Negotiating the Limits of Religious Pluralism in Post-Soviet Russia: The Anticult Movement in the Russian Orthodox Church, 1990–2004 EMILY B. BARAN I n a cramped courtroom on the outskirts of Moscow, defense attorney A. E. Leont'ev continued his cross-examination of retired military officer A. A. Losev: LEONT'EV: You believe [the party in question] represents a greater threat than Afghanistan, Chechnya, or natural disasters, correct? LOSEV: Yes. LEONT'EV: Do you believe that if it had not been for the democratic reforms, they would not have developed? LOSEV: Yes. But democracy is relative. Democracy is democracy, but there must be order in the country. 1 The party in question was the Jehovah’s Witnesses, whose registration as a religious organization in Russia’s capital stood in limbo. It was February 1999, and the trial, already going on for months, would last another two years. On one side of the courtroom sat the state prosecutor, acting at the behest of a complaint from an “anticult” organization backed by the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). On the other side, representing the Jehovah’s Witnesses, personal and state-appointed attorneys defended their right to register I would like to thank the editors of Russian Review, the anonymous referees, and especially Donald J. Raleigh for providing invaluable feedback and suggestions on previous drafts of this essay. I also wish to express my gratitude to the joint Duke-UNC Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies, and in particular Edna Andrews, for providing two years of FLAS Fellowship support that facilitated this research. 1 Proceedings of the civil trial of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Golovinskii Intermunicipal Court (Moscow), February 25, 1999, taken from partial transcriptions of audio recordings by the Jehovah’s Witnesses and available at The Authorized Site of the Office of Public Information of Jehovah’s Witnesses, http://www.jw-media.org/region/ europe/russia/ index.htm (accessed March 21, 2005). The trial lasted from September 20, 1998, through February 27, 2002. All subsequent citations are listed as “Moscow Trial.” The Russian Review 65 (October 2006): 637–56 Copyright 2006 The Russian Review