Revenues of the Russian Orthodox Church

Main article: Russian Orthodox Church (ROC)

Key assets

• KHPP "Sofrino"
• Danilovskaya Hotel
• management of the Church of Christ the Savior, owned by the Government of Moscow

Tax breaks

As of August 2018, the Russian Orthodox Church, like any religious organization officially registered in Russia, has benefits, but all of them are key. It is completely exempt from payment:

• Value added tax (VAT),
• income tax (part 3 of article 149 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation),
• property tax (part 27 of article 251 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation),
• land tax (article 395 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation),
• as well as state duties (article 333.35 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation)^[1].

That is, in fact, the Russian Orthodox Church does not pay anything to the budget at all.

The Tax Code of the Russian Federation clearly stipulates: exemption comes only from religious activities, and all commercial, even carried out by the Russian Orthodox Church, is subject to mandatory taxation. Therefore, according to reports, the church does not conduct commercial activities at all. According to a senior Russian official, in fact, they simply do not want to contact the church.

The new norms of 2021 imply the transfer of state property to religious organizations. In fact, the Russian Orthodox Church will be able to control a significant share of the hotel business, catering, and so on. The Moscow Patriarchate is actually not limited to the new norms of the law in choosing how to use real estate.

Several more amendments have been adopted. In particular, the amendment to Art. 395 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation exempts religious organizations from paying land tax on plots for the construction of temples and other structures for religious or charitable purposes. Previously, only already built-up plots were not taxed, now any wasteland can be withdrawn from payment.

In addition, religious organizations are excluded from the law, which provides for the right of the Ministry of Justice to request information from banks about transactions and accounts of non-profit organizations.

Chronicle of economic activity

2021: Plan to exclude from observation legal entities of the Russian Orthodox Church working with precious metals

Five companies of the Russian Orthodox Church will be exempted from compliance with "anti-money laundering" legislation. This is stated in the recall of Rosfinmonitoring in March 2021 to a government bill submitted to the State Duma.

The document proposes to exclude from the supervision of legal entities that work in the precious metals market and whose only participant is a religious organization. Now in Russia there are almost 2 thousand such companies, of which 776 are engaged in the production of religious products and only five use precious metals and stones.

"Thus, the withdrawal proposed by the bill from the anti-money laundering norms concerns exclusively a category of five legal entities," Rosfinmonitoring states in its conclusion. These are Riza   LLC, KHPP Sofrino ROC LLC, Sofiyskaya Naberezhnaya LLC, the Kostroma Diocesan Workshop of Katsey and the Yaroslavl-Kostroma Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church.

2019: Project Management, Fundraising and Crowdfunding Workshop

On June 4, 2019, a week-long seminar for project managers and fundraisers working in the dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church began at the All-Church Postgraduate and Doctoral Studies named after Saints Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius. Representatives of more than 15 dioceses arrived to participate in the seminar.

Among the topics of the seminar are project management and fundraising in the construction of churches, journalistic (with the participation of social networks) project support, church-state partnership in the development of the urban environment, social design in the Church, crowdfunding. Read more here.

2018

Paraphernalia purchases in China

In 2018, Lenta.ru conducted an investigation into the economic activities of the Russian Orthodox Church. The materials mention the Orthodox production in the village of Sofrino - it is there that candles, icons, crosses are made... And the vast majority of Russians believe that everything sold in churches is done in Russia, in monasteries and in industries... Alas, this is a misconception. As in almost all other segments of the world market, the People's Republic of China is in the lead in the production and sale of church utensils. Zhejiang province has the city of Yiu, and it has a huge wholesale center selling religious goods, and more than half of them are Orthodox. The wholesale batch starts with a conditional 100 icons or 1000 crosses, but this volume does not bother buyers in black cassocks, especially since customs and border guards quickly and happily respond to a request to customs out of turn. They don't need to pull - you won't take the duty.

