Schuller Sows Seeds of Religion in Russia : Aid: The O.C. minister is helping with an agricultural project while trying to save souls.

It didn’t seem like a big deal. They were only planting a handful of potatoes in a swampy plot of land.

But nine Russian Orthodox priests were here to bless the event, and looking on were a crowd of Russian government and church officials, two busloads of American missionaries and the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, the TV preacher who had come all the way from the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove.

Schuller was there, he said, to plant religion along with the potatoes.

The farming experiment--trying to increase potato production in this stunted agricultural region--was being conducted by Churches Uniting for Global Mission. Schuller helped establish the organization and now serves as its chairman. Composed of America’s largest congregations, their pastors and a handful of U.S. agricultural experts, the group plans to raise $2 million this fall to create a trust fund and finance the Russian farming project.

Schuller, who has addressed Russians via television and conferred with Soviet and Russian government officials on several occasions, said the farming project is “a historic opportunity.” He said that at the invitation of the Russian government, once-flourishing farmland will be made productive again, then divided among Russian farmers.

Schuller said he passed the Russian offer on to CUGM, whose agricultural experts are creating a prototype farm here to test which kinds of potatoes grow best.

At last month’s ceremony, Ralph Hofstad, CUGM’s executive director, declared that more than food will grow on the land. “Although we are planting seeds of potatoes, we are also planting seeds of hope,” said the former chief executive of Land O’Lakes, a Minnesota-based food and farm products producer.

The project seems a natural for Schuller, combining his upbringing on a small, family farm in Iowa with his proven religious fund-raising skills. He said the Russian farming project now is completely in the hands of CUGM’s agricultural specialists, but the seeds of the project came from Schuller’s contacts within Russia.

Schuller’s first venture to the former Soviet Union in 1989 was sponsored by the late Armand Hammer, chairman of Occidental Petroleum. Hammer’s deep-rooted business ties with the Soviets enabled him to arrange a meeting between Schuller and then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.

During that visit, Schuller preached on national television. He has returned to Russia six times, becoming more and more involved with the country.

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in December, 1991, Schuller has become one of many Western missionaries coming to Russia and pledging to save the nation’s soul. Billy Graham has been here. So have the Hare Krishnas, the Mormons and the Lubavitch Jews.

But Schuller has become the best known and most influential. Nowadays “Hour of Power,” Schuller’s TV show promoting his philosophy of positive thinking, is aired in Russia with subtitles every Sunday morning, funded by American contributions.

Nikolai Badin, 65, one of the region’s few private farmers, came out to meet Schuller, whose celebrity status extends to remote areas in Russia.

“I’ve seen you on TV,” Badin said, excitedly.

“Armand Hammer opened the business world to Russia, and I was called up to open the religious world,” Schuller said later.

Schuller said the offer of land came last year during a meeting with government officials. The discussion was about the threat of famine, he said, and the officials offered to grant Schuller ownership of the Russian farmland on condition that the Russian farmers be taught modern agricultural techniques and that the land be divided and given to the farmers.

“I knew that if I accepted the gift that 50 years from now they would say that I took advantage of an historic opportunity,” Schuller said. “But I said I could not accept a gift of land; that would be exploitation. I said I would consult the Churches Uniting for Global Mission.”

CUGM’s first step was to send prepared meals to the Russian Orthodox Church, which distributed the food. Now, CUGM itself is becoming involved on a grass-roots level.

“If the church stays within its walls, it dies,” said Hofstad. “If God says, ‘They’re my people,’ it’s a duty to reach out to those in need.”

Schuller, too, has been quick to seize the opportunity. He says he was turned the potato project entirely over to the CUGM. The crop he says he wants to plant is religion, and he was sowing his seeds as the potatoes were being ceremonially planted.

“I see God in your eyes,” Schuller told Viktor Bakhno, the region’s lieutenant governor, at an official ceremony.

Bakhno merely nodded. At the moment he was more interested in extolling the region’s merits to his audience of farmers, priests and believers.

“This region used to feed Moscow,” he said. “We’d have no food left for ourselves and have to take a train to the city to buy what we needed. But that has changed. We now have better shops here than in Moscow.”

Kaluga is one of the two areas targeted by CUGM and lies 90 miles southwest of the Russian capital. Before the Russian Revolution, residents were deeply religious, and the bucolic region was home to 23 monasteries. It now consists of sleepy villages trying to rouse themselves after 70 years of Soviet rule.

Schuller had originally planned a sermon for the ceremony, but the Russian archbishop asked him to refrain. “I was disappointed but not surprised,” said John Myers, CUGM’s general counsel. “The Russian Orthodox Church is worried that Americans will come in and take away their clients.”

Vladimir Kruchkov, a member of parliament who sits on the committee for freedom, consciousness and religion, said the region needs an infusion of religion that “is not economic but spiritual. If you have nothing in your soul, you will never produce anything good.” Kruchkov became a “believer” three years ago and has been instrumental in forming religious and agricultural ties with the West.

Kruchkov said he was “amazed” in January when he visited an Iowa farm run by only four people. “Here it would taken dozens,” he said. “We have a different culture of productivity.”

Although Russia is moving toward a free market, the state still owns a majority of agricultural lands, where productivity lags far behind the West. Only 15% of Russian farms have been transferred to private ownership, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. Only 1% of the farmland in Kaluga is in private hands.

“State farms will be converted,” Hofstad said. “But I recognize it will not be a revolution but an evolution.”

Farming faces many of the problems plaguing other Russian industries.

Though the Ministry of Agriculture appears committed to private farm ownership, it must deal with a Parliament that opposes reforms and consistently passes anti-ownership laws.

Even Bakhno is hesitant to make radical changes. “Why ruin a collective farm if it is prosperous?” he asked. “Let them continue and let God help them.”

Russian farming techniques, however, are below par. Viktor Astorozhenko, director of Moscow’s Agricultural Academy and the Russian director of CUGM, said most farmers could double their yields if they used their land effectively.

Hofstad estimated that 40% of potatoes are lost while in storage, either to decay or theft. Then 40% of what is left must be sold to the government at below-market prices.

Will the potato project change all that? The crowd at the potato-field ceremony was full of expectations--but not the same ones.

“If we can help them be more effective farmers, the message of God will come,” said David Kobelie, a pastor from Washington who now teaches Bible classes in Moscow.

But Ivan Afanasyev, one of the area’s few private farmers, said he wasn’t very interested in the religious and experimental goals. “Our biggest problem is the price of cattle feed and construction materials,” he said. “Our purchasing ability is falling. It is difficult to say how all this can help.”

And help is something Viktor Karlov, another private farmer, said he views with a skeptical eye.

“We do not trust help at this moment,” he said. “We have gotten a lot of visitors from Holland and Germany, but so far we have only gotten words, no deeds. Time will show whether this is a show or for real.”