How Stalin created the ROC MP. Special Purpose Church
Go back to any passer-by and ask - what kind of faith is ours, primordially Russian? From what moment does one primordially Russian faith turn into another?
Until 1917, practically no conflicts arose in the Russian church. She grew stronger, grew richer, lived peacefully with the people, and with the authorities, and with competing organizations. And the last before the revolution was enough. It is enough to walk along Nevsky and count the number of "non-Russian" churches. Everyone got along together - Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants, Uniates, Buddhists, and Muslims. During the period of 1917, the opposing sides were not up to the church - there was confusion and a struggle for secular power, and not spiritual.
The Bolsheviks who came to power in one fell swoop separated the church from the state, and the school from the church. Here, of course, they did not think - Russia was a peasant country, the peasants believed in God all without exception, and it would be much more convenient to govern the people left without a tsar-father with the help of the church than with the help of the surplus appraisal. However, what happened happened. The Bolshevik government did not recognize the church, the church did not remain in debt and with all Christian humility cursed this government.
However, the family is not without its black sheep - among the Russian priests, a movement of renovationism arose, advocating a radical change in the Russian church in the light of the victory of the Bolsheviks, for close contact and cooperation with the new government. It is difficult to say whether it was really among the clergy that an independent decision was born to sell out to the Bolsheviks, or whether the agents of Dzerzhinsky, who had come to his senses, cleverly worked in time - but, nevertheless, the church split into two parts. The Renovationist part received a certain indulgence from the Bolsheviks, and the rest, quite naturally, began to be subjected to harassment and repression. However, the matter did not end there.
There were a number of clergy who, in principle, did not accept any contact with the already anathematized godless authorities, did not approve of the passive behavior of the “old” church, and at the same time did not want to go to the camps for the idea. These priests created their own, secret, church, adhering to all the canons of the Russian pre-revolutionary church. This church was later called the catacomb. This church includes the groups “True Orthodox Church”, “True Orthodox Christians”, “Jaonnites” and others that still exist today.
In the same period, on the wave of emigration, most of the priests found themselves abroad, where there were no obstacles to normal Orthodox church activities. Unlike the part of the priests who remained in Russia, the representatives of this church called themselves the "Russian Orthodox Church Abroad". Despite political difficulties, the foreign church maintained close relations with the Russian one, but ...
Since 1917, the Russian Orthodox Church has been headed by Patriarch Tikhon. He was an opponent of renovationism, did not go into the catacombs and did not go abroad. Patiently enduring all the oppression of the new government, in 1922 he was put on trial for opposing the seizure of church property, and in 1923 he was deprived of his rank and monasticism by the "renovationist" cathedral. He was replaced by Sergius Stargorodsky - a man who also suffered a lot from the Soviet regime, who was twice in prison and as a result came to the conclusion that cooperation with the Soviet authorities was necessary.
In 1927, Sergius enters into negotiations with the NKVD, formulates the position of the loyal attitude of the church to the Soviet government and calls on all the clergy to be faithful citizens of the Soviet Union. For anyone who lived in Soviet times, this meant only one thing - voluntary consent to tight control by the NKVD-KGB.
The decision of Sergius finally split the Russian Church into three - the Russian Church Abroad (ROCOR), the Catacomb Church (officially banned in 1957) and the currently functioning, calling itself truly Orthodox Church (ROC MP).
For a long time, secular authorities hesitated - is this very church really needed? After all, a slightly doubting part of the population is already in prison, while the rest work together for a crust of bread and a ration of vodka. Therefore, the thirties, despite the fact that the church completely surrendered to the power of the Stalinist gang, passed under the sign of a big question about its existence on the territory of Russia. These fourteen years (from 1927 to 1941) were quite enough to replace the "old" priests with new ones - perhaps not very well versed in Greek and Latin, but experienced in political debates and able to write reports where necessary.
However, in 1941, something happened that happened, and it turned out that you couldn’t go on the attack on Stakhanov’s spirit alone. This is where the church comes in handy. The spiritual influence of the church on the warring people was so great that in 1943 Stalin was even forced to recognize its significance for the country as a whole. After that, if not the best, then far from the worst times came for the church. At least the priests stopped being imprisoned and shot. True, they were not taken out of the control of the KGB either.
One can often hear that Stalin's permissive policy towards the Church is his awareness and support of the Church. Let's try to throw off the blinders of faith in this.
September 4, 1943 Stalin on the base "Sergian fragment" of the Orthodox Russian Church (PRC) creates a large and powerful structure with new name "Russian Orthodox Church" - ROC MP (previously there was NO such organization) and with a change in the title of the primate ( instead of “all Russia” - “all Russia”, which Stalin and Sergius specifically stipulated) and appoints Sergius as chief priest.
How Stalin created the ROC MP
Yevgeny Kiselyov's program on the Ukrainian TV channel "Inter"
The real leader of the ROC-MP was Karpin, a KGB officer. This structure of special services was created to identify persons who collaborated with the Nazis in the parishes opened by Hitler (and there were no others), in the territories newly liberated from German troops. For the same purpose, in the following year, 1944, the AUCECB was created, as an assortment of various Protestants - as an intelligence unit of the KGB). So, as a division of special services, the Moscow Patriarchate and the AUCECB existed until the end of the USSR.
After the August coup, the commission of the Armed Forces opened the archives of the KGB and made public these data, in particular, the entire leadership of the ROC MP turned out to be agents of the KGB. Including Ridiger (Aleksy 2) - agent "Drozdov", Gundyaev (Kirill) - agent "Mikhailov", etc. And the Protestants Karev, Zhidkov, Ponomarchuk, Andreev, Belykh, Radchuk, Kotyakov, Bondaruk, Sarkisyan…
Among the documents discovered by the parliamentary commission of the Supreme Soviet of Russia (Boris Perchatkin: Orthodox priest Gleb Yakunin, worked in the commission of the Russian Armed Forces) to investigate the causes and circumstances of the coup d'état (the August coup of 1991), there are reports on the activities of the 4th department of the 5th th Directorate of the KGB of the USSR. These reports are rich material for historians of the Russian Orthodox Church who study her fate in the Soviet period. They deal with the recruitment of clergy for the service of state security. According to archival data, the policy of recruiting the clergy actually began from the very first years of Soviet power.
“... A number of other archival documents have been discovered and published, indicating that many hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate were simultaneously agents of the KGB, and some, the most promising agents of state security, were promoted to leading positions of the Moscow Patriarchate as its hierarchs.
These publications contain excerpts from the reports of "church curators" to the leadership of the KGB, testifying to the degree of penetration of state security agencies into the church environment. Here is just one entry for 1987:
“For the first time, as part of the Soviet delegation, the agent “Adamant”, from among the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church, took part in the general session of UNESCO ... Five personal and work cases were considered against agents of territorial bodies recommended for promotion to the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church. Head of the 4th department, Colonel Timoshevsky ”(CA KGB l. 358 from the report of the 4th department of the 5th Directorate).
... Truly, "cadres decide everything." It is noteworthy that the agent "Adamant", that is, Metropolitan Yuvenaly (Poyarkov), according to the discovered documents of the KGB, along with other hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate and leaders of other faiths in the former USSR, was awarded a diploma of the KGB of the USSR "for many years of cooperation and active assistance to state security agencies" "1985 g., l. 51. Notes were prepared in the KGB of the USSR on the encouragement of the agent "Adamant". Shugay. V.I. Timoshevsky.
