(Photo: Russian Orthodox church in Moscow, 1 July 2009/Sergei Karpukhin)

A masked gunman entered a Moscow church and murdered a Russian Orthodox priest who had received death threats for converting Muslims to Christianity and criticizing Islam, prosecutors and church officials said Friday.  The killing could threaten delicate relations between the powerful majority Russian Orthodox Church, which has close ties to the Kremlin, and the country’s growing Muslim minority of about 20 million.

The gunman approached priest Daniil Sysoyev, 34, in St Thomas Church in southern Moscow Thursday night, checked his name and then opened fire with a pistol, a spokesman for the investigating committee of the Prosecutor-General’s office said.

Sysoyev was from Tatarstan, a predominantly Muslim region of Russia on the Volga river. He was threatened after preaching to Muslims and Christians from other denominations. “I have received 10 threats via e-mail that I shall have my head cut off (if I do not stop preaching to Muslims),” Sysoyev stated on a television program in February 2008, according to Interfax. “As I see it, it is a sin not to preach to Muslims.”

“Islam is far from being a religion in the way we understand it,” he said in one of his video lectures posted on YouTube (here in Russian). “Islam can be rather compared with projects like National Socialism or the Communist party seeking to create God’s kingdom on Earth using humanly instruments,” he added.

Read the whole story here. See also Interfax Religion … RIA Novosti (with picture) …

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(Video: Archbishop Hilarion holds a news conference in French during his Paris visit, 13 Nov 2009/courtesy of Orthodoxie.com)

Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev, the Russian Orthodox Church’s top official for relations with other churches, has been busy this past week putting his revived church’s stamp on the world Christian scene. Over the weekend, he urged Catholics and Orthodox to join forces to defend their traditional version of Christianity. His comments, made during a visit to Paris to inaugurate his Church’s first seminary outside of Russia, come only days after positive remarks he made last week about how the Vatican and Moscow were slowly moving towards a meeting between Moscow’s Patriarch Kirill and Pope Benedict. Also last week, Hilarion indicated the Russian Orthodox might end their ecumenical dialogue with Lutherans after Germany’s Protestants elected a divorced woman, Bishop Margot Kässmann, as the new head of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD). After all this, he planned to take off for a visit to China.

(Photo: Saint Seraphin Russian Orthodox Church (Ecumenical Patriarchate) in a courtyard in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, 27 Sept 2009/Tom Heneghan)

At his news conference, the 43-year-old archbishop said the Catholic and Orthodox churches were “already working together in many areas. Their views are almost identical in matters of doctrine and social ethics. They could show all these values in secular society, nationally or internationally, for example regarding the concept of family, environment, economy, education etc.. Orthodox and Catholics should find a common language and speak with one voice to defend the values that derive from their faith. They could also work effectively in many areas of social and charitable work. This testimony and cooperation, I am sure, could help us take a different approach to the theological issues that divide us. They could make the question of unity more interesting to a wider audience, which is little concerned with theological issues such as the Filioque or primacy issues, but sensitive to questions that concern everyday life. I had the honour to raise these issues with His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI last September, during my visit to Rome.”

He also evoked this theme at the opening of the Russian Orthodox seminary in a former 17th-century Catholic convent in Epinay-sous-Sénart outside of Paris. “The opening of an Orthodox seminary of the Moscow Patriarchate in Paris is an unprecedented event,” he said. “The seminary is called among other things to become an important center of rapprochement between traditional Christian Churches in Europe … The primary task of Paris Seminary is to offer high-quality theological education. The seminary is also to become a link between the Russian Orthodox Church and Christians in France.”

Hilarion said Catholics and Orthodox were making progress in theological discussions on issues that split them in the Great Schism over a millennium ago. But he said the Moscow Patriarchate took a “prudent” approach to the “uncertain and distant results of theological dialogue … it knows that such a dialogue will probably take decades to come to a result.”

