As Pope Leo XIV highlights the need for interreligious dialogue and diplomacy, religious liberty in Russia continues to decline, with the US International Religious Freedom Commission citing that nation’s intensified use of blasphemy laws to silence freedom of expression.
Meanwhile a Russian-born scholar told OSV News that even theological disagreement within the Russian Orthodox Church is silenced.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom recently issued an update on Russia’s “intensified enforcement” of its laws against what the commission called “perceived offensive expression toward religion, religious texts, and religious leaders.”
The commission said “while certain offensive statements and actions may warrant public rebuke, prosecuting perceived offensive expression toward religion violates the right to freedom of religion or belief and the right to freedom of opinion and expression under international human rights law.”
Dmitry Dubrovskiy, a researcher from the Institute for International Studies at Charles University in Prague, said that Russia’s blasphemy laws also work to instill fear and self-censoring around religion and free speech.
Yet Russian society as a whole is not especially religious, he added. Dubrovskiy left Russia in 2022 after being branded a “foreign agent.”
