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Religion in Communist Lands 12.2 (1984): 198

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Religion in Communist Lands 12.2 (1984): 198 Chronicle Summaries of Events and Background Information Religious Policy' under Andropov and Chernenko The death of Andropov and rapid selection chinskaya. Each had been sentenced in of Chernenko as the new General Secretary August 1980 to three years for their activi­ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ties in organising a summer camp for the in February this year gave rise to extensive children of Baptist prisoners. Rytikov was speculation on the likely implications ofthe rearrested in April 1983 and charged with changeover. Any prognosis or comment, "parasitism"; he had been unable to find however, has to be restricted by the know­ employment because his work-book had ledge that the leadership will remain to a been kept by the court in L'viv and returned large extent collective. Under Chernenko only after he had been sentenced to a this will probably prove to be the case to an further two years' strict regime camp. even greater degree than it was- under Galina Vilchinskaya was rearrested in Andropov. Konstantin Chernenko, already November 1982, only three months after showing signs of physical frailty in his public completing her sentence. She was detained appearances, is unlikely to have the force­ at Vladivostok airport and in February 1983 fulness to impose any significant changes. was sentenced to two years' camp on Andropov, who showed more inclination charges of possessing drugs. Her Christian and potential for doing so, in the event had friends believe that the drugs were planted insufficient time to make any major impres­ in her luggage at the airport. Another mea­ sion on the Soviet system. sure which, although it has been used Despite the brevity of his Presidency, against dissidents for some years, has only Andropov did without doubt make a not­ over the last two years been brought into able impact on the lives ofreligious believers force against Baptist prisoners, is that of re­ in the Soviet Union. The increase in repres­ sentencing in the camp before completion sion of any attempts to extend religious life of the existing sentence. Four leading Bap­ beyond the officially stipulated boundaries tist figures were given such additional sen­ has been part of a general clamp-down on tences in 1983. Rudolf Klassen, a popular dissent which began with the pre-Olympic youth evangelist, and Yakov Skornyakov, purges in 1979-80 when And~opov was pastor-evangelist and member of the un­ head of the KGB. The number of known registered Baptists' national leadership (the Christian prisoners rose to almost 400 in Council of Churches of Evangelical Chris­ 1982; although it has since decreased to 323 tian Baptists), were arrested in the summer this is still over twice the number of known less than a month before they were due to cases in 1977. be released and sentenced in September to For many years, Baptists have made up a three more years of camp. Alexei large proportion of the imprisoned Chris­ Kozorezov, also a pastor-evangelist and a tians. Under Andropov several Baptists .national leadership figure - his wife were rearrested and given fresh sentences Alexandra is president of the Council of only months after completing a previous Baptist Prisoners' Relatives - was arrested term of imprisonment. Two such cases were in December 1983 less than a week before those of Pavel Rytikov and Galina Vil- the end of his sentence and is now awaiting Chronicle 199 trial. Perhaps the most prominent of the Christian prisoner to be resentenced under four is Nikolai Baturin, who succeeded the new law was a Russian Orthodox be~ Georgi Vins as secretary of the CCECB. He liever, Valeri Senderov. He had been sen­ was rearrested in September with more tenced only in February last year to the than a year of his sentence still to run, and maximum term of seven years' imprison­ given an additional three years' strict ment and five years' exile, on charges of regime camp. Since his first arrest in 1948 "slandering the Soviet state and social sys­ Baturin has spent over 18 years in Soviet tem" which were based mainly on his work prisons and camps for his religious activi­ in documenting evidence of the discrimina­ ties. tionagainst Jews in the entrance examina­ Su!