On that dialogue with German Protestants, Hilarion was quoted last week as citing protocol problems arising from Kässmann’s election. “We can develop the dialogue, but there are lots of simple protocol questions. How will the Patriarch address her or meet with her?” the Interfax news agency quoted him as saying. This elicited a sharp reaction from Kässman and Bishop Martin Schindehütte, Hilarion’s counterpart in the EKD. In a joint letter to Patriarch Kirill, they expressed their “great surprise and incomprehension” at his “unsuitable” remarks on her election. They said there was a Christian commandment of mutual respect “im geschwisterlichen Umgang” (in brotherly and sisterly interchange) among churches despite theological differences and regretted that a planned ceremony on November 30 to mark 50 years of EKD-Russian Orthodox dialogue had to be called off.

(Photos: Archbishop Hilarion and Bishop Kässman)

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The head of Russia’s Orthodox Church has flown fighter jets and passenger airliners and has tried to convince colleagues of the joys of parachute jumps, according to a senior cleric in Moscow.

Patriarch Kirill, enthroned as leader of the world’s 160 million Russian Orthodox believers in February, spends much of his time following rituals little changed since the Middle Ages.  But he has other ways to get close to the heavens.

(Photo: Patriarch Kirill,1 Feb 2009/pool)

“He has taken the control stick of passenger planes, to which I am a witness, and of fighter jets,” said Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev, quoted by Interfax news agency.

“Once he even tried to convince me to make a parachute jump,” said Alfeyev, a senior cleric who oversees the church’s relations with other Christian denominations.  “I said I was ready so as long as I knew the date in advance so I could leave my papers in order.” He said the 62-year-old patriarch had not yet set a date.

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A “miracle” baby has brought a kind of mystical hope to people in Russia’s mostly Muslim southern fringe who are increasingly desperate in the face of Islamist violence. From hunchbacked grandmas to schoolboys, hundreds of pilgrims lined up this week in blazing sunshine to get a glimpse of 9-month-old baby Ali Yakubov, on whose body they say verses from the Koran appear and fade every few days.

(Photo: Baby Ali Yakubov in Kizlyar, Russia, 19 Oct 2009/Amir Amirov)

Pinkish in color and several centimeters high, the Koranic verse “Be thankful or grateful to Allah” was printed on the infant’s right leg in clearly legible Arabic script this week, religious leaders said. Visiting foreign journalists later saw a single letter after the rest had vanished.

“The fact that this miracle happened here is a signal to us to take the lead and help our brothers and sisters find peace,” said Sagid Murtazaliyev, head of the Kizlyar region about 150 km (95 miles) north of Makhachkala, the sprawling Dagestani capital on the Caspian Sea.

“We must not forget there is a war going on here,” he told Muslim leaders who had invited the press to witness what they unequivocally claim is a sign from God.

Up to 2,000 pilgrims from Russia’s 20 million Muslim population come daily to see the docile, blue-eyed baby, whose pink brick house has become a shrine.

(Photo: An imam holds baby Ali, 19 Oct 2009/Amir Amirov)

Vladimir Zakharov, deputy director of the Caucasus Research Centre at the Moscow State University of International Relations, said he was not in a position to judge the veracity of the claims, but that it was clear they were born out of desperation. “Islam and fear of terrorism now totally dominate the North Caucasus, and they are perhaps using this to escape from a certain reality,” he told Reuters by telephone.

Read the full feature here.

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President Dmitry Medvedev has urged Russia’s top Muslim clerics to join forces to stop radical Islamist groups wooing young people in the turbulent North Caucasus.

(Photo: Main mosque in Grozny, capital of  Caucasus region of Chechnya, 17 May 2008/Said Tsarnayev)

“We cannot force people to give up Internet or close (Islamist) sites,” he told clerics and regional leaders at his summer residence in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.  “We need to think about finding a (television) channel which would offer teaching and comprehensive explanation of Islam that is traditional for our country.”

Medvedev also proposed stronger control over young people returning to Russia after studying Islam abroad. “Unfortunately these people are returning … (and) bring back unorthodox views on Islam,” he said.

