a bad precedent."
"[Priests] are very concerned about this and are very scared," he said.
Yury Vdovin, deputy head of the St. Petersburg branch of the international human rights organization Citizen's Watch, said the Justice Ministry might want to use the lists so that it can bolster the position of the Orthodox Church.
"It could be an attempt to register believers and use the data base of people who would be asked to recant faiths other than the Orthodox Church or pressure them to join the Orthodox Church," Vdovin said Thursday in a telephone interview.
The Justice Ministry's department for religious matters and public organizations could not be reached for comment.
Andrei Diriyenko, a minister with the Church of Christ in Yaroslavl, said a group of clergymen met the ministry officials Wednesday and were offered an apology.
"We've been told the letters were sent by some young girl who had just started working at the ministry and did not have enough working experience," he said Thursday in a telephone interview. "They said there are no plans to do anything like this and that this was just a professional mistake."
"The meeting was very pleasant for us," he said.
Vdovin said the ministry's apology sounded awkward.
"This looks like a fogged apology for their boorishness and incompetence in law and for an attempt to create special preferences for the Orthodox Church," he said. "The incident suggests that the government is trying to thrust a specific religion on people."
The Education Ministry plans to introduce religious lessons in schools across the country, Echo Moskvy reported Wednesday.
Education Minister Andrei Fursenko said religion will be taught as a cultural matter because "Orthodoxy was the basis of the creation of the Russian state and this should be understood."
Former education minister Vladimir Filippov said in February that the question of "whether Orthodoxy should be taught into schools or not" had already been decided and that teaching it would be "soft."
The latest moves to introduce religious lessons in schools are not the first. In autumn 2002 the Education Ministry attempted to create a federal program for schools to teach religious matters, but the plan was dropped after strident criticism from government officials, the media and representatives of non-Orthodox faiths operating in the country, Lenta.ru reported Wednesday.
Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg the Orthodox Church has faced a setback in promoting itself. Petersburg Television, or Channel 5, which will relaunch itself under a new format on Monday, has abolished a regular program of Orthodox news called Vestnik Pravoslaviya.
"This program, which was created with the blessing of Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and Ladoga Vladimir, was broadcast every Saturday morning," Interfax cited the church's press service as saying Thursday. "However, now, starting in April, the new management of the channel decided to replace the only Orthodox program with a Polish cartoon."
The press service quoted a letter sent to the St. Petersburg Diocese that says "the format for TRK Petersburg has been set. Because at the moment it could not be changed or corrected, it is impossible to decide the question of extending the license agreement in a positive way."
Over 70 percent of St. Petersburg's about 5 millions residents describe themselves as Orthodox believers, according to the diocese. There are 293 Orthodox parishes, each regularly visited by more than 1,000 people.
"The brand of the channel changed completely and practically all the programs that were broadcast, not only Vestnik Pravoslaviya, are gone," Interfax quoted an unnamed source at Channel 5 as saying Thursday. "We are not against Orthodoxy, there are other channels in the information field [of this city] where this and other programs can find a second life."
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Core Universal Rights
The right to believe, to worship and witness
The right to change one's belief or religion
The right to join together and express one's belief