Policy Analyst Hails Recent European Court Ruling Protecting Religious Liberty
by Allie Martin
October 13, 2006
(AgapePress) - - The president of a U.S.-based think tank on religion and public policy is applauding a decision by a European court regarding the Salvation Army's activities in Russia. Government officials in Russia claimed the Christian charity and social services ministry was a paramilitary organization and had barred it from registering with the government. Now, however, in a unanimous ruling, a European court has found that the Russian authorities' actions with regard to the Salvation Army violated the European Convention on Human Rights. The court, having determined that the government officials treated the Salvation Army unfairly by classifying it as a paramilitary group, awarded the Christian organization 10,000 euros.
Joseph Grieboski is founder and president of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy, a non-profit, non-partisan organization based in Washington, DC, which works to foster a positive and cooperative relationship between religion, ethics and morality and government, politics, and policy in both the domestic and foreign arenas. He believes the European court's finding in the Salvation Army case is a watershed ruling.
"The decision, frankly, is probably the most important decision on religious freedom that the Court has to date handed down," Grieboski contends. And this ruling, he adds, "will not just be helpful for religious minorities in Russia itself, but should be helpful throughout the 46 states in Europe and Eurasia which adhere to the European Convention on Human Rights."
The Institute on Religion and Public Policy spokesman notes that the court's decision is a timely one in light of the current socio-religious climate in some parts of eastern Europe. In particular, he notes, "There's a problem developing in post-Communist Russia of an increase in religious nationalism, which essentially says that to be a good Russian you must be Orthodox -- that you cannot be one without the other."
With the fall of communism as a definer of national identity in Russia, Grieboski says he and others are seeing a rise in this religious nationalism as a cultural identity. "Some of the most ardent Communists in the past are now the most ardent Orthodox," he says; however, he believes the precedent of the European court's Salvation Army ruling will protect religious freedom for religious minorities in Russia and across Europe.
Allie Martin, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