The undercover nickname of another prominent church agent of the KGB, “Abbot,” was also revealed. This nickname belongs to His Eminence Pitirim, Metropolitan of Volokolamsk and Yuryevsky.
In the weekly "Ogonyok" was exposed "agent Antonov" - Metropolitan of Kyiv Filaret (Denisenko) (now the Patriarch of Kyiv and All Ukraine). Three articles were devoted to him. Their author Alexander Nezhny (probably wrote according to the order of the authorities) ends his last article “The Third Name” as follows: “At birth, His Beatitude was called Michael, when he was tonsured a monk, they gave the name Filaret; his third name was called in the KGB. (editor - as it is known from Gleb Yakunin Denisenko, the Patriarch of Kyiv repented of his ties with the KGB)
Let us ponder the meaning of this third name. A monk receives a third name only when he is tonsured into a great angelic image - into a schema, and His Beatitude and his brothers in the Synod received this third name from the KGB when they were "tonsured" into the agent service of the godless empire of evil (it should be noted that the "third name" is the future agent The KGB chose it for itself and formally received it by putting its signature on the cooperation document). Vladimir Zelinsky theologically develops this idea as follows: “Where nicknames or nicknames are hidden behind the names of bishops of the church, she, i.e. the church turns into an anti-church, which was required by the organizer of this performance.
Because the name, among other things, is also a particle of the liturgy. The name of God is like the name of man. When the names of the Patriarch, the ruling bishop, the serving priest and “all those present and praying” are commemorated at the Great Entrance, then at that moment – in a few words – the whole Church gathers and looks around. Here she stands before the Father, Who knows everyone by name. Under this name, He calls, remembers, leads, judges, saves us and - regardless of our faith or unbelief - sends us a Guardian Angel on the road.
"He who has an ear (to hear), let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches: To him who overcomes I will give to eat the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone and a new name written on the stone, which no one knows except the one who receives" (Rev. 2:17) . But even where the Church is voluntarily or involuntarily parodied, there is also a change of names. "Potemkin", "Gregory", "Abbot", "Adamant" ...
I wonder why our episcopate so stubbornly does not repent of undercover cooperation with the KGB? After all, Metropolitan Chrysostom did this, and nothing happened to him, no one fired him. Why are the others silent? I used to think it was out of fear of new revelations. You confess to your work for the KGB, and membership in the CPSU will also surface. How will the Church Abroad react to this?
Yes, the top of the Patriarchy was in the CPSU, and this circumstance is still managed to be kept secret. It is said that the first communist was Patriarch Pimen, a senior officer in the Red Army who joined the party at the front. And there could not be believing officers there, even non-partisan ones. Moreover, they were all obliged to fight against religion. This means that the future patriarch renounced the faith.
High-ranking officials of the Central Committee of the CPSU, who once revealed this secret to me as an intelligence officer, practiced such a rude joke. Having caught a man in episcopal garb at a Kremlin reception or at a conference of fighters for peace, they clapped him on the shoulder and asked loudly: “Tell me, father, in which pocket of your cassock do you wear your party card?” The bishop smiled embarrassingly, but did not object: after all, there were all his own people around! ..
And yet they are silent for another reason. The famous KGB general Oleg Kalugin recently told me about it. In the ninetieth year, he became a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and was the first to begin to expose agents in cassocks.
The patriarchate was seriously alarmed. They were afraid not of individual revelations, but of revealing the main secret. That the Patriarchy was deliberately created by Stalin in such a way as to be a communicating vessel with the Lubyanka, like other Soviet institutions. It would never occur to anyone to identify KGB agents in our Foreign Ministry, where all the agents are. But if we admit that the same is true of the Patriarchate, then what is its holiness?
Soon, General Kalugin was invited to a private dinner with the patriarch, where Alexy II said this:
- Well, why are you exaggerating this topic? Yes, we cooperated with authorities, including myself. But it was a struggle for peace, for disarmament! What's wrong with that?..
To pass off squealing to the KGB as a fight for peace - no one has thought of this before! And we did not have such a direction of work as the struggle for peace. These words are propaganda nonsense. On the contrary, we fought for the war! As a result of our activities, military conflicts flared up one after another - in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola. This led to an incredible swelling of the military-industrial complex, of which intelligence was a part. The country could not withstand this severity, and the USSR collapsed.
Alexy II made it clear that he did not consider his snitching in the KGB something shameful and was not going to repent of it at all. On the contrary, he is proud of him, as Putin is now proud of his work in the KGB during the Soviet years. The absence of such repentance throws a bridge to the continuation of cooperation between the Patriarchate and the KGB in our day. And why is the well-born nobleman Ridiger so devoted to Soviet power? What binds them tightly?
Back in 1996, journalistic fate brought me to a communist rally in Novocherkassk. Presidential elections were going on in the country, and the head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Zyuganov, was a serious rival to Yeltsin. He came for support to this Cossack region, where his predecessors in the 1920s carried out "decossackization" and mass executions. But now there are strong pro-communist sentiments.
An elderly priest of the local cathedral, Father Vladimir, also spoke at the rally. He also called for voting for Zyuganov, which caused great surprise among foreign journalists. But Father Vladimir firmly stated this:
- In order for us to study at the Theological Seminary, we were recalled from the front! We are still grateful to the Communist Party for this! And therefore, studying at the seminary was perceived as a front-line task. We called ourselves that all our lives - non-party communists!
And what department had the right to recall people from the front, and even in the critical year of the war, when even the sick and infirm were rowed into the army? Only the NKVD. And to whom could he give this unheard-of privilege, saving from death? Only reliable and trusted agents.
Stalin created the Patriarchy with the hands of the Lubyanka! This department became her mother. The genetic connection with the KGB is the same generic sign of the Moscow Patriarchate as the connection with the White Movement in the Church Abroad.
Special Purpose Church
The cooperation of the Patriarchy with the KGB, alas, is not a thing of the past, as many in the West believe, and even increases under Putin. The reason for this lies in the new type of social order that Putin has succeeded in creating in Russia: the state of special services. The FSB is in charge of domestic policy and propaganda, and the Foreign Intelligence Service is in charge of foreign policy. All other departments are subordinate to them. Participating in today's Russian political life, it is simply impossible to avoid contacts with intelligence and counterintelligence. The Patriarchate readily uses its Soviet experience in them.
For example, Putin's flirtation with the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il is kept a terrible secret so that the Americans do not find out about them, but the Patriarchate is admitted to them and takes the most active part in them.
In Pyongyang, the construction of the patriarchal church of the Holy Trinity is nearing completion, although religion is prohibited in this country, and faith is considered a political crime. But Kim Jong Il made an exception for his Russian friend. Construction is carried out mainly with Russian money, but Kim Jong Il kindly allocated about a million dollars from the budget of his impoverished country. This gave him the right to be called the "Builder of this temple."
Let us pray to the Lord for the builder of this temple! - from now on, the Russian deacon will proclaim at every service. To make the North Korean dictator an object of religious worship is something that no foreign president has ever managed to do! The appearance of a Russian temple in the capital of the DPRK, the first stone of which was laid in June 2003, is a sign of Kim Jong Il's great personal friendship with Putin in defiance of the Americans.
Kim was so kind that on this occasion he even founded a new state institution - the Orthodox Committee of the DPRK, although there has not been a single Orthodox believer in this country for more than half a century.
A delegation from this phony Committee recently traveled to Moscow. In the Patriarchy, she visited only one department, except for the outward church department. What would you think? For cooperation with the armed forces and law enforcement agencies! I wonder what she needed there? It seems that Kim Jong Il considers the Patriarchate a paramilitary organization designed to solve special problems.
