Stavropol Scientist Complained Against Old Testament to Prosecutor’s Office
Stavropol, Russia
October 2, 2009
Interfax
Ph.D. Anatoly Dolzhenko from Stavropol demanded that the Old Testament should be considered extremist literature, its distribution should be banned in Russia and those who distribute it should be brought to trial.
He turned with a corresponding 11-sheet statement to the Prosecutor’s Office of the Lenin District, Stavropol issue of Komsomolskaya Pravda daily has reported on Friday.
Evgeny Trufanov, an arbitrator and methodologist on struggle against organized crime and corruption, backs up Dolzhenko.
“We want the Old Testament be officially recognized as literature of extremist content that kindles interethnic hostility and to this end we cite quotations from the Bible in our statement,” Trufanov said.
In the event of refusal, the applicants are going to address the European Court of Human Rights.
The statement cites some quotations that outraged both the scientist and the judge. For instance, “do not give your daughters in marriage to their sons or take their daughters for your sons. Do not seek a treaty of friendship with them at any time.”
Commenting on the unusual initiative of Stavropol residents, press secretary of the local diocese Evgeny Bronsky reminded, “the world of the Old Testament is the world where people rejected God, rejected sense of values, of sin, the world where pagans sacrificed their babies to soulless idols, where mass murder of captives was usual practice.”
“It was possible to restrict this evil and not to let humanity vanish only by force. It was the Lord’s hard way in the world of evil, in the world deprived of grace, it was the way of sufferings. However, this way led the whole humanity to the good news of Christ, to the New Testament,” the Diocese official said.