http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3247
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=863
By Nick Mackenzie
Visa rules introduced in October 2007 allow foreigners with a business or http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2639 visa – which includes religious work – to spend only 90 out of any 180 days in Russia.
While not targeted at religious communities, they are having a harsh impact on many that depend upon foreigners, the Forum 18 News Service is reporting.
“Our priests are really, really suffering from this,” one Russian Catholic told Forum 18 News Service. Many of the over 90 per cent of Catholic priests who are foreign citizens are now forced to spend long periods abroad or even commute into http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3204 for Sunday Mass.
One foreign Protestant told Forum 18 that he and others are in three-month “exile” in Georgia as they have used up their time in Russia. Religious communities now need to get work permits for their foreign workers, but complain that these are subject to general regional quotas for all foreigners. “These criteria aren’t acceptable for religious work,” religious rights lawyer Vladimir Ryakhovsky told Forum 18.
http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=1922