The appearance of the Russian Church in Pyongyang creates a channel for secret contacts for both leaders, beyond international control. After all, no one will know what messages silent priests in black cassocks will bring to Pyongyang.
This channel is especially valuable because the Americans can officially take an interest in all the others. For example, Bush will ask Putin at one of the meetings:
- Tell me, friend Vladimir, are you conducting behind-the-scenes tricks with Kim Jong Il? ..
And Putin will have to explain himself, because all this is checked by intelligence means. And to the question about church contacts, Putin can rightfully answer this way:
“That doesn’t concern you, my friend! Faith is sacred!
And Bush will have nothing to hide, because his government really does not interfere in the affairs of the church.
And now four students from the DPRK are studying at the Moscow Theological Academy. I wonder where they came from? After all, if they were true believers, they would have been imprisoned. The answer suggests itself - only from the Ministry of State Security. Kim Jong Il creates an Orthodox church in his country according to the Stalinist model, with the hands of the Chekists.
But all friendly intelligence officers accredited to Russia are under the unobtrusive patronage of the Foreign Intelligence Service. They are invited to rest houses, to closed meetings, banquets. It is interesting, when leaving the Lavra for Moscow, do North Korean seminarians say to their confessor like this: “Bless, father, for a trip to the Reception House of the SVR, in Kolpachny Lane”?
The Patriarchate was also "lit up" in the espionage scandal caused by the murder of the former Chechen leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev by Russian intelligence officers in Qatar. In February of this year, they blew up the car in which Yandarbiyev was getting into when leaving the mosque, after which they were arrested.
One of them turned out to be a local GRU resident. Diplomatic immunity did not allow him to be in prison, and he was released. But the other two stayed there for a long time. They immediately admitted their affiliation with the GRU, becoming living evidence that Russia is engaged in international terrorism. The one with which she so ardently calls to fight. Putin was furious. He made titanic efforts to rescue the unlucky terrorists, but all was in vain.
And then a stream of Russian representatives rushed towards them. Many officials under various pretexts tried to break into the cell, but the Qatari authorities did not let anyone in for security reasons. And they did the right thing: after all, killers are supposed to be eliminated! To do this, it is enough to spray a tiny ampoule of a colorless substance hidden under the nail in the chamber. And - there is no person, there is no problem, as Comrade Stalin said.
Desperate, Moscow decided to use its most trouble-free assistant for delicate assignments - the Patriarchate. Bishop Feofan of Stavropol and Vladikavkaz rushed into the chamber. Allegedly, the officers languishing there are such deeply religious people that do not feed them with bread, but let them hear the advice of the bishop. Moreover, it was Theophan, known for his contacts with intelligence. Prior to that, he served for many years in the Department for External Church Relations, where he was the closest assistant to Metropolitan Kirill, who was listed in the KGB reports as an agent of Mikhailov.
The Qataris didn't let him in either. Perhaps they knew that the Patriarchy was being used for espionage. And the faith of our scouts is highly questionable! After all, the young son of Yandarbiyev was also in the car they blew up. It is unlikely that a believing Christian would dare to kill an innocent child. Even the Socialist-Revolutionary terrorists who blew up the Governor-General of Moscow, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich in 1905, at first refused the assassination attempt several times, seeing that he was traveling with children. And our unfortunate terrorists had previously gone through Chechnya, where the GRU tortures and kills people. Since they were appointed executors, it is reasonable to assume that they did all this with their own hands. In what happened to them, one can rather see the punishing hand of God. And it would be better for Bishop Feofan to enter prisons with thousands of people innocently convicted in Russia!
The Moscow Patriarchate is surprisingly merciful to the murderers who carry out the presidential order. Recently, Alexy II awarded the Order of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir to colonel of the Belarusian special services Alexander Pavlichenko, a well-known organizer of "death squadrons". They eliminate political opponents of President Lukashenko. The Patriarchal Exarch in Belarus, Metropolitan Filaret, personally petitioned for the award, referring to the fact that a temple was built in the garrison subordinated to Pavlichenko. Such an occasion clearly did not correspond to the high status of the order.
Novaya Gazeta reported this in an article titled "Church for a Special Purpose" in August this year. “The awarding of Dmitry Pavlichenko with the Order of the Holy Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir defies any logical explanation. Because you don’t have to go to Belarus to see churches built on the territories of military units and even prisons – this is more than enough in Russia itself. But for some reason, those who build churches throughout Russia are not awarded orders. Or maybe the patriarch and the metropolitan decided that the one who sends people to God with his own hand deserves a high church award? - writes the newspaper.
“No one in Europe doubts the involvement of Pavlichenko, as well as Sheiman and Sivakov, the former secretary of the Security Council and the Minister of Internal Affairs, in organizing and carrying out the murders,” the newspaper continues, “That’s why the Greek authorities refused to let Sivakov into Athens, who now occupies post of Minister of Sports and was to head the Olympic delegation. The European Union made a special statement on this matter. And exactly three days later, the Russian Orthodox Church awards Pavlichenko with an order. Accident? Or is it “our answer to Chamberlain”?!”
Svetlana Zavadskaya, the wife of Dmitry Zavadsky, an ORT cameraman who was kidnapped on July 7, 2000, said: “It is very sad that the Russian Orthodox Church is awarding the second most important order in Russia to Dmitry Pavlichenko, who is known in the civilized world as a person suspected of involvement in kidnappings and murders of people . As a believer, this really offends me. The Orthodox Church in Russia and Belarus is so politicized that, apparently, for the time being it will be better for me to communicate with God without intermediaries.”
And here, in the Russian emigration, many, on the contrary, dream of merging with the Moscow Patriarchate. What for?
“The current ROC is not real, it was established by Stalin,” is one of the most popular anti-clerical formulations that are heard today in the media space. Indeed, in 1943 the policy of the state towards the Church changed dramatically. Has the Church itself changed?
Metropolitans Sergius (Stragorodsky), Alexy (Simansky), Nikolai (Yarushevich) surrounded by bishops at the Bishops' Council. 1943
Unbreakable connection
Before answering the question, it is necessary to clarify the key concepts. When we talk about the Church, we can talk about both the divine-human organism, the Head of which is Christ Himself, and the earthly organization of believers headed by the church hierarchy. It cannot be said that the Church-organism and the Church-organization are unrelated phenomena. But obviously they are not identical either. As long as the church organization preserves the Orthodox faith and canonical structure in purity, it is an earthly continuation of the divine-human organism of the Church, the Body of Christ. In case of loss of the purity of faith and damage to the foundations of the canonical system, this connection is broken, an example of which is a variety of heretical and sectarian communities that can be very strong organizationally (for example, Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses).
It is clear that Stalin was not involved in the Church-organism (except in childhood, when he was still brought up as a believer and participated in the Church Sacraments, but then he was still Dzhugashvili, not Stalin). No historical vicissitudes, no Stalins can have an impact on the Church as the Body of Christ. There is no need to prove it. It is obvious that when they say, "Stalin established the ROC-MP", they mean precisely the earthly church organization. Is it so? To understand what the Russian Orthodox Church as an organization is, a short historical digression is required.
