Moscow, Russia - About 100 people, including Russian Orthodox activists, protested Tuesday against plans to set up a private Russian-American Christian-oriented college in northern Moscow, Interfax reported.
The protest reflected anger among some members of the country's dominant Russian Orthodox Church over what they see as the encroachment of foreign faiths and branches of Christianity.
"This Baptist educational institution is completely out of place in an area where the majority of the population is Orthodox," Orthodox Citizens Union spokesman Kirill Frolov said, Interfax reported.
The Russian-American Christian University is not affiliated with any church, and its faculty and students include Protestants, Catholics and Russian Orthodox, its founder and president John Bernbaum said from its U.S. office in Wheaton, Maryland.
The university has operated in Russia for eight years and received full accreditation for five years from the Education Ministry in 2003, according to its web site. It has received permission from Moscow authorities to build the new campus near Rayevsky Park at the Babushkinskaya metro station but is waiting for two more documents needed before it can start construction, Bernbaum said. He said the university hoped to break ground this summer.