Salvation Army can continue to serve in Russia

MOSCOW — The Moscow branch of the Salvation Army has won a landmark court decision allowing it to continue serving thousands of poor in the Russian capital, a Salvation Army lawyer said March 11. The decision also benefits up to 3,000 other religious groups threatened with closure, said the lawyer, Anatoly Pchelintsev.

The three-year legal battle pitted the Salvation Army, which feeds thousands of Moscow’s homeless and elderly every month, against city officials who had denied the Protestant organization legal registration on procedural grounds.

Two municipal courts, one of them terming the Salvation Army a paramilitary group that threatened Russia’s national security, had ruled against the evangelical religious group and ordered it liquidated. For minority faiths, the Salvation Army’s struggle was a frightening example of how a controversial 1997 religion law backed by the dominant Russian Orthodox Church could be used to restrict religious freedom.

In the Constitutional Court decision, judges ruled that local officials cannot close religious groups just because they failed to register under the 1997 law. Pchelintsev said the decision benefits up to 3,000 religious organizations, including Muslim, Protestant, Russian Orthodox and Old Believer groups. The Salvation Army’s commanding officer in Russia, Col. Kenneth Baillie, said the group’s next step is to apply once again for registration and tie up loose legal ends.