After the Baptism of Russia, our church organization took shape as a metropolis of the Church of Constantinople and existed in this form until the middle of the 15th century. Then, as a result of the (temporary) falling away of Constantinople from Orthodoxy in connection with the Union of Florence, the Russian Church becomes autocephalous. Like the Byzantine emperors, the supreme patrons of the Church were the Moscow grand dukes, and then the tsars. As a result of the reforms of Peter the Great, the church organization is being optimized in the spirit of that time. The patriarchate is abolished, and the Holy Synod is established in its place. The reform is very significant and unprecedented in its own way, but it did not violate the church's self-identity: the Russian Orthodox Church remained the Russian Orthodox Church both under the Holy Synod and under the sovereign-emperor as its earthly head. It has not lost the purity of the Orthodox faith and has not damaged the foundations of the canonical system (unlike the Catholic Church, which does not think of itself without the papacy, the Orthodox Church can exist without a patriarchate), and therefore, as it was, it has remained a continuation of the divine-human church organism in the Russian earth.
Illegal Church
The newest period in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church as an organization began in 1917. After the fall of the autocracy, the former synodal system could no longer be preserved. The Local Council, which met for the first time in more than two centuries, restored the patriarchate and adopted a whole volume of definitions in accordance with which the further organizational life of the Russian Orthodox Church was to be built. In particular, in accordance with these definitions, all-Russian councils were to be held every three years, the patriarch was to govern the Church not alone, but at the head of collegiate co-governing bodies - the Holy Synod and the Supreme Church Council. The ruling bishops were to be elected with the participation of the clergy and laity of the diocese, in the diocesan administration an important role was assigned to the elected diocesan councils, and in the parish, respectively, to the parish councils. These definitions assumed that the life of the Church would proceed in a more or less calm environment, without outside interference.
Intervention, however, was not long in coming, and in the most aggressive form. Even during the work of the Council, the new Soviet government and its adherents in the localities launched an open persecution of the Church. This led, in particular, to the fact that the elected collegiate bodies of church administration soon ceased to exist, and after the death of His Holiness Tikhon in 1925, it was not possible to elect a new patriarch either. In accordance with the will of Patriarch Tikhon, the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky) stood at the head of the Russian Church, and eight months later, after the arrest of the Hieromartyr Peter, in accordance with his will, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) became the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens. It should be noted that the transfer of supreme church authority through individual wills is not consistent with the canons, but in the emergency situation of those years, church consciousness calmly accepted this method of preserving church organizational succession, especially since Orthodox people looked at the authors of these wills as outstanding confessors.
At the same time, the church organization headed by the Moscow Patriarchate, both under Patriarch Tikhon, and under Metropolitan Peter, and at first under Metropolitan Sergius, was illegal. This does not mean that it acted underground, but the Soviet authorities did not recognize it and in every possible way prevented the Orthodox hierarchy (as opposed to the Renovationist hierarchy) from fulfilling its canonical duties. The desire to achieve elementary rights for the Orthodox church organization prompted Metropolitan Sergius in 1927 to accept the conditions of legalization proposed by the authorities. These conditions were very difficult. In fact, both external and internal church activities were placed under the control of state security agencies. At the same time, purely doctrinal and canonical questions did not bother the Soviet authorities, they did not interfere in them, they did not demand, for example, to ordain bishops as presbyters, and even more so, to recognize two hypostases in Christ or anything else of that kind.
Hitting the Church
The compromise with the authorities, which was made by Metropolitan Sergius, dealt a strong blow to the moral authority of the Moscow Patriarchate, many remarkable ascetics opposed him, such as, for example, the first, according to the will of Patriarch Tikhon, a candidate for patriarchal locum tenens, Metropolitan Kirill (Smirnov). The imprisoned head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Peter, also considered the course of his deputy inappropriate and urged him to correct the mistake he had made. The tragedy of the situation was aggravated by the fact that the policy of Metropolitan Sergius did not bring any relief to the Church, the persecution only intensified, reaching an unprecedented scale in history during the years of the "great terror" (1937-1938). By the beginning of World War II, the Church in Russia was organizationally almost completely destroyed, for the entire USSR there were only four bishops in the cathedras, including Metropolitan Sergius himself, and several hundred functioning churches.
However, for all its seductiveness, the policy of Metropolitan Sergius did not make the church organization headed by him graceless. The Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church are not one and the same, just as Russia and the Council of People's Commissars are not one and the same. The Orthodox dogma and the foundations of the canonical system were not damaged by the compromise of Metropolitan Sergius with the authorities, and the personal sins of the hierarchs, even the highest ones, remain their personal sins, for which they are responsible before God Himself. Of course, there is nothing good when a clergyman does not have the proper authority among his flock, morally unworthy behavior can repel people from him, but this in itself does not make the Sacraments performed through him without grace. Such is the teaching of the Church, formulated back in the time of controversy with the Donatists in the 4th-5th centuries.
To this it must be added that there is something good to be said about Metropolitan Sergius. He, for example, was a real monk, none of his opponents could throw accusations of non-asceticism at him. He also had many merits as a church scholar and administrator (he dealt not only with political issues, being at the head of the Moscow Patriarchate, but tried, for example, to facilitate the path of reunification with the Old Believers). He made a compromise with the authorities, proceeding from the interests of the Church, although they were understood in a rather specific way. He received the highest church authority not from the hands of godless rulers, but was called to it by the patriarchal locum tenens, Metropolitan Peter, who, although he recognized his policy as erroneous, did not announce his removal from the post of deputy locum tenens. After the martyrdom of Metropolitans Peter and Kirill in 1937, there were no other candidates for patriarchal locum tenens, except for Metropolitan Sergius. Finally, one cannot remain silent about the fact that the host of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia to a large extent consists of those who did not separate from him, as from the head of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Rebirth under control
Now, finally, we come to 1943, when, according to some, "Stalin established the ROC-MP." What actually happened then? Due to the political reasons caused by the World War, Stalin realized that it was more profitable for him not to destroy the church organization, but to use it in his own interests. These interests were met by the outwardly strong Moscow Patriarchate, speaking before the whole world in support of the policy of the Soviet government. It was then that the Bishops' Council of 19 people was urgently convened (to those who survived the "great terror" at large, there were added a dozen and a half bishops who were released from prisons and ordained during the war years). Metropolitan Sergius was proclaimed patriarch, the Synod was re-established, and the systematic replacement of the empty hierarchical chairs began. Following this, theological schools, which were liquidated in the first years of Soviet power, were revived, although in a limited number. Monasteries (with the exception of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, they were all located in the territories that had been under German occupation) received the right to exist. The military restoration of the organizational structure of the Russian Orthodox Church was basically completed at the Local Council of 1945, which elected Patriarch Alexy I and adopted the “Regulations on the Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church”, which was in force with amendments until 1988.
Of course, in agreeing to the revival of the church organization, the Soviet government took care to ensure maximum control over it. A special Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR was established. The Moscow Patriarchate had to coordinate all issues of interest to the authorities with the employees of this Council, and in the localities the bishops had to reckon with the representatives of the Council, who were appointed in all areas where there were functioning churches. The “Regulations on the management of the ROC” itself, before it was adopted by the Council, was considered and approved by the Council of People's Commissars. Of course, this "Regulation" was noticeably different from the resolutions on church administration adopted by the Council of 1917-1918.
turned page
Does all this mean that "Stalin established the ROC-MP"? Does not mean. It was not Stalin who appointed the future patriarchs Sergius and Alexis as bishops; they received their appointments even before the revolution (the consecration of Bishop Alexis in 1913, by the way, was headed by Patriarch Gregory IV of Antioch). Some other bishops, participants in the Councils of 1943 and 1945, were placed in the patriarchate of His Holiness Tikhon - St. Luke (Voyno-Yasenetsky), for example. A considerable part of those who in the 1920-1930s returned to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. was in opposition to Metropolitan Sergius (although not many of them had a chance to survive Stalin's pre-war "great terror"). The brightest name among them is St. Athanasius (Sakharov). There were priests who were ordained clandestinely before the war, and after the war went into open service, for example, Fr. Sergiy Nikitin - the future Bishop Stefan. There were Russian bishops and priests from emigrants who also recognized the Moscow Patriarchate and reunited with it in the 1940s, for example, Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev). None of them was a Stalinist creature, like thousands of other ascetics who were and remained members of the Russian Orthodox Church, regardless of Stalin or other world rulers.