Catholic priests from various countries are overstocking in the same market. And from Russia too. According to experts, 100 percent of rosary, 80 percent of Catholic icons and most of the candles - and among Catholics they are special, in special plastic cups - are made in the Celestial Empire.

Assessment of temple revenues: more than 92 billion rubles

Almost every visitor to the temple, not necessarily a believer, leaves at least a hundred rubles in the church. The believer is more. These are candles, notes for health and for rest, buying icons... It also costs money to be baptized and married, and you need to buy books with prayers.

"A small temple in the city has a monthly revenue of about a million," Father Nikolai, a former minister of the Russian Orthodox Church, told the Lenta.ru correspondent. - We give 25 percent to the diocese, another 30 percent - our daily expenses. The rest is for the temple... True, now they say that the diocese began to demand more - up to half. More precisely, the plan was lowered for each parish, and if it is not fulfilled, you will fly out. And if you do, then no one will see what the father of the car changes every year.

Churches in villages, of course, earn less - it's good if 200 thousand a month. There are fewer parishioners here, and they themselves, to put it mildly, are not rich. Small revolutions and prayer rooms in transport - 300-400 thousand per month. But temples in and near cottage villages... The priests themselves say that here the average revenue is tens of millions. The statement of Patriarch Kirill at one of the church cathedrals is well known. Criticizing the princes of the Russian Orthodox Church, he said that many peripheral parishes contributed only 200-300 thousand rubles to the general church treasury - that is, as much as the poorest churches in the capital. And in fact, he accused his subordinates of redneck. In the same speech, numbers were heard: up to 22% of the temple's income goes to the general treasury. This allows us to draw some conclusions about the common wallet of the Russian Orthodox Church.

In addition, each temple has its own sponsor - a private enterprise that helps with money. As a rule, this is based on the personal contacts of the abbot. The head of this enterprise often becomes the head of the temple or the chairman of the community council.

At the same time, according to the registers of legal entities, the Russian Orthodox Church is registered as an enterprise with less than 100 employees, the general director of which is Kirill Gundyaev.

Knowing the number of parishes (36 thousand), imagining the amount of money passing through them and having operational data on the work of the workers and on the gray export to which the Russian Orthodox Church is involved, it is easy to approximate its budget. Its revenue is almost equal to the expenditure part and amounts to about 92 billion rubles in 2017 prices. This does not take into account the indirect subventions of the state and the income that the Russian Orthodox Church receives from the securities it owns, since this part is even presumably impossible to calculate. In addition, the facts of the ROC's investment in the construction of elite real estate and business centers, as well as in the import of cars, are known.

2016

Temple revenues from 5 thousand to 3 million rubles per month. In the diocese go from 10% to 50%

In 2016, sponsorship donations became less, and deductions from dioceses can be a third or about half of the general church budget, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, who until December 2015 headed the department for relations between church and society, explained to RBC.

In 2016, the monthly income of Russian churches is very different - from 5 thousand to 3 million rubles, Archpriest Chaplin told RBC in 2016.

The RBC correspondent spoke with the priests of almost 30 churches, from their stories the scheme of financial relations between "grassroots" parishes and dioceses looks like this: after the service, the rectors open donation boxes, the collected money is kept by the treasurer. Parish rectors submit reports to the diocese (a copy of such a document dated 2013, submitted to the Moscow diocese, is at the disposal of RBC). The paper indicates the number of completed requirements and services, as well as the amount of the contribution sent by the parish to the diocese - in the report studied by RBC, this is 20%.

The percentage of deductions, according to the abbots, ranges from 10 to 50%. For example, the parish of the Trinity Church in Khokhlakh in 2014 transferred 230 thousand rubles. - with an "income" of about 2 million rubles.

The money explained by the priests to RBC is transferred to the diocese in two ways - in cash (a receipt order is given for each amount) or by bank transfers.

Every year the amount of deductions is growing, priests of regional churches complained to the RBC correspondent.