“It is absolutely essential to ensure full support for the Islamic leaders, the muftiat, those who serve in the Caucasus,” he said.  “Without consolidating the authority of the Islamic leaders we will be unable to deal with the problems that exist.”

Read our reporting on this meeting here and here. For more background, see our analysis on the “Afghan-isation” of North Caucasus.

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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, battling a low-level Muslim insurgency in Russia’s south, has met Muslim leaders and asked them to spread a message of tolerance to combat Islamist extremism.

Medvedev met 12 muftis, Muslim spiritual leaders, from across the country on Wednesday in the pre-revolutionary Congregational Mosque in central Moscow, said by Muslims to be one of the oldest in European Russia.

(Photo: President Medvedev (L) and Chief Mufti Ravil Gaynutdin in Moscow, 15 July 2009/RIA Novosti)

Although the Kremlin has calmed the province of Chechnya by installing a strong local leader, violence has flared in other areas of the volatile, poverty-ridden North Caucasus. Killings of police and local officials are on the rise.

“It (extremism) destabilises the situation in our country and we are obliged to take all the necessary measures to neutralise it,” Medvedev told the muftis.

“In these conditions our crucial joint task is to spread the ideas of tolerance and acceptance of other faiths.”

It was the first time that a Russian president had visited the mosque, which was built in 1904. Medvedev said 57 of Russia’s 182 different ethnic groups identified themselves with Islam.

Russia is predominantly an Orthodox Christian nation but its vast territory is also home to around 20 million Muslims, many of them concentrated in the southern republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.

Analysts say growing violence in these regions has highlighted the danger of the Kremlin’s policy of handing control to local elites to try to stem unrest.

“These regions have become increasingly explosive. I think there is a crying need to have at least some people at some level to take decisions, not yes-men,” said Maria Lipman, an analyst at Moscow’s Carnegie Centre think-tank.

Ravil Gaynutdin, the head Mufti of Russia, told Medvedev: “We Muslims in Russia want dialogue with the Russian Orthodox Church and we thank you for helping the Muslim brotherhood by visiting Dagestan and Ingushetia”.

The Kremlin has tried to co-opt Russia’s religious leaders into a shared vision of how the country should develop and in return expects loyalty to officialdom. Russia’s Supreme Mufti Talgat Tadzhutdin told Medvedev: “There is only one nation — Russian.”

(Photo: Qol Sharif mosque in Kazan, Tatarstan, 25 August 2005/Alexander Natruskin)

In Soviet times, religion was discouraged by the state though many, including Russia’s Muslim community, practiced underground.

In recent years the number of racist attacks on dark-skinned immigrants, most of them Muslims, has increased and rights groups say this is linked to the social turmoil that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Medvedev also visited the surroundings of the Congregational Mosque, where an enormous new Muslim temple is being built with private money, to be finished in 2010.

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Reuters publishes many more reports on religion, faith and ethics than we can mention on the FaithWorld blog. We sometimes highlight a story here, but often leave an issue unmentioned because it was already covered on the wire, or we have neither the time nor any extra information for a blog post. Here’s a sample of some of the stories we’ve published over the past week:

