Expanding Religious Borders? the New Influence of Some Old State Churches

During the period of the Cold War we were confonted with the fact that some state churches, particularly the Russian Orthodox Church, collaborated with „their“ government to overcome the Western rival. For instance, the Patriarch of Moscow tried to influence the World Council of Churches in Geneva, co-operating with the Soviet secret service KGB to this purpose. Since the beginnung of this century we observe anew how some old churches become stronger. Supported by the Russian government the Russian Orthodox Churches are fighting successfully against the „new“ religions, stemming from the West – like Baptists, Methodists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and so-called „Psycho-Religions“. But also the Western churches, restricted themselves by the law, are trying to force back the newcomers and recover „their“ traditional territory. Because of the validity of the universal human rights, you can’t shake in Western democracies, the old churches are tempted to show solidarity with the Eastern churches to fight against „the common enemy“. Jointly they are founding associations like the Fédération européenne des centres de recherche et d’information sur le sectarisme (FECRIS) to blacken the newcomer’s reputation and thus they do hurt religious freedom, a fundamental human right, to recover their exclusive and highly privileged position in their societies. In changing borders by violence the Yugoslavien wars in the mid-nineties even had religious aspects. Not only in Europe but also in the Islamic world we are faced with the phenomenon of expanding borders for allegedly religious reasons.