Russia May Back Off of New Church Reporting Rules

Russia's Federal Registration Service, says it will review reporting rules applying to religious groups under Russia's controversial new Law on Non-Governmental Organizations. (See prior posting.) An article yesterday in USA Today quotes Victor Korolyov, head of the FRS division responsible for enforcing the law, as saying: "I don't know whether we'll be able to (change the regulations) before April" when the new rules take effect, since Parliament or the president must approve any change. However he concedes that the law will be difficult to enforce on nearly a million religious branches across Russia and says that the government will not strictly enforce the rules for now. It appears that some local officials have gone beyond the law's requirements and have already asked churches for lists of their members.