Russian TV: The Public Chamber’s resolution on the draft bill on protection of believers’ feelings “does not reflect the community’s opinion,” a senior cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church has claimed.
The resolution ignores the necessity to introduce criminal responsibility for desecration of the “revered objects, signs and emblems of worldview,” as well as tightening of responsibility for insulting the believers’ feelings, reads the letter to the Public Chamber by Vsevolod Chaplin, the head of the Church and society relations department of the Moscow Patriarchy.
Chaplin called upon the members of the chamber not to vote for the current draft of the resolution and to create a special commission in order to thoroughly rework the document.
The reply from the Church official came after the Public Chamber criticized the bill for suggesting introducing criminal responsibility for “public insults to rites and ceremonies of the religious organizations preaching the religions that are inseparable part of the historical heritage of the peoples of the Russian Federation.