Earlier this year, the Journal talked with , the director of Keston Institute in Oxford, England. The Institute monitors freedom of religion in Communist and post-Communist countries. It has tracked and published articles about legal efforts to get Christian Science officially recognized as a religion in Russia.The Christian Science Society in St. Petersburg was given legal registration by the St. Petersburg Department of the Ministry of justice on Aug. 30, 1999.
Could you tell a little about Keston Institute's role in Russia?
Thirty years ago Michael Bordeaux, a priest of the Church of England, founded Keston to be the voice of persecuted Christians in the then Soviet Union. We received information smuggled abroad by underground Christian groups, published it, distributed a news service, which had quite an influence on the secular news media, and provided informal briefings to government officials and church leaders. Very quickly, we established ourselves as the leading authoritative source of information and analysis in the Western world on religious freedom in the Soviet Union.
