New Visa Rules Pose Hardships for Foreign Rabbis Working in Russia

A new measure adopted by the Russian Foreign Ministry is making life more difficult for foreign representatives of religious organizations working here.

Last month, the ministry adopted a rule requiring these workers to obtain a new visa every three months — instead of being able to get the one-year, multiple- entry visas issued to other foreign nationals who want to work in Russia.

Under the new rule, foreigners working with religious groups are now forced to leave and obtain a new visa at a Russian Consulate in their home country four times a year before they can return to Russia.

The reason for the measure is not clear. One government official speculated that it might simply be a way of making more money for government coffers. Others suggested that the rule may just be an example of Russian bureaucracy – – indeed, a Foreign Ministry official could not even confirm that the regulation exists.

Foreign workers representing various religions — Jews, Baptists, evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics — said they have already experienced problems with the new law.

A clerk with Chabad-Lubavitch in Moscow, who handles visas for 35 American and Israeli rabbis working in congregations across Russia, said she first encountered the rule last month.

The clerk, Elena Murlyukova, said in an interview that she eventually obtained a one-year visa for a Lubavitch rabbi that classified him as a cultural worker rather than as a religious worker.

One-year, multiple-entry visas continue to be granted to foreigners interested in living in Russia for business or cultural reasons.

Some experts on religion, as well as some Christian priests and missionaries, say the regulation stems from a 1997 Russian law on religion, which requires all faiths that cannot prove they have existed in Russia for at least 15 years to register with local authorities.

But Jewish religious leaders say the new visa regulation cannot be directly associated with that much-criticized law.

Judaism, Russian Orthodoxy, Islam and Buddhism were all granted full rights according to the 1997 law, though a few Jewish groups have faced difficulties from local authorities since it was passed.

The new rule is “not aimed against certain religions,” Rabbi Berel Lazar, chief emissary for Lubavitch in the former Soviet Union, said in a telephone interview from Italy. “All religions — even Russian Orthodoxy — are included” in the new measure.

But one Jewish official in Moscow insisted the rule could specifically harm Jews and Roman Catholics because a majority of the rabbis and Catholic priests working in Russia are foreign nationals.

The executive director of the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Communities of Russia gave the example of Moscow’s chief rabbi, Pinchas Goldschmidt, who is Swiss.

“He is based here and we need him all the time,” said Zinovy Kogan. “I’m not even talking about the money and paperwork we would need to send him, his wife and six children back and forth every three months. This will quadruple our costs in time and money.”

The Lubavitch movement’s Lazar said the new rule could be sidestepped by having non-religious organizations invite rabbis to Russia.