And the fact that the external forms of church organization were built in accordance with the requirements of the Soviet government does not mean so much. These forms have always, one way or another, adapted to the conditions of the existence of the Church. Other local Churches also did not avoid this kind of adjustment to the environment (about the Patriarchate of Constantinople alone, one can write a lot of sad things on this subject - much more than about the Moscow Patriarchate). As soon as Soviet power weakened, at the Local Council of 1988 a new “Charter on the Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church” was adopted, during the development of which (and the developer was the Archbishop of Smolensk and Vyazemsky Kirill - our current Patriarch) the decisions of the Council were not least taken into account 1917-1918 The Soviet page of history has been turned over, and if there were accomplices in the ranks of the atheistic authorities, then they are not the main heroes of the Russian Church of the twentieth century, but the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. You can be sure that their solemn glorification was definitely not part of Stalin's plans. The connection between the Church-organization in Russia and the Church-the Body of Christ, the divine-human organism-has not been broken. The history of the Church during the period of communist persecution, of course, must be studied without closing one's eyes to its unpleasant pages, but one must evaluate them soberly and, moreover, not speculate on them.
Istanbul declared war on Moscow. The primate of Constantinople conceived an unheard of audacity: to demote the Moscow Patriarchate to a metropolia, while at the same time giving the Kiev throne the status of a “single Russian patriarchate.” The meaning of this manipulation is to return to the Phanar the status of an ecumenical Orthodox arbitrator, which they have long lost. But will this slippery little business work out for His Holiness Vladyka Bartholomew?
Having dispatched two exarchs to Kyiv to prepare autocephaly – the proclamation of a single local church in Ukraine, not related to the Moscow Patriarchate – Bartholomew did not seem to expect how harsh the reaction of the ROC would be. Not only was the Ecumenical Patriarch no longer remembered in prayers, which, according to church canons, is practically the bottom, beyond which anathema looms, in addition, Moscow announced a threat to all world Orthodoxy and a dead end in relations with the See of Constantinople. Churchmen are not diplomats, and they choose their expressions much more biased, trying to avoid harsh formulations as much as possible. And here the Synod makes a statement unprecedented in harshness, and it is hard to believe that the point here is only Ukrainian autocephaly.
Someone else's success as a reason for envy
In 1686, Patriarch Dionisy of Constantinople recognized Moscow's all-encompassing right to Ukrainian lands. Thus, after the reunification of Ukraine with Russia, which took place in 1654, the restoration of the unity of the Russian Orthodox Church followed. Today, as Professor of the Orthodox St. Tikhon Humanitarian University Vladislav Petrushko notes, “Constantinople disavows all the documents of the 17th century, according to which the Kyiv Metropolis was transferred under the wing of the Moscow Patriarchate”, at the same time casting doubt on the high status of the Moscow Patriarchate, although the patriarchate of the ROC was granted not by Constantinople, but all local churches. And, besides, Patriarch Bartholomew, as the Ukrainian political scientist Rostislav Ishchenko rightly noted, “invaded foreign canonical territory, accusing the Russian Orthodox Church of provoking the Ukrainian schism, in fact putting pseudo-patriarch Denisenko, Metropolitan Onufry and Patriarch Kirill on the same level.” What caused such a sharp demarche of the throne of Constantinople?
Among the exarchs of world Orthodoxy, Bartholomew is listed as the first among equals. After all, the throne of Constantinople is the oldest in the world. It is believed that it was founded by the Apostle Andrew the First-Called. But "oldest" does not mean that the richest and most influential. Here Moscow will give odds to all Orthodox thrones. And this infuriates Bartholomew, especially after the Pan-Orthodox Council of 2016, when Patriarch Kirill was rightly indignant that the exarchs “didn’t sit down like that.” In his opinion, everyone should have sat down at a round table, without emphasizing someone's great importance. And in the end they sat down so that Bartholomew was at the head of the table. But the way they sat down was the first call, but not a reason. And the reason was the rapprochement between Rome and Moscow. For years, Bartholomew tried to build a special relationship with Rome, stipulating every little thing for a long time. And Moscow managed to establish contacts, consider it once or twice. And now, His Holiness Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill meet in Havana, and the churches start a dialogue, without even asking what the Phanar thinks about this. It's embarrassing, right? Even more offensive is the fact that the Moscow Patriarch, despite the fact that the church in Russia is separated from the state, is always in the forefront of the presidential retinue. And this is advertised in every possible way, not to mention the complete expanse for church business, since the time of the ever-memorable Sofrino. And who does Patriarch Bartholomew feel like in Muslim Istanbul? For Recep Erdogan, all those who live in Turkey are Turks, which means that Bartholomew is also a Turk, despite being a Greek. But for a Greek there is no offense more offensive than to call him a Turk. And not only does the Turkish president not call the patriarch to court, he also suspects him of secret relations with the hated oppositionist Gülen and the US CIA. Of course, we are not talking about any material handouts, not to mention expanse for business or handouts from the state budget for the construction of temples and other miscellaneous things. And here’s another little touch: although the title of “ecumenical patriarch” is fixed in a number of international legal acts, Ankara does not recognize the status of “ecumenical” for the Patriarchate of Constantinople, but only recognizes the status of “head of the Orthodox community in Turkey.” And envy, as you know, is a feeling of terrible destructive power.
Throne of Constantinople, poor but greedy
The incident with the "wrong seated" among other things highlighted a very unpleasant circumstance for Bartholomew. With an open visor, only the Bulgarian Church rushed into battle for him. The rest of the thrones, at best, made Lenten mines - they say, it's not our business who sat down at the cathedral and how. Even loyal Greeks with Romanians. And the Serbs and Georgians somehow looked unkindly at the universal lord. Well, the Serbs - of course. But why did the Georgians turn out to be “for Kirill”? They seem to be now in everything against Moscow? It turns out that not everything. The Georgian church is one of the oldest. And the Russian Orthodox Church recognizes it as the fifth in importance, while the throne of Constantinople is only the eighth. Georgians are known to be morbidly proud. Here is the explanation for you. Besides, you can’t ask the Ecumenical Patriarch for a loan – in his treasury the last church mouse died of starvation a long time ago. And in Moscow, money is uncounted. And those who behave properly - like the Ethiopians, for example - can always ask for help in opening new parishes. They say, by the way, that only Moscow money has been behind the real Orthodox expansion in Africa over the past few years, but this is a topic for a separate discussion.
Literally until recently, the Church of Greece “drowned” for Bartholomew. But the appointment of two exarchs of Constantinople to Ukraine unexpectedly changed the traditional alignment: Metropolitan Seraphim of Kitira and Antikythera recognized the actions of Bartholomew as a blow to church canons and expressed unanimity with the position of Moscow. The Greek Orthodox community smelled of schism. Oil is added by the fact that many Greeks (especially Pontic ones for some reason) consider Bartholomew a stranger, a “Turk”, and tend to focus on the church domes of Orthodox Moscow, and not on the minarets of mosques in Mohammedan Istanbul.
