By Kester Kenn Klomegah
MOSCOW, Aug 27 2006 (IPS)

Thousands of fans are expected to greet pop superstar Madonna when she arrives in Moscow early next month, but the Russian Orthodox Church wants Moscow city hall to ban the concert, and is asking fans to boycott it.

In the course of ‘Live to Tell’, one of the songs on her current ‘Confessions’ tour, Madonna stands as though crucified on a mirrored cross. This has drawn widespread criticism from Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups in North America and Europe.

“The idea of holding such a cultural gathering (Sep. 11) is regrettable,” Russian Jewish Congress spokesman Michael Savin told IPS. “A show which insults religious feelings of believers should not be allowed.”

Savin said Madonna displays Judaic symbols carelessly. “From this provocative point of view, the Madonna show will hardly contribute to strengthening tolerance in our country,” he said.

Many young Orthodox believers have begun to distribute leaflets against the concert. “This show insults religious sentiment,” says a press release from the organisers of the campaign. “The most disgusting moment, in which the singer is spread across a crucifix wearing a crown of thorns to parody the Saviour, will certainly hurt Christians, it tramples upon holy symbols.”

Other groups are opposing Madonna’s concert. “We humbly ask Your Holiness to consider anathematising the organisers of, and participants in, the blasphemy and warning them about the terrible nature of the crime that is being planned,” an organisation called For the Spiritual Revival of the Fatherland said in a letter to Patriarch Alexy II.

A mere warning of a possible anathema “will make many of the participants in the blasphemy stop and think” and will be “a manifestation of mercy for those who are vacillating or have a poor understanding of the boundary between Christianity and anti-Christianity,” the group said.

The letter pointed out that the concert would be held on the day of the beheading of St. John the Precursor, who is “a preacher of purity and chastity” and on “a day of strict fasting and prayer.” It will also be the fifth anniversary of the Sep. 11 bombings in New York.

“This is not the first year that this lady has been mixing singing about human passions with Christian symbols – crosses, statues of the Virgin, beads, and now it’s self-crucifixion. This means the singer needs spiritual assistance,” said Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, deputy head of the External Church Relations Department of the Moscow Patriarchate.

“It appears that, by this interest in Christian symbolism, an interest more than strange, the singer seeks to justify her own passions and solve her own internal problems,” Chaplin said.

Earlier, Father Michael Ryan of the Lady of Hope Parish Church accused Madonna of blasphemy. “We have heard of her performances in which she wears a crown of thorns and hangs from a mirrored cross. I think she’s spiritually confused and should be shunned by society,” Father Ryan told IPS.

Many Christians want to listen to music, “they do not want to look at a semi-naked woman on a cross,” Anton Samoilenkov from the Russian Justice Ministry said last week. It is “theoretically” possible to make claims over the failure of organisers to warn about the blasphemous symbols, the legal expert said.

All tickets for Madonna’s Moscow concert have been sold out. The cheapest tickets cost 1,500 roubles (about 60 dollars), the most expensive 25,000 roubles (almost 1,000 dollars). No more than six tickets have been sold to one person.

Madonna’s ‘Confessions’ tour kicked off in the United States in May, and its European leg began at the end of July in Cardiff in Wales in Britain. The singer said ahead of the tour that her ambition was to “turn the world into one big dance floor.”

The 47-year-old UK-based star will bring her ‘Confessions’ show to Moscow after taking it to London, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Hanover and Prague.

Inevitably, the concert is also being defended as a freedom of expression right.

“From the very theoretical point of view, freedom of expression should correspond to freedom to receive information,” human activist with the independent Committee of Civil Defence Olga Shepeleva told IPS. “So, the issue is not only Madonna’s freedom but also freedom of those who for any reason would like to see her show.”

She acknowledged that freedom of expression and freedom to receive information may be restricted to protect public morality and public security. But Shepeleva said any restriction should be proportionate, and balance the interests of religious people and the individuals who would like to see the concert.

“Those people who consider that their feelings may be traumatised by the concert simply do not buy tickets for it,” she said. “Any additional restrictions will be excessive. For us, Madonna is a celebrity and has the legitimate right to her own life.”

Many in the music business agree. “Really I think the critics are parochial in attitudes towards some cultural developments. Music enthusiasts here are eager to grab what Madonna’s philosophy is about, that makes her one of the world’s top pop stars,” Marakaty Musical Group’s entertainment director Jose Schochy told IPS.

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