Philippines says open to amending Muslim autonomy law 13 Mar 2009

China says willing to meet Dalai Lama’s envoys 13 Mar 2009

Jews ask pope for Holocaust studies in schools 12 Mar 2009

Turkey denies firing editor over Darwin article 12 Mar 2009

Pope says pained over “hate, hostility” against him 12 Mar 12 2009

China says it must approve Dalai Lama reincarnation 12 Mar 2009

U.S. says some states curb free speech in name of religion 12 Mar 2009

Australia says may quit UN racism conference 12 Mar 2009

Pope admits Holocaust denier affair was mishandled 12 Mar 2009

Pope to visit Rome synagogue in autumn 12 Mar 2009

Malaysia Christians battle with Muslims over Allah 11 Mar 2009

“Big Love” network apologizes to Mormons 11 Mar 2009

Catholics protest Connecticut church finance bill 11 Mar 2009

Russia church offers to help Kremlin weather crisis 11 Mar 2009

Pope admits Holocaust denier affair was mishandled 11 Mar 2009

Cardinal says bad bankers must ask God’s pardon 11 Mar 2009

US fertility patients want final say on embryos 11 Mar 2009

Dalai Lama slams China over Tibet “suffering” 10 Mar 2009

Cameroon demolishes street stalls for Pope’s visit 10 Mar 2009

Stem cell go-ahead puts Obama at odds with pope 10 Mar 2009

Somali cabinet votes to implement sharia law 10 Mar 2009

FACTBOX: Embryonic stem cells, the ultimate master cell 10 Mar 2009

Stem cell advocates finally get their Obama moment 09 Mar 2009

French filmmaker slammed for likening illegals to WWII Jews 09 Mar 2009

Vatican paper: Washing machine liberated women most 09 Mar 2009

Chechnya wants newborns to be named after Mohammad 09 Mar 2009

Obama to let health institute decide on stem cells 08 Mar 2009

US stem cell announcement only a first step 08 Mar 2009

Pope to visit Holocaust memorial during Israel trip 08 Mar 2009

Turkish Mosque Holds First Official Kurdish Sermon 08 Mar 2009

(Photo credits from top: Romeo Ranoco, Philippe Wojazer, Alessia Pierdomenico, Larry Downing, stringer)

The Russian Orthodox Church elected Metropolitan Kirill, 62, as its new leader on Tuesday, succeeding Alexiy II who died last month. The new leader of the 165 million-strong Church, the largest in the Orthodox world,  is seen as a moderniser who may thaw long icy ties with the Roman Catholic Church.

There was speculation before the vote that nationalists, anti-westerners and anti-Catholic forces among the clergy and monks might rally to block Kirill’s election. He seemed to take the possibility seriously enough to strike a conservative tone in recent days. In his address before the vote, Kirill spoke of “the assault of aggressive Western secularism against Christianity” and of “attempts by some Protestant groups to revise the teachings of Christianity and evangelical morality”. He also hit out at Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries, saying they sought converts in post-Soviet Russia — a key point of discord with the Vatican.

(Photo: Metropolitan Kirill before the vote, 27 Jan 2009/Alexander Natruskin)

But the vote showed his support was strong. Kirill received 508 votes from a total of 677 valid ballots cast. His rival, conservative nationalist Metropolitan Kliment, 59, polled just 169 votes and a third candidate, Metropolitan Filaret of Belarus, withdrew in favour of Kirill.

Kirill, whose official title is Metropolitan (senior archbishop) of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, is one of the few  senior Russian clerics to have met Pope Benedict. He favours closer ties with the Vatican and observers say he would chart a more independent course for the Russian church.

Hopes of a thaw have been fuelled by Kirill’s meetings with Pope Benedict at the Vatican in 2006 and 2007 and his optimistic comments about better relations with Rome. He even spoke about a thaw in an interview with the pope’s own paper, L’Osservatore Romano.

(Photo: Pope Benedict and Metropolitan Kirill at the Vatican, 7 Dec 2007/L’Osservatore Romano)

But Kirill has also echoed Alexei’s criticisms of Catholics on occasions. On Monday, as delegates gathered for the election, Kirill said in a newspaper interview that there was some way to go before a meeting between the heads of the two churches would be possible. “A meeting between the patriarch and the pope will become possible only when there are conclusive signs of real and positive progress on issues which for a long time have been problematic for our relations,” he said.

