Meeting of the Interreligious Council of Russia

MEETING OF THE INTERRELIGIOUS COUNCIL OF RUSSIA

A regular meeting of the Interreligious Council of Russia (IRCR) was held at the ‘Universitetskaya’ hotel on 25 December 2001. Taking part in the meeting were Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, Chairman of the DECR MP; Mufti Magomed Albogaichev, Chairman of the Coordinating Centre of Muslims of the Northern Caucasus; Chief Rabbi Berl Lazar of Russia (FEOR); Chief Rabbi Adolf Shayevich of Russia (KEROOR); Mufti Mahmud Velitov, Chairman of the Regional Spiritual Board of Muslims of Moscow and Moscow region within the Central Spiritual Board of Muslims and Sanjei Lama, spiritual representative of the Buddhist traditional Sangha in Moscow.

The Coordinating Centre of Muslims of the Northern Caucasus and the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia were accepted in IRCR membership. All matters were discussed with the new IRCR composition taken into account. Amendments were introduced to the Regulation on the IRCR and the question was discussed of the IRCR participation in the preparation of the scholarly and practical conference on ‘The State and Religious Associations. Conceptual Bases of Relationship on the Pattern of the Subjects of the Russian Federation Central Federal Okrug’.

Members of the IRCR Presidium expressed their serious concern for a section in the second part of the Russian Federation Tax Code, which stipulates for taxing the returns of religious activities and the sale of religious objects. Its coming into force can jeopardize the very existence of religious organizations. It was decided to address President V.Putin of Russia with a request to suspend the bringing of the new rules of taxing religious organizatons into force until the IRCR Presidium holds consultations with representatives of respective ministries and departments.