Such is the alignment today in Orthodoxy. One should not think that Moscow is not aware of him, and for Patriarch Kirill, the actions of his colleague Bartholomew are a “treacherous attack” on the canonical lands of the Moscow throne. Rather, this is a good reason for a reciprocal demarche, after which Orthodoxy, if it splits, then not even into equal parts. At best, Bartholomew will be followed by the Bulgarians and the Greeks (the latter, however, is not a fact, given the demarche of Metropolitan Seraphim and the clear affection of sacred Athos towards Moscow). But if you play for sure, agreeing on the little things with Ankara, there will be little room for Bartholomew in Istanbul. That is why His Holiness Vladyka looks at Kyiv - with great hope.
Vladimir SHMALY, former secretary of the Synodal Biblical and Theological Commission:
– Frankly, I did not believe that Constantinople would act as we see now. My miscalculation consisted in overestimating the religious factor in the Phanar's motives, in particular, the fact that they take their role as guardian of the unity of Orthodoxy seriously. Greek nationalists with undisguised hatred treat any mention of the idea of the Third Rome, they see it as an attempt to undermine the idea of restoring the Second Rome - Constantinople, if not in the role of the capital of the Byzantine Empire, then at least in the role of a kind of "Orthodox Vatican". In the light of this nationalist strategy, Phanar's actions look completely logical. The Patriarchate of Constantinople attempted to destroy the Moscow Patriarchate by recognizing the Renovationist schism. And now the Ukrainian conflict and the difficult international situation of Russia allow Constantinople to deliver a sharp and accurate blow.
"Symbolic jurisdiction" of Kyiv over Russia
The situation in Ukraine is like this. President Petro Poroshenko, fencing off Moscow in all directions, cherishes the dream of a local church. But to whom to give the tomos of autocephaly? The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate does not ask for this. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate are anathematized schismatics, with whom the throne of Constantinople cannot deal. The autocephalous church is unrepresentative and inconspicuous. But for Bartholomew, this alignment is just at hand. Forming a new local church, you can close your eyes to the fact that hierarchs from the UOC (KP) will move into it. Removing an anathema is a troublesome business, but who is stopping you from changing the sign above the brothel? On the other hand, the new church, which the Ukrainian president will receive in personal control, will owe everything to the ecumenical patriarch. And, it is not excluded, will become his new throne. There’s no getting around here: you’ll be left behind by Poroshenko, like Kirill from Putin. And Ukrainians are a much more church-going people than Russians. So mentally Bartholomew has already froze a step away from the greatness overtaking him.
And then - more. There is an opinion that autocephaly in the 15th century fell to the Russian saint Jonah, as they say, not according to rank. It was not Moscow Russia that should have received it, but Lithuania. This opinion is not that popular, but in world Orthodoxy (for the sake of justice, let's clarify - in Greek and Bulgarian) and it takes place. And if so, it makes sense to replay the situation: return the status of metropolia to Moscow, and crown the new Russian patriarch on the throne in Kyiv. Russian Orthodox Church of the Kiev Patriarchate - how do you like it? It's up to the small thing - to provoke an official split. What Bartholomew is doing today, not without success. “I won’t be surprised if the Patriarchate of Constantinople hatches plans to transfer symbolic jurisdiction over Russia to the projected Ukrainian church structure,” notes Volodymyr Shmaliy, candidate of theology. “Of course, if Bartholomew manages to provoke a long-term split.” “The goal of the autocephalous Ukrainian campaign of Constantinople,” the expert continues, “is not Ukraine, but the “squeezing out” of the Moscow Patriarchate from the community of Orthodox local churches, in which Bartholomew wants to play the role of either the Byzantine emperor, or the eastern pope. In Phanar, they dealt an accurate and calculated blow. If Moscow comes to terms with the actions of Constantinople, then it will thereby recognize the entire theory and argumentation of the throne of Constantinople over the past 100 years. If the ROC (MP) breaks communication with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, this will be presented as a schism and actions will be taken to consolidate this status.”
Ukrainian autocephaly is beneficial not momentarily, but with an eye on centuries, argues political scientist Lev Vershinin, “because it takes the Phanar from the level of a “rudiment” to the level of a “universal arbiter.” In 10-20 years, which is not a time for the church, the jurisdiction of the Kiev Patriarchate over the Moscow Metropolis will become a fact - first “symbolically”, and then in reality. It remains only to congratulate the current seminarians, who, in their mature years, will lead the local autocephalous regions of Siberia, the Urals and the Far East.”
Renat KUZMIN, former deputy head of the Security Council of Ukraine:
– Poroshenko collected $25 million from Ukrainian businessmen to “lubricate” Bartholomew and speed up the granting of autocephaly. But out of the collected 25 million, 15 disappeared somewhere - nothing is sacred. In Istanbul, they found out about this, and Bartholomew did not come to Kyiv to celebrate the 1030th anniversary of the baptism of Russia. But Poroshenko returned the money, at the same time arranging a meeting in July between the head of the American-Ukrainian diocese of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, Demetrius, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Probably, some promises were made to Bartholomew personally - he, as you know, dreams of moving from unfriendly Istanbul to Kyiv. The prospect of bloodshed in Ukraine, therefore, does not frighten Bartholomew at all.
Bartholomew "three percent"
So it goes. If Bartholomew is lucky, he will sit not in Istanbul, but in Kyiv and head the “universal Russian Orthodox Church” with the Moscow Metropolitan on parcels. But if the Lord is merciful to Cyril, then everything will be the other way around, and the Russian primate, if he does not become “worldwide” in title, will certainly take a place at the head of the table at the next Pan-Orthodox Council. In Rome, they are already rubbing their hands, anticipating how Orthodox mitres will crackle, and are wondering who it is more profitable to support in a dispute, Istanbul or Moscow. But, judging by the way the pope hurried to the meeting in Havana two years ago, forgetting about all the separate agreements with the primate of Constantinople, the choice is perhaps obvious. But how will the flock of the Russian Orthodox Church (MP) perceive this choice?
And another question: what will the aggravation in the Orthodox world mean for Ukraine? And without him, the situation there is critical: just look, the Kyiv banishment Filaret will call for the seizure of the churches of the Moscow Patriarchate. And Moscow priests in Kyiv, distinguished by enviable humility when it comes to the Russian language, instantly lose patience when it comes to church property. The Ukrainian flock is nervous, they won’t have to call twice to advocate. So far, the Moscow Patriarchate pretended to be far from politics, but against the backdrop of a “divorce” from the throne of Constantinople and the prospect of the rise of Kyiv, the attitude may change radically – up to the formation of Orthodox folk squads. “For Ukraine, the actions of Bartholomew unequivocally mean a religious war, in which not streams will spill, as before, but rivers of blood,” states political scientist Rostyslav Ishchenko. “As a result, the Ukrainian state will be destroyed, and the Phanar understands that they are provoking a terrible religious conflict, while taking the side of schismatics and sectarians against the true Orthodox.”
How the current confrontation in the Orthodox world will end, no one undertakes to predict. It would seem that Moscow should have acted more restrained - at least taking into account the prospects of what Ishchenko warns about above. But it seems that the Russian hierarchs have decided to go all the way - the prospect of "doing" the throne of Constantinople once and for all is too tempting. “Bartolomew actually endowed himself with all the rights of the Pope, that is, he clearly proclaimed heresy and committed a deviation from the Orthodox faith,” proclaims Archpriest Andrei Novikov, member of the Synodal Biblical and Theological Commission of the Moscow Patriarchate. “But the throne of Constantinople represents only 3% of the Orthodox land!” In general, the truth, as always, is behind us. Well, how will God be divided in the end - is it really so significant?