Here’s our video of the voting session in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral, with a long clip of Kirill addressing the Local Council (in Russian):

(Photo: Russian Orthodox prelates vote for candidates for patriarch, 26 Jan 2009/pool)

There was a slightly Soviet air to the proceedings as bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church voted on Sunday for three candidates to be considered as their new patriarch. Meeting in the gold-domed Christ the Saviour cathedral overlooking the Moskva River, just a few hundred metres from the Kremlin, about 200 metropolitans and bishops had delegates badges dangling from their necks along with their usual pectoral crosses. A Soviet-style “presidium” of 16 top prelates presided over the session in the Hall of Church Councils. The proceedings started with voting for an election committee, a drafting committee and a credentials committee. Journalists covering the session couldn’t help but think of the old communist party conferences.

Seated in the middle of this “presidium,” Metropolitan Kirill — the acting patriarch and frontrunner for the top post — added to the atmosphere by chairing the meeting with a distinctively firm hand. But there were differences, of course. Voting for the three candidates was secret. And when it came time to announce the results of the vote, there was no official stamp to validate the protocol.

(Photo: Metropolitan Kirill addresses the Council of Bishops, 25 Jan 2009/Alexander Natruskin)

For readers outside of Russia, the only other major church election they might have seen in the news was the 2005 Roman Catholic conclave that picked Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to become Pope Benedict XVI. That vote took place behind locked doors in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, beneath Michelangelo’s famous ceiling and his huge fresco of the Last Judgment behind the altar. Here the “presidium” sat in front of polished stone images of the 12 Apostles in a kind of modern icon style. Journalists were allowed in for the opening of the session,  had to leave during the pre-vote debates but could return for the actual voting and result.

When the official stamp was finally found, the announcement ceremony got underway. “Your Holiness, Metropolitan Kirill, please bless me to announce the protocol of the secret ballot vote to elect candidates for the See of the Patriarch of Moscow,” Metropolitan Isidor of Yekaterinodar and Kuban, head of the election committee, finally said from a Soviet-style rostrum. After he read out the results giving Kirill a strong lead of 97 out of 197 votes, the delegates gave the acting patriarch a long ovation.

Kirill reminded the hierarchs not to forget to bring a special liturgical mantle on Tuesday when a solemn service will be held before the start of the Local Council to elect the new patriarch. “Those without these mantles will not be allowed to take part in the service,” Kirill stressed.

(Photo: Christ the Saviour Cathedral, 26 Jan 2009/Alexander Natruskin)

The Local Council is made up of about 700 bishops, monks and laymen. Russian newspapers say the lay delegates will include members of the ruling United Russia party, one possible conduit for the influence the Kremlin is assumed to want to exercise in this election. Delegates to the Local Council can also nominate their own candidates for the final round.

The Local Council will meet in the main hall of the cathedral. Unlike the Catholic conclave, where the doors are shut during the whole process, journalists here will again be allowed in for the start and end of the session. The result is due Tuesday or Wednesday.

One more thing — there won’t be any white smoke either, another trademark of a papal election. The Russian Orthodox Church will do it the Russian way, even if it sometimes seems to have a few Soviet touches.

(Photo: Candidates for Russian Orthodox patriarch selected by the Council of Bishops. Pictured are (L-R): Metropolitan Kliment, Metropolitan Kirill and Metropolitan Filaret, 25 Jan 2009/Alexander Natruskin)

Frontrunner Metropolitan Kirill made a strong showing in the first round of the Russian Orthodox voting for a new patriarch on Sunday. He won 97 of the 197 votes cast in the Council of Bishops, which picked three candidates for the final voting by the Local Council of about 700 priests, monks and laymen this week. His main rival, Metropolitan Kliment, picked up 32 votes while the third candidate, Metropolitan Filaret, got 16 votes.

See a full report here from our Moscow bureau.

(Photo: Metropolitan Kirill, 19 Oct 2008/Ramon Espinosa)

The next round of voting, to be held in a Local Council session lasting from Tuesday to Thursday, requires a  majority of 99 votes. That puts Kirill just two votes behind the magic number. If one of the three candidates does not get an outright majority, the third man drops out and the two others go into a run-off. Church watchers say the Local Council will have many delegates who are more nationalist, anti-western and anti-ecumenical minded than Kirill and might vote for anyone but him. Watch this space…