Can I visit my friends and talk to them about my faith, or is this an illegal activity prohibited by law?
How do I know if I am engaging in prohibited activity or am within my legal rights? Where is the boundary?
The answer to this important question can be found in the articles of the Law «On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations, particularly in paragraph 1, Article 24.2:
For the purposes of this federal law, missionary activity is recognized as the activity of a religious association, aimed at disseminating information about its beliefs among people who are not participants (members, followers) in that religious association, with the purpose of involving these people as participants (members, followers). It is carried out directly by religious associations or by citizens and/or legal entities authorized by them, publicly, with the help of the media, the internet or other lawful means.
As we read this law, we see that it defines several marks or characteristics of Missionary Activity. It is very important for us to understand these characteristics, as they differentiate «missionary activity from other religious activities.
We have identified four main characteristics of Missionary Activity:
Missionary Activity is carried out directly by the religious association and/or authorized persons and organizations. The spread of ones personal faith cannot be automatically attributed to the missionary work.
Missionary activity is aimed at those who are not yet a follower of a religious association; therefore, talking about faith among fellow believers is not missionary activity.
The purpose of missionary activity is recruiting people to join a religious association. If youre just talking about your faith without reference to a particular religious group, it is not missionary work.
Missionary activity is carried out in public. Talking about ones faith at home is not a public activity.
As noted in a letter written by the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, missionary activity is characterized by the totality of the above characteristics. The activity of a religious association, which does not contain all four characteristics, cannot be regarded as a missionary activity. Therefore, these activities are not subject to restrictions set by the Federal Law against missionary activity.
Personal testimony about ones faith is not marked by the above characteristics; therefore, it cannot be regarded as missionary activity.
It is important to understand that the modern version of the law does not consider the activities of individuals (Russian citizens and other persons legally residing in the territory of Russia) as missionary. Such cases are covered by Article 28 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation. There are certain restrictions on religious and missionary activity for foreigners. These will be discussed in a separate chapter.
What does this mean?
If friends come to your house to visit, or you are visiting someone, and youve decided to talk about your faith and convictions, you are fully within your rights to do so. This basic right is guaranteed by the Russian Constitution.
Based on the postulate that missionary activity is characterized by the totality of the characteristics contained in the legal definition, we can conclude that an individual citizen engaged in the distribution of opinions on the street, with a public audience including non believers, with the intention to recruit people into a religious organization, but acting on their own initiative, without authorization from a religious organization is not conducting missionary activity.
If you find yourself in a situation similar to the one above and are confronted with law enforcement officials whose definition of missionary activity does not agree with yours, what should you do? We will cover this in a later chapter entitled «What to do if you are accused of violating the laws of missionary activity.».
Chapter 3. Religious Activities of Individuals
As we saw in the previous chapter, the laws and regulations governing missionary activity do not apply to the activities of individuals acting on their own, without official connection or authorization to conduct missionary activity on behalf of religious organizations.
The right to preach and share ones beliefs is guaranteed under Articles 28 and 29 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation.
Article 28.
Everyone shall be guaranteed the freedom of conscience, the freedom of religion, including the right to profess individually or together with others any religion or to profess no religion at all, to freely choose, possess and disseminate religious and other views and act according to them.
Article 29.
1. Everyone shall be guaranteed the freedom of ideas and speech.
2. Propaganda or agitation instigating social, racial, national or religious hatred and strife shall not be allowed. Propaganda promoting social, racial, national, religious or linguistic supremacy shall be banned.
3. No person may be forced to express their views and convictions or to renounce them.
4. Everyone has the right to freely seek, receive, transmit, produce and disseminate information by any legal means. The list of information constituting a state secret is determined by federal law.
5. The freedom of mass communication shall be guaranteed. Censorship shall be banned.
It is within the rights of every individual believer, when speaking on their own behalf, to preach and share their beliefs; further, one can freely pray, and have conversations about ones faith in a public place. These activities are not prohibited by law.
Whether on the street, on premises (residential or industrial) sharing of beliefs by an individual believer does not meet the legal definition of missionary activity under paragraph 1 Article 24.1 of the Law «About Liberty of Conscience and about Religious Associations»:
For the purposes of this federal law, missionary activity is recognized as the activity of a religious association, aimed at disseminating information about its beliefs among people who are not participants (members, followers) in that religious association, with the purpose of involving these people as participants (members, followers). It is carried out directly by religious associations or by citizens and/or legal entities authorized by them, publicly, with the help of the media, the internet or other lawful means.
In the previous chapter we identified four necessary characteristics of Missionary Activity:
Missionary Activity is carried out directly by the religious association and/or authorized persons and organizations. The spread of their personal faith cannot be automatically attributed to the missionary work.
Missionary activity is aimed at those who are not yet a follower of a religious association; therefore, talking about faith among fellow believers is not missionary activity.