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13 October 2010, 17:32Russian Church believes Russian Law on Freedom of Conscience is most liberal in the world
Moscow, October 13, Interfax – The Russian Law on the Freedom of Conscience adopted 20 years ago in October 1990 left behind the most liberal foreign laws of that kind, head of the Synodal Department for Church and Society Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin believes.
"Wordings of that law are disputable like the whole lawmaking of early nineties. Having formulated the principle of religious associations' equality before the law, Russia took the lead over most liberal countries. Western constitutions don't know this principle. It's evident. All citizens, all public organizations are equal a priori before the law," the priest said in his interview published on Wednesday by the Argumenty i Fakty weekly.
However, according to Father Vsevolod, equality before the law should not mean "arithmetically equal attitude of state and society."
"We have different attitude to the Bolshoi Theatre and to the amateur theatre, to the Spartak sport club and a yard team, to a respected war veteran and a criminal recidivist. Both have the same passport, both of them are equal as citizens, but the attitude to them is different," he explained.
According to the priest, majority of "self-respecting countries" has certain gradation in attitude of the state to different religious communities based on number of their followers, historical role in the country, citizenship position and traditional character.
"There will nothing bad if such kind of gradation is observed at the level of important decisions. Besides the life itself has already formed it," Russian Church official believes.
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