BY BESS TWISTON DAVIES
RUSSIAN OFFICIALS have apparently changed the new draft of Russia's contentious religious law to include the term Christianity.
Last July, President Yeltsin vetoed an earlier bill which recognised the Russian Orthodox Church alone out of Russia's Christian Churches.
The earlier bill refused to acknowledge the status of the minority Catholic Church in Russia as a legitimate "traditional" religion, thus making the Orthodox Church Russia's only legally safeguarded Christian denomination.
But Islam, Judaism and Buddhism were all accorded the status of "Traditional Religion" in the first bill which had already passed through Russia's upper and lower house before the veto.
Yeltsin aroused the ire of Russian Orthodox leaders by claiming the bill was 'unconstitutional'.