In a special material on the current state of the church, BG studied various aspects of the life of the Russian Orthodox Church - from the economy of parishes and Orthodox art to the life of priests and intra-church dissent. And besides, after interviewing experts, I compiled a brief block diagram of the structure of the ROC - with the main characters, institutions, groups and patrons
Patriarch
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church bears the title "His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia" (but from the point of view of Christian theology, the head of the church is Christ, and the patriarch is the primate). His name is commemorated during the main Orthodox service, liturgy, in all churches of the Russian Orthodox Church. The patriarch is de jure accountable to the Local and Bishops' Councils: he is the "first among equals" of bishops and governs only the Moscow diocese. De facto, church power is very highly centralized.
The Russian Church was not always headed by a patriarch: he was absent from the baptism of Russia in 988 until 1589 (ruled by the metropolitans of Kiev and Moscow), from 1721 to 1917 (ruled by the "Department of the Orthodox Confession" - the Synod headed by the Chief Procurator) and from 1925 to 1943.
The Holy Synod deals with personnel issues, including the election of new bishops and their transfer from diocese to diocese, as well as the approval of the composition of the so-called patriarchal commissions involved in the canonization of saints, monastic affairs, and so on. It is on behalf of the Synod that the main church reform of Patriarch Kirill is carried out - the disaggregation of the dioceses: the dioceses are divided into smaller ones - it is believed that this way they are easier to manage, and the bishops become closer to the people and to the clergy.
The synod convenes several times a year and consists of a dozen and a half metropolitans and bishops. Two of them - Metropolitan Varsonofy of Saransk and Mordovia, who manages the affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate, and Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, chairman of the Department for External Church Relations - are considered the most influential people in the patriarchate. The head of the Synod is the patriarch.
.png)
Collegiate supreme governing body of the church. It represents all sections of the church people - delegates from the episcopate, white clergy, monks of both sexes and laity. A local council is called to distinguish it from an ecumenical one, at which delegates from all sixteen Orthodox churches of the world should gather to resolve general Orthodox issues (however, an ecumenical council has not been held since the 14th century). It was believed (and was enshrined in the charter of the church) that it was the local councils that held the highest power in the ROC, in fact, over the past century, the council was convened only for the election of a new patriarch. This practice was finally legalized in the new edition of the charter of the Russian Orthodox Church, adopted in February 2013.
The difference is not just formal: the idea of the Local Council is that people of different ranks enter the church; although they are not equal to each other, they become a church only together. This idea is usually called catholicity, emphasizing that this is the nature of the Orthodox Church, in contrast to the Catholic one with its rigid hierarchy. Today, this idea is less and less popular.
.png)
Congress of all bishops of the Russian Church, which takes place at least once every four years. It is the Bishops' Council that decides all the main church issues. During the three years of Patriarchy of Kirill, the number of bishops increased by about a third - today there are about 300 of them. The work of the council begins with the report of the patriarch - this is always the most complete (including statistical) information about the state of affairs in the church. At the meetings, except for the bishops and a narrow circle of employees of the patriarchate, no one is present.
A new advisory body, the creation of which has become one of the symbols of the reforms of Patriarch Kirill. As planned, it is extremely democratic: it includes experts from various areas of church life - bishops, priests and laity. There are even some women. It consists of a presidium and 13 thematic commissions. In the Inter-Council Presence, draft documents are prepared, which are then discussed in the public domain (including in a special community in LiveJournal).
During the four years of work, the loudest discussions flared up around documents on the Church Slavonic and Russian languages of worship and the provision on monasticism, which encroached on the organization of the life of monastic communities.
A new, rather mysterious body of church administration was created in 2011 during the reforms of Patriarch Kirill. This is a kind of church cabinet of ministers: it includes all the heads of synodal departments, committees and commissions, and the patriarch heads the All-Russian Central Council. The only body of higher church administration (except for the Local Council), in which the laity take part. No one is allowed to attend the meetings of the ACC, except for the members of the council, its decisions are never published and are strictly classified, you can learn at least something about the ACC only from the official news on the website of the patriarchate. The only public decision of the ACC was a statement after the announcement of the verdict by Pussy Riot, in which the church distanced itself from the court's decision.
The Church has its own judicial system, it consists of courts of three instances: the Diocesan Court, the General Church Court and the Court of the Bishops' Council. It deals with issues that are not within the competence of secular justice, that is, it determines whether the misconduct of the priest entails canonical consequences. So, a priest, even by negligence who committed a murder (for example, in an accident), can be acquitted by a secular court, but he will have to remove his rank. However, in most cases, the case does not reach the court: the ruling bishop applies bans (punishments) to the clergy. But if the priest does not agree with the punishment, he can apply to the General Church Court. It is not known how these courts proceed: the sessions are always closed, the proceedings and the arguments of the parties, as a rule, are not made public, although the decisions are always published. Often, in a lawsuit between a bishop and a priest, the court takes the side of the priest.
Under Alexy II, he headed the Department of Affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate, was the main rival of Metropolitan Kirill in the election of the patriarch. There are rumors that the Presidential Administration was betting on Kliment and that his connections in circles close to Putin remain. After the defeat, he received the management of the publishing council of the patriarchate. Under him, a mandatory stamp of the publishing council was introduced for books sold in church shops and through church distribution networks. That is, de facto censorship was introduced, moreover, paid, as publishers pay the council to review their books.
Church Ministry of Finance under the leadership of Bishop Tikhon (Zaitsev) of Podolsky; absolutely opaque institution. Tikhon is known for having created a system of fee schedules that churches pay to the patriarchy depending on their status. But the main brainchild of the bishop is the so-called "200 churches" program for the shock construction of two hundred churches in Moscow. Eight of them have already been built, and 15 more are in the immediate plans. Under this program, the former first deputy mayor of Moscow, Vladimir Resin, was appointed adviser to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia on construction issues.
In fact - the Ministry of Special Theological Education: in charge of theological seminaries and academies. The educational committee is headed by Archbishop Eugene of Vereya (Reshetnikov), rector of the Moscow Theological Academy. The Committee is trying to negotiate with the state on the accreditation of theological schools as universities and the transition to the Bologna system - the process is not easy. A recent internal church inspection showed that out of 36 seminaries, only 6 are able to become full-fledged universities. At the same time, Patriarch Kirill, having come to power, forbade the ordaining of candidates who had not graduated from the seminary. Also in the ROC there are several universities for the laity. The most famous of them is St. Tikhon Humanitarian University, where they study to become philologists, historians, theologians, sociologists, art critics, teachers, etc.
For 19 years he worked in the department of Metropolitan Kirill, and before that - with Metropolitan Pitirim in the publishing department. He was mainly engaged in inter-Christian relations and ecumenism, regularly went on business trips abroad and was well received in the most diverse church and political circles of the world. In 2009, after zealously participating in the election campaign of Patriarch Kirill, he received a new synodal department at his disposal - for relations between the church and society. Many expected that Chaplin would immediately be made a bishop, but this did not happen even after 4 years. Chaplin patronizes various public and church-public groups, ranging from the Union of Orthodox Women to bikers. Regularly makes scandalous statements in the media.
