[JURIST Europe] The Russian Education Ministry [official website, in Russian] faces a lawsuit calling for it to remove evolution from the national science curriculum. The parents of Maria Shreiber, a 15 year old schoolgirl from St. Petersburg, have argued in court papers that school presentation of Darwin's theory prevents students from developing different beliefs about the creation of man. The case spotlights Orthodox Culture Basics [Moscow Times report], an optional course endorsed by the Russian Orthodox Church [Moscow Patriarchate website, English version] and introduced in 2002 [RFE report] by Russian Education Minister Vladimir Filippov for public school curriculums. The subject matter of the course, akin to that of intelligent design [Natural History backgrounder; JURIST news archive], incorporates the Orthodox worldview into the science classroom. MosNews has local coverage.

Angela Onikepe is an Associate Editor for JURIST Europe, reporting European legal news from a European perspective. She is based in the UK.