Photo via russia-alaska.com

New Russian national idea: to be Russian is to be an Orthodox

Leonid Regheta, a missionary in Russia for the U.S.-headquartered Evangelical Covenant Church says he faces the dilemma of deciding whether to move his family to Estonia or Lithuania to begin a ministry there, or to bring them to the United States, reports Ecumenical News International.

All of this is because of Russian visa regulations that require him to live apart from his Russian-born wife and children three months at a time. "After the decade of political and social chaos but great advances of the country's religious freedom, Russia has begun promoting a new national idea: to be Russian is to be an Orthodox," he told Ecumenical News International.

"That's when Evangelicals, Protestants, old believer Orthodox followers, Catholics, in other words everyone not part of the official Orthodox church, started feeling the pressure."

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TAGS: USA Russia Evangelical Covenant Church religious freedom Orthodox church

[10/30/2008]

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