Protesters oppose plan for Christian University campus in Moscow neighborhood

By: Associated Press | Tuesday, May 17, 2005 9:43 PM PDT ∞

MOSCOW -- Dozens of people, including Russian Orthodox activists, protested Tuesday against a planned campus of a private Russian-American Christian-oriented college in a Moscow neighborhood, the Interfax news agency reported.

About 100 people, some local residents and some members of the Orthodox Citizens Union, picketed a district assembly building, Interfax reported.

The protest reflected anger among some members of the country's dominant Russian Orthodox Church over what they see as the encroachment of foreign faiths and branches of Christianity.

"This Baptist educational institution is completely out of place in an area where the majority of the population is Orthodox," Interfax quoted Orthodox Citizens Union spokesman Kirill Fedotov as saying.

The Russian-American Christian University is not affiliated with any church, and its faculty and students include Protestants, Catholics and Russian Orthodox, its founder and president John Bernbaum said from its U.S. office in Wheaton, Md.

One of the goals of the university is to "engage Russian university students in vigorous liberal arts education that would promote lifelong Christian service to church and society," its Web site says.

The university has operated in Russia for eight years and received full accreditation for five years from the Russian Education Ministry in 2003, according to the site.

It has received permission from Moscow authorities to build the new campus but is waiting for two more documents needed before it can start construction, Bernbaum said. He said the university hopes to break ground this summer.

The protesters demanded that the project be stopped and that more Russian Orthodox churches be built in the neighborhood in northern Moscow, Interfax reported. It quoted Fedotov as saying there are not enough Russian Orthodox churches in residential areas.

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