"Under Patriarch Alexy II, I transferred 10% to the diocese, now - 27%. This is due to the fact that after the arrival of Patriarch Kirill, the number of dioceses was tripled and the load on parishes increased greatly, "the rector of the Moscow Region church complains anonymously.

In churches on the periphery, where four go to the procession - "father, mother, headman and their dog" - even an insignificant contribution by capital standards seems unbearable.

"We have a parish of five people, we barely gain 3 thousand rubles a month. One and a half thousand rubles - to the diocese, "says the rector of the parish in the Ivanovo region.

If the priest is unable to pay the fee, the dioceses can say: "Everyone understands. We regret it. We can take another priest in your place. Nobody agrees to such a proposal, "says Dmitry Sverdlov, formerly rector of the Peter and Paul Church in the Domodedovo district of the Moscow region.

In 2011, Sverdlov was an observer in the elections to the State Duma, a year later he spoke out in support of Pussy Riot, in 2013 the priest was "banned from serving."

"Every diocesan assembly here begins with the fact that the parishes are announced: do not collect the required amount, the abbot will be changed. No one cares if the priest fulfills pastoral duties - it is much more important whether he can raise money, - says a cleric of one of the churches in southern Russia. "A year we collect up to 8 million rubles. donations, we pay 30% to the diocese, but each visit of the bishop is accompanied by an additional collection of money in an envelope."

15% of those collected by the dioceses are transferred to the patriarchate, five interlocutors of RBC in the Russian Orthodox Church said. It is impossible to calculate the exact amount of funds transferred, but large dioceses, and there are about thirty of them, annually allocate patriarchates from 10 to 20 million rubles. each, notes Chapnin.

The financial and economic department of the patriarchate, headed by Metropolitan Mark of Ryazan and Mikhailovsky, did not answer RBC's questions.

And in the federal budget "there are closed articles," the case "of the church itself, like them (their budget. - RBC) to dispose of, "- these phrases answered questions for the material, the press secretary of the patriarch, priest Alexander Volkov.

Selling candles: cost of 25 kopecks, price - 20 rubles

The main part of the money falls into the parish treasury thanks to the candles necessary for all rites, explains Protodeacon Andrei Kuraev. The Russian Orthodox Church has dozens of candle casting workshops "scattered" throughout the country, both from new material and from cuttings collected during the service. The cost of a candle in production and in a church differs tenfold: "to make a four-gram candle" honeycomb, "one of the most popular, costs 25 kopecks. The church will give up to 20 rubles for it, "the manufacturer and supplier of church^[2] confides with RBC^[2].

Dioceses assets: factories, computer centers, construction companies

As RBC reported in 2016, earlier the Yekaterinburg diocese owned a large granite quarry "Granite" and a security company "Derzhava," the Vologda diocese had a plant of reinforced concrete products and structures.

The Kemerovo diocese at that time is the 100% owner of Kuzbass Investment and Construction Company LLC, co-owner of the Novokuznetsk Computer Center and the Europe Media Kuzbass agency^[2].

OJSC "Ritual Orthodox Service"

According to the SPARK database, the patriarchate was a co-owner of Orthodox Ritual Service CJSC. For 2016, the company was closed, but at that time there is a subsidiary established by it - Ritual Orthodox Service OJSC (revenue for 2014 - 58.4 million rubles^[2].

2015: Donations are less (4.03 billion rubles), and revenues increased by 27% to 1.79 billion rubles

On June 7, 2016, it became known about an increase in the income of the Russian Orthodox Church from ritual and ceremonial activities by 27%, and the volume of donations slightly decreased the^[3]

The income of religious organizations from "rites and ceremonies," "sales of religious literature and religious supplies" increased by 27% in 2015 and reached 1.79 billion rubles, the media reported, citing statistics from the Federal Tax Service.

The amount of donations from citizens and organizations "for the conduct of statutory activities" slightly decreased - by 3%, to 4.03 billion rubles.