=h resentencing was made an even sim­ tions to the Mathematics faculty of Moscow pler legal practice when, following an edict State University. The fact that his original from the USSR Supreme' Soviet, certain offence was considered to be an '~especially changes were made in the RSFSR Criminal dangerous State crime" enabled the Code. These came into effect as from I authorities to extend his sentence by a October 1983, and corresponding changes· further five years. The pretext for this was can be expected. to follow in the Criminal probably the hunger strike which Senderov Codes of the other Soviet Republics. conducted in August 1983 in protest at the . A new article of the Criminal Code, No. camp authorities' confiscation of his Bible, his prayer book and cross, a mathematical 188-3, gives administrative authorities in paper which he had completed while under labour camps a new sanction against those who show "malicious disobedience" and investigation in Lefortovo Prison, and a who have already been punished for letter to his mother. .Orthodox believers have also been suf­ breaches of camp discipline by a period in fering increasingly over the last two years solitary confinement or prison. Such prison­ from the attack on clandestine religious ers can now be punished by having a labour literature, although this attack has in the camp sentence extended by a period of up past been, focussed mainly on the activities to three years. Especially dangerous of the evangelical groups. Arrests have recidivists, or those who have committed taken place of Orthodox believers for the "especially dangerous State crimes" , can be writing and circulation of purely religious punished by an additional sentence of samizdat. Zoya Krakhmal'nikova was between one and five years. Into the latter arrested in August 1982 for her editorship category fall all those convicted under of a purely devotional journal, Nadezhda article 70 of the Criminal Code of the (Hope) (RCL Vol. 11 No. 1, p. 77, and Vol. RSFSR, "anti-Soviet agitation and propa­ 11 No. 2, pp. 210-213). Viktor Burdyug was ganda". The new law means that anyone arrested in April 1982 for photocopying and who is involved in any kind of breach of circulating religious samtzdat; and in March camp discipline can now be kept in labour 1983 Father Alexander Pivovarov, the camp, in effect, indefinitely, and this will priest of the church in the Siberian town of affect not only those people who take part Yeniseisk, was charged with distributing in hunger-strikes and other forms of pro­ religious literature. Father Pivovarov was test, but in theory anyone who infringes any "known and respected for .his exceptional aspect of camp discipline, down to such preaching and deep faith, and not only in his details' as wearing an unbuttoned jacket. native Tomsk. People came to see him from There has also been a change in Article 198- all the surrounding areas and he. was popu­ 2 of the Criminal Code which deals with larly referred to as the 'Light of Siberia'. "* "malicious infringement of the rules of administrative surveillance". This "surveil­ A specific offensive has been launched lance" refers to periods in which prisoners against the administration of the Russian will be under "surveillance" after comple­ Social Fund for aid to political prisoners and tion oftheir camp sentences. Until the latest their families (established by Alexander change came into effect, attempts to escape Solzhenitsyn with the royalties from Gulag from places of exile or to evade surveillance Archipelago). The work of administering could be punished by six months to ':I year in the Furd was undertaken by Sergei Kho­ detention, and·then only after two previous dorovich; he was arrested in April 1983 and warnings within a year. The new law makes provision for detention of between one and * Anatoli Levitin-Krasnov, in Keston News three years for a first offender. The first Service No. 188, 1 Dec. 1983, p. 15. 200 Chronicle reports have emerged of his being subjected tery.* Rumours have also been circulating to brutal punishment in Butyrki Prison. His of increasing official pressures on the monks successor, Andrei Kistyakovsky, was at the Monastery of the Holy Trinity and St forced by ill-health to give up the work in Sergius at Zagorsk, near Moscow. Visitors October 1983 and the duties of Adminis­ to the USSR during the last year have had trator were briefly taken over by art expert their requests to visit Zagorsk turned down Boris Mikhailov. The Fund now has no although such visits have been possible in publicly-declared Administrator. the past. However, according to an article Clearly the risks and problems associated in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate with such work have become more acute (No. 7 1983, p. 8) there are currently "over over the last two years. This applies equally 100" monks at Zagorsk. If this figure is cor­ to the work of the Christian Committee for rect it represents an increase from that of the Defence of Believers' Rights, as was 80-90 monks reported in the late 1970s, but pointed out by a member ofthe-Committee, it is conceivable that the article is intended Vadim Shcheglov, who was forced to emi­ to counter the rumours of a deterioration in grate last year. Since new members joined the situation at Zagorsk.The return of the the Committee after the arrest of several Danilovsky monastery, near Moscow, to founder-members their names have not the Church (the monastery was seized by been made public, in the hope that they the authorities after the 1917 Revolution) may continue their work with the minimum was publicised in the Western press last hindrance.
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