When the USSR fell at the end of 1991, along with it fell the idea that organized religion was a threat to the government. But the free practice of religion did not last. In recent years, the Russian Orthodox Church has gained power and popularity at the expense of other religions. Russia has returned Orthodox Church property seized during the Soviet Era to the Church, unlike other religions’ assets, and has granted the Church the right to teach its beliefs in public schools. On the opposite end, Russia has gone as far as declaring Jehovah’s Witnesses extremists to prevent the practice of the religion.
Under threats of persecution, ridicule, and arrest, many Russians left behind one life to pursue a new one in a country with a different language and, more importantly, different religious and cultural freedoms. Russian Jews in particular often made this same journey during the 1970s and 1980s. In an interview with the HPR, Russian natives Lilia Veksler and Sergey Kotelnikov discussed their stories of faith and fear. The differences in their stories show the changes Russia has made over time, but the mere existence of the second narrative reveals how the government has returned to an altered strain of the anti-religious practices of the Soviet era.
Lilia Veksler
Lilia Genfan was 16 when her parents decided to leave Russia, she recalled in an interview with the HPR. She was in her last year of secondary school; she had friends, and she thought Moscow was the most beautiful city in the world, even though she hadn’t been to many other places.
But Lilia’s parents, both non-practicing Jews, wanted the best for their daughter and knew the struggles she would face as a Russian Jew, so they began making plans to leave.
Sergey Kotelnikov
Expecting a baby is stressful enough for first-time parents, but the most pressing question in the minds of Sergey and Anya Kotelnikov when they were expecting in 2017 was, as Sergey explained via translator in an interview with the HPR,“Will my baby be safe in the community she is born into?”
Sergey and Anya were practicing Jehovah’s Witnesses in the town of Sertolovo during the four and a half years before they left Russia in September of 2017. Sertolovo, 20 miles north of St. Petersburg, is a town with a prominent Jehovah’s Witness community.
In the History Books
In the Soviet Union, the repression of religion was part of a political ideology. But even worse than religion was a lack of patriotism. Lenin believed a core component of Marxism was the idea that religion — any religion — exists to exploit and stupefy the working class.
The recent persecution of Jews in Russia, stemming in the 1970s from Marxist anti-religious sentiment, was not a new phenomenon. In 1727, Empress Catherine I ordered the expulsion of all Jews from Russia, although the decree was not well enforced. In the late 1700s, Poland was divided between Russia, Austria, and Prussia. The Russian government realized that expelling the 900,000 newly-arrived Jews would be impossible, but still developed policies treating Jews as second-class citizens. Since then, policies and attitudes towards Jewish people have varied greatly, even during the time of the Soviet Union when the government stood against religious association of any kind. Both practicing and non-practicing Jews are treated the same under these policies, which further complicates the role of Jews and religion in Russia.
But after the fall of the Soviet Union, laws to protect religious freedom were put in place and more people began to identify as religious. Today, Russia’s issues with religious freedom stem from a fear of religious terrorism rather than the Marxist idealism of the USSR. Russians still value love of country; in fact, nationalism is on the rise. But unlike the 1980s, Russians today justify their persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses with their fear of extremist violence, not their opposition to difference. Russian people have seen the damage that groups classified as extremists, like ISIS, can inflict, so the combination of nationalism and fear leads to religious persecution.
Lilia Veksler
Both of Lilia’s parents worked as engineers in Moscow. They had both achieved high levels of education: her mother obtained a master’s degree and her father, whose job often required him to travel for research meetings and conferences, obtained a PhD. Unfortunately for Lilia’s father, he could not actually travel; in the Soviet era, leaving Russia even for a short conference or vacation meant submitting an application to the government, and being a Jew in Russia meant that that application was consistently denied. Although Lilia does not recall knowing many religious people, Jewish or otherwise, she and her family occasionally visited the one synagogue in Moscow to observe Jewish holidays. Her memories of these visits consist of crowded streets, protests, and arrests, although fortunately she and her family were never detained.
Sergey Kotelnikov
As the situation worsened, Sergey and Anya began thinking about leaving Russia. It was during this time that Sergey and a group he worshipped with visited a town on the northwest border to spread the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses. The town, although too small for a police force, had Russian military stationed along the border. Noting that Sergey and his group were Jehovah’s Witnesses, the military personnel made direct, unveiled threats to falsify evidence to get Sergey and other Witnesses like him arrested. Around the same time, the police visited Sergey’s workplace — a programming and web development company — to encourage Sergey’s boss to dismiss any Jehovah’s Witness employees.
History Repeats
Jehovah’s Witnesses are required by the teachings of their religion to remain politically neutral. The official website of Jehovah’s Witnesses says they “do not lobby, vote for political parties or candidates, run for government office, or participate in any action to change governments.” While Witnesses are against warfare and violence, the religion’s interpretation of the Bible requires them to respect their government. So, with the important exception of the draft, Jehovah’s Witnesses pay taxes and obey the law, making their preferences in elections known only to God and praying that lawmakers will make the correct decisions. But in an interview with the HPR, Dr. John Burgess, a professor of systematic theology at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, argued that the missionary lifestyle simply does not fit with Russian culture. “Russians don’t like to be accosted on the street — it is just so foreign to the way they act in public, and a group that is so militantly missionary like the Jehovah’s Witnesses is irritating.” Beyond the irritation, Burgess said that Russians view the religious group as a sort of cult that “manipulates people into doing things they wouldn’t normally do” — namely, refusing to receive blood transplants. So in Russia, Jehovah’s Witnesses are labeled as extremists and treated as such.