In 2014, Russians donated more. Donations amounted to almost 4.2 billion rubles, but revenues from the sale of candles and icons, rituals reached 1.4 billion rubles.

The overwhelming share of these incomes is correlated only with the Russian Orthodox Church, since in Islam it is not customary to conduct religious rites similar to those held in Russian churches. Therefore, donations from parishioners of other faiths do not fall into official statistics.

In the statistics of the Federal Tax Service for 2015, data appeared on the transfer to churches from subsidiaries, but they look somewhat underestimated: if in 2014 the "daughters" transferred 25 million rubles, then in 2015 the amount increased by more than 50%, to almost 40 million rubles. The main donors of the Russian Orthodox Church are the Sofrino Art and Production Enterprise, the Danilovskaya Hotel on the territory of St. Danilov Monastery, and the publishing house of the Moscow Patriarchate.

The Russian Orthodox Church does not officially comment on the statistics. The press service of the patriarch responded earlier to the media that he did not have data on the financial activities of the Russian Orthodox Church. Data from the Spark database, almost every parish of the Russian Orthodox Church is a separate legal entity, and the consolidated statements of the Russian Orthodox Church are not published in open sources.

Nevertheless, the Russian Orthodox Church is far from Catholic priests. The German Catholic Church owned Weltbild, which published such "erotic" books as "Take Me Here and Now" or "Dirty Stories," the company's annual turnover was 1.7 billion euros. In 2009 The GCC tried to sell the scandalous publishing house, but there was no buyer, and representatives of the church tested a long-known method: they went on the offensive, accusing the media of purposefully harassing the clergy. Nevertheless, the Pope was not convinced of the argument, and he criticized the German churchmen.

The Western church also has quite "decent" ways of income, such as investing in real estate or government bonds.

2014: Non-taxable income 5.6 billion rubles

At the end of each year, religious organizations draw up a declaration: according to data provided to RBC by the Federal Tax Service, in 2014, non-taxable church income amounted to 5.6 billion rubles^[4].

2012: Annual revenue of $100-150 million. Scheme of legal entities

In July 2012, RBC magazine published its own investigation to find out what the Russian Orthodox Church owns and what its business interests apply to. The list included a luxurious hotel, banks, buildings, supplies of BMW cars, as well as large and small factories.

According to the publication, the annual income of the Russian Orthodox Church from donations and from other sources is 100-150 million dollars in cash. Churchmen invest some of this money in business projects.

During this time, clerics invest in traditional industries such as construction, restaurant and hospitality, wholesale and retail, agriculture and food production, and the banking sector. According to the most modest estimates, all commercial enterprises controlled by the Russian Orthodox Church bring up to 600 million rubles. per year, and the value of assets is approaching 2.3 billion rubles^[5].

2003-2010: 25% share in BMW Rusland car dealer

In the period from 2003 to 2010. controlled by the Russian Orthodox Church, JSC Vital owned a quarter of BMW Rusland, but in 2010 the company was liquidated, and BMW Rusland Trading LLC was registered in its place.

2000:55% of revenues - commercial enterprises

In 2000, Archbishop Clement in an interview with Kommersant-Money magazine^[4] the first and last time will say what makes up the church economy:

• 5% of the budget of the patriarchate - deductions of dioceses,
• 40% - sponsorship donations,
• 55% falls on the earnings of commercial enterprises of the Russian Orthodox Church.

1997: Deposits, government bonds and commercial enterprises

At the Bishops' Council in 1997, Patriarch Alexy II reported that the Russian Orthodox Church received the bulk of the money from "managing its temporarily free funds, placing them in deposit accounts, acquiring government short-term bonds" and other securities and from the income of commercial enterprises^[4].

1990s: Cigarette imports and vodka trade

In the 1990s, the structures of the Russian Orthodox Church conducted duty-free import of cigarettes and trade in vodka.

1903

Beginning of the 20th century

Notes