Why FECRIS should be held responsible for its Russian members activities

FECRIS annual symposium in Saint-Petersburg

A rapid history of FECRIS

The European Federation of Centres for Research and Information on Sects and Cults (FECRIS) is a French-registered umbrella organization that gathers anti-cult associations all over Europe and beyond. It was created on June 30, 1994, by the French anti-cult association UNADFI (National Union of Associations in Defense of the Individual and Families against Cults), and registered at the very same address as UNADFI. It was created with the aim of coordinating the anti-cult movement at European level.

It started with a representation in 10 different countries, and rapidly grew to attain 36 member organizations in 24 different countries in 2001.

In 2009, FECRIS was granted « ECOSOC Special Consultative Status » by the United Nations.

In several countries, FECRIS member associations have been created by, or merged with, or have close links to State religions that uses them as a way to eliminate what they see as competitors. As said in Freedom of Religion or Belief Anti-Sect Movements and State Neutrality A Case Study: FECRIS, a collective academic book published by Lit Verlag, “FECRIS gathers associations with various, even contradictory, vested interests which see an opportunity to ally to fight against religious minorities.” The book gives examples: “France, the cradle of laïcité [French secularism] and the driving force of the anti-sect fight in Europe promoting the separation between State and religion; Austria and Germany, where public powers and dominant churches lead a common struggle against “sects”; and Serbia and Russia, two Orthodox countries in which FECRIS member associations include Orthodox missionary departments instrumentalizing the sect issue to eliminate competitors of Orthodox Churches.” (The book)

Alexander Dvorkin

FECRIS in Russia

The main representative of FECRIS in Russia is Russian Orthodox Theologian Alexander Dvorkin. In 1993, he founded the Saint Irenaeus of Lyons Information and Advisory Center, which is the chief organization of the RATSIR (Russian Association of Centers for the Study of Religions and Sects), itself an umbrella organization that gathers a great number of anti-cult associations, almost all linked with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), and often merged with it. The Center itself was blessed by Patriarch Alexy II, who, in March 2002, in a low-key ceremony, consecrated a church at the Lubianka headquarters of the Federal Security Bureau, which is the successor to the KGB, with a “ceremony focused on the need for concerted actions aimed at combating the current threats posed to Russia’s ‘spiritual security,’” as the Patriarch said.

Dvorkin’s organization joined FECRIS and changed its name into Saint Irenaeus of Lyons Center for Religious Studies in 2003.

The Vice President of RATSIRS is Archpriest Alexander Novopashin and its Executive Secretary is Priest Alexander Kuzmin.

Novopashin is the rector of the St. Alexander Nevsky cathedral, in Novosibirsk, and head of the Information and Advisory Center on Sectarianism, a FECRIS member association which is located in the cathedral and whose assistants and ordinary employees are the priests of the cathedral. (Source)

Kuzmin, besides being a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church is the head of the Saratov branch of the Center for Religious Studies, a member association of RATSIR, located in Saratov.

As stated in the already quoted book Freedom of Religion or Belief Anti-Sect Movements and State Neutrality A Case Study: FECRIS, in Russia the “concept of spiritual security has been used by Russian ideologues of the right and left”, and “Spiritual security, then, serves as the basis for a campaign based on paranoia of “foreign” enemies and “foreign” ideas, and for measures to unduly restrict freedom of religion or belief of Russian citizens who have decided to follow a non-consensual spiritual path. Members of the European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Sectarianism (FECRIS) in Russia play prominent roles in this campaign and repressive policy.”

FECRIS symposium 2009, with Alexander Dvorkin, Didier Pachoud and Annelise Oeschger

Fostering the crackdown on religious minorities in Russia

As stated in the 2020 report for the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) called The Anti-cult Movement and Religious Regulation in Russia and the Former Soviet Union, FECRIS “regularly spreads negative propaganda about religious minorities, including at international forums like the annual Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Human Dimensions conference. Dvorkin’s SILIC (Saint Irenaeus of Leon Information-Consultation Center) is the primary associate of FECRIS in Russia and receives significant financial support from both the ROC and the Russian government.” (The report)

The Russian members of FECRIS have been campaigning in Russia against movements they decide to label “destructive cults”. The list of targeted movements is quite long, but includes all movements that are seen as “foreign” and “non-traditional” religions: the Baptists, the Pentecostals, Jehovah Witnesses, Hindus, almost all Muslim groups that were not part of the officially recognized branch which is approved by the FSB, Scientologists, the Falun Dafa, the Church of the Latter Days Saints, etc.

While the troubles for these religious or spiritual movements started in the late 90s, it should be noted that the real crackdown and the stiffening of the repression started after 2009. As mentioned in the USCIRF aforementioned report: “Dvorkin’s official influence increased significantly in the late-2000s. In 2009, he was appointed head of the Russian government’s Council of Experts, tasked with monitoring religious activity and approving legal registration. The Council was created in 1998 to help enforce the 1997 law. The amended law of February 18, 2009 expanded the Council’s reach, giving it authority over the activity, structure, and religious content of registered organizations alongside its oversight of the registration process.”

It was exactly during this same time FECRIS held its annual international meeting in Saint-Petersburg. During the meeting (15-16 May 2009), the executives of FECRIS from all over Europe had private meetings with Russian Federation officials, including with Alexandr Konovalov, the Russian Minister of Justice (from 2008 to 2020) who was called “the hidden monk” for his allegiance to the ROC. They also met Judge of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, S. M. Kaza