The business manager is one of the most status positions in the Russian Orthodox Church. Two patriarchs - Pimen and Alexy II - and one head of an autonomous church - Metropolitan of Kyiv Vladimir (Sabodan) - were before their election managing affairs. However, the position did not help the previous manager, Metropolitan Kliment, to take the patriarchal chair. Today, the Department of Affairs is headed by Metropolitan Varsonofy of Saransk and Mordovia, and Archimandrite Savva (Tutunov), whom journalists call the inquisitor, has become his deputy and head of the control and analytical service. It is in the department of Father Savva that denunciations and signals about troubles in the parishes flock. The news that a delegation led by the archimandrite is coming to the diocese causes awe in the localities. Archimandrite Savva grew up in Paris, studied mathematics at the University of Paris-South and was tonsured a monk. Then he came to Russia to study at the theological academy, was noticed and by the age of 34 made a rapid church career. Included in the closest circle of assistants to the patriarch in managing dioceses and preparing documents regulating the management of the church.
Chief in the Russian Orthodox Church for charity. Back in the 1990s, he led social work in the Moscow diocese, created a sisterhood, a school of sisters of mercy. He was rector of the Church of the Holy Tsarevich Dimitri at the 1st City Hospital. Under Cyril, he became a bishop and headed the Synodal Department for Charity and Social Service. It manages church hospitals, almshouses, drug assistance programs and much more. His department became famous during the fires of 2010, when the Moscow headquarters for collecting assistance to fire victims and volunteers who worked on extinguishing was deployed at its base.
He heads the Synodal Information Department (SINFO), a cross between the press service of the church (the patriarch has a personal press service) and the Presidential Administration. Legoyda is the only "jacket" in the Supreme Church Council and among the leaders of the synodal departments (this is how the laity who have wormed their way into high church positions are called in the church). Before heading SINFO, he worked as the head of the department of international journalism at MGIMO and published the Orthodox glossy magazine Foma for more than 10 years. SINFO is engaged in church PR and prepares media and blog monitoring especially for the patriarch. In addition, Legoyda's department conducts trainings in the regions for church journalists and workers of diocesan press services.
Metropolitan Hilarion is considered one of the closest to Patriarch Kirill and influential bishops. He comes from an intelligent Moscow family, studied at the Moscow Conservatory, the Theological Academy, and trained at Oxford. Theologian, TV presenter, head of the General Church postgraduate and doctoral studies, composer: the Synodal Choir founded by him (the head is a school friend of the Metropolitan) performs his works all over the world. Headed by Hilarion, the DECR is the "church ministry of foreign affairs", which deals with contacts with other Orthodox and Christian churches, as well as interreligious relations. It has always been led by the most ambitious and famous bishops. The future Patriarch Kirill headed the DECR for 20 years - from 1989 to 2009.
Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) abbot of the Sretensky Monastery |
In large cities plays a significant role in church life. Part of this intelligentsia are members or children of members of illegal church communities that existed in Soviet times. In many ways, it is they who ensure the continuity of traditional forms of church life. Orthodox St. Tikhon University, one of the largest Orthodox educational institutions in the world, was founded in the early 1990s by one of these intellectual circles. But today the intelligentsia consistently criticizes the de facto official ideology that can be called Orthodox-patriotic. The church intelligentsia feels excluded and unclaimed, although some of its representatives work in the Inter-Council Presence.
Rector of the Church of Sophia the Wisdom of God on Sofiyskaya Embankment, opposite the Kremlin. Once he started as an altar boy with Alexander Men, then he became the spiritual child of the famous elder John Krestyankin; for several years he was the rector of a village church in the Kursk region, where the Moscow intelligentsia went to see him. He gained fame as the confessor of Svetlana Medvedeva, who, long before becoming the first lady, began to go to the St. Sophia Church. Actress Ekaterina Vasilyeva works as a warden in Father Vladimir's parish, and Dmitry Vasilyeva and playwright Mikhail Roshchin's son serves as a priest in another church, where Volgin is also listed as rector. One of the most zealous parishioners is Ivan Okhlobystin's wife Oksana with children. Despite the bohemian composition of the parish, Archpriest Vladimir Volgin is reputed to be almost the most strict spiritual father in Moscow. His parish is full of large families.
One of the most influential white priests (not monks) in the Russian Church. Very popular among the flock: collections of his sermons in the form of books, audio and video recordings have been distributed in millions of copies since the 1990s. One of the most popular Orthodox commentators in the media. He maintains his own video blog and broadcast on the Orthodox TV channel Spas. One of the main exponents of the Orthodox-patriotic ideology. Under Patriarch Alexy, Archpriest Demetrius was jokingly called the “rector of all Moscow,” because he was the rector of eight churches at the same time. He also delivered a farewell speech at the funeral service for Patriarch Alexy. Under Cyril, one of the large churches - St. Nicholas in Zayaitsky - was taken away from him, and in March 2013 he was relieved of his post as chairman of the Synodal Department for Relations with the Armed Forces, which he led from its very foundation in 2000, being responsible for introducing the institution of chaplains into the army . The main fighter against abortion and contraception; he is proud that his parish has a birth rate “like in Bangladesh”.
The parishioners of the Church of St. Nicholas on Bersenevka, which is located opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, between the House on the Embankment and Red October, created a new militaristic Orthodox style. Strong men in berets and T-shirts "Orthodoxy or Death". Extreme conservatives oppose TINs, biometric passports, juvenile justice and contemporary art. Non-canonized saints are venerated, including Yevgeny Rodionov, a soldier who died in Chechnya.
Church budgets at all levels are supported by donations from philanthropists. This is the most closed side of church life.
Major (and public) church sponsors
The owner of the company "Your financial trustee" and the agricultural holding "Russian milk". He sponsors the construction of churches, exhibitions of icon painting, etc. He forces employees to attend courses in Orthodox culture, ordered all married and married workers to get married. He consecrated a chapel on the territory of his enterprise in honor of Ivan the Terrible, who was not canonized in the Russian Church and is not going to.
The President of Russian Railways is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the St. Andrew the First-Called Foundation (FAP), which financed the bringing to Russia of the relics of the Holy Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, the right hand of John the Baptist, the relics of the Apostle Luke and the belt of the Most Holy Theotokos. The FAP also pays for VIP trips to Jerusalem for the Holy Fire, the program for the revival of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent in Moscow, and several churches in the name of St. Alexander Nevsky on the borders of Russia were built with its funds.
Founder of the investment fund Marshall Capital and the main minority shareholder of Rostelecom. The Foundation of St. Basil the Great, created by him, finances churches in Moscow and Moscow Region, the restoration of monasteries, and paid for the repair of the DECR building. The main brainchild of the foundation is the Basil the Great Gymnasium, an elite educational institution in the village of Zaitsevo near Moscow, the cost of education in which is 450 thousand rubles a year.
Vadim Yakunin and Leonid Sevastyanov |
The chairman of the board of directors of the pharmaceutical company "Protek" and a member of the board of directors of this OJSC founded the Foundation of St. Gregory the Theologian. The foundation maintains a synodal choir, a general church graduate school, finances some DECR projects (mainly Metropolitan Hilarion's trips abroad), organizes exhibitions of icons in different countries. On the balance of the fund - an Orthodox gymnasium in Murom and a program for the revival of the shrines of Rostov the Great.
Previously unknown to the church community, young people who use radical forms of public demonstrations (performances, actions) to “defend Orthodoxy”. Some priests, including Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, are very supportive of aggressive activism. And even the raids on the office of the Yabloko party and the Darwin Museum did not arouse unequivocal condemnation from the official