On April 20, 2017, the Russian Supreme Court expanded the definition of extremist groups to include Jehovah’s Witnesses and thereby made the act of “organizing, participating in, or financing the activities of” a Jehovah’s Witness organization punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Opponents of this decision argue that, since Jehovah’s Witnesses participate so sparsely in government affairs, it is difficult to determine whether any individual Jehovah’s Witness — much less Jehovah’s Witnesses as a group — favor or oppose any particular government leader or law. Soon after the Supreme Court decision, “Kingdom Halls” across the country where Jehovah’s Witnesses congregate to worship were searched for illegal gatherings and materials. Police claimed they found outlawed religious pamphlets and even grenades. However, those arrested contest the validity of these accusations.
Lilia Veksler
In 1979, Lilia’s parents filed what would be the first of many applications to leave Russia permanently. The application required a signature for each family member from a place of work or education, so Lilia brought it to school to be signed by her headmaster. After asking for a signature, Lilia, a straight-A student, received all Cs that year; because being a traitor was the one thing worse than being a Jew. She was kicked out of the youth political organization Komsomol without a positive recommendation letter, which was required to attend any Russian college beyond the equivalent of community college. Her father was demoted, and her mother lost her job. This was a high price to pay, but they were determined to get out.
Sergey Kotelnikov
Despite one negative encounter with the police on the basis of religion, Sergey and Anya felt no need to hide their religion from others before the Supreme Court decision. Soon after, however, they began to prepare for a life of underground worship. Many Jehovah’s Witnesses began gathering in apartments to worship in small groups, but when neighbors, who were increasingly influenced by government rhetoric against Jehovah’s Witnesses, saw groups of people arriving at apartments belonging to Jehovah’s Witnesses, they often called the police. Fortunately for Sergey and Anya, the police always arrived after their gatherings had dispersed.
Leave or Stay
Neither Lilia nor Sergey wanted to leave Russia. The personal fear that many of today’s Russians feel toward Jehovah’s Witnesses, however, has the potential to become even more dangerous than the outright hatred and disrespect that many in the Soviet Union felt toward Jews. People are acting not only out of prejudice, but also out of what they believe to be a genuine desire to protect their families and communities from religious extremism.
Lilia Veksler
When that first application to leave the Soviet Union was rejected due to an allegedly insufficient reason to leave, as many were during this time, Lilia’s parents filed another, and another, every six months for almost nine years. Her father’s PhD was eventually revoked to punish his effort to leave Russia, so he found work translating scientific documents. When Lilia graduated secondary school, she cleaned floors in local buildings to make up for her family’s diminished income. Still, they applied and reapplied as Lilia graduated first in her class at community college and was accepted to Moscow State University, despite being Jewish and lacking the proper recommendation letter. After she graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in math, her family’s application was accepted in 1987.
They moved to Worcester, MA, and Lilia’s parents both secured jobs as engineers. Lilia went on to become a software engineer, met her husband, and had a baby girl. Last year she went back to Moscow with her daughter to attend a Moscow State University class reunion and show her daughter where she grew up. Lilia has seen many others since leaving, but still thinks Moscow is the most beautiful city in the world.
Sergey Kotelnikov
Sergey and Anya began considering the quality of life their unborn child would have in Russia. With no safe way to practice their religion, leaving seemed the only option to ensure the safety of their child. After considering the United States, Canada, Germany, and Finland, Sergey and Anya ultimately moved to Finland, only a three-and-a-half-hour drive from their apartment in Sertolovo, to join a few acquaintances who had recently left Russia for the same reason. The couple left their jobs and families to start a new life in a country whose language they did not speak.
Sergey started a window-washing company with a friend, and Anya had her baby — a girl. Now, the couple is concentrating on learning Finnish and English, both of which are required by employers in Finland, while Sergey looks for a more profitable job in his fields of advertising and website design. Sergey told the HPR that, despite having less in Finland than in Russia, he is much happier knowing that he and his family are safe — but if the laws were different, he would move back tomorrow to be near his mother and to raise his daughter in his homeland.
Life After Leaving
Lilia and Sergey lived in Russia at completely different times, and unlike Sergey’s, Lilia’s Russian story is now complete. She left to pursue a more free life, and she is now living that life with her family in Boston. She is confident in the safety of her near-grown child, and the Russia she knew has changed enough for her to visit freely with her daughter. But nothing is perfect, and Jews at Lilia’s old university are not completely worry-free. In January of 2018, a Moscow State University student was kicked out of an exam by his geography professor for wearing a kippah.
While life for Jews in Russia has improved despite some ongoing hostility, the stories of Sergey and other Jehovah’s Witnesses are far from over. He and his wife left to secure their own safety and the safety of their child, but they might never be able to visit Russia together without fear of arrest. The prevalence of religious animosity in Russia may have waned after the fall of the Soviet Union, but recent moves by the Russian government against Jehovah’s Witnesses show not only a preference for Russian Orthodoxy, but also increasing discrimination against other religions.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Valerii Tkachenko