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Bitter Winter

A magazine on religious liberty and human rights

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Home / From the World / News Global

Russia: Pastor Moskvitin Sentenced to 1.5 Years in Penal Colony for “Brainwashing”

03/20/2023Massimo Introvigne |

New Creation’s leader in Omsk was told that Article 239.1 of the Russian Criminal Code makes “psychological abuse” a crime.

by Massimo Introvigne 

Pastor Moskvitin is sentenced. Screenshot. 
Pastor Moskvitin is sentenced. Screenshot. 

On March 12, 2023, the Kirovsky District Court of Omsk, Russia, sentenced Pastor Stanislav Moskvitin to one and a half years to be spent in a penal colony. Moskvitin had been arrested on July 18, 2021. He is the pastor of the Apostolic Center Church “New Creation,” which is part of the Russian Council of Christian Evangelical Churches. 

As we reported in Bitter Winter when the trial started in September 22, New Creation was founded in 2014 and registered in 2016. It is part of a network of Russian-speaking conservative Evangelical churches established in Russia, the Baltic States, and the United States. They supported in the past Putin and Patriarch Kirill’s criticism of Western LGBT activism. However, they were denounced as “cults” by the Russian Orthodox Church because they proselytize and convert Orthodox believers to their Protestant faith.

The verdict is interesting because it is based on Article 239, no.1, of the Russian Criminal Code, which punishes the “creation of a religious or public association, whose activities are associated with violence against citizens or other harm to their health, as well as the leadership of such an association.”

The Omsk judges interpreted Article 239.1 to the effect that “other harm to their health” includes “brainwashing.” They relied on reports by FSB agents who attended incognito Moskvitin’s Sunday services and concluded that “during the divine services, Moskvitin used mind control techniques, including hypnosis, which influenced the psyche of adherents, among whom were children, and ‘zombified’ the parishioners.”

Moskvitin was also accused of receiving donations illegally, but the trial confirmed his lifestyle was modest. Gifts were considered, however, further evidence that church members had been brainwashed and “zombified.”

There is thus a clear statement by a Russian court that “brainwashing” is used by religious minorities, including Evangelical churches, and is a crime in Russia.

Moskvitin has appealed, but clearly the current political climate does not favor religious minorities in Russia. 

Tagged With: Brainwashing, Russia

Massimo Introvigne
Massimo Introvigne

Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religio.  From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.

www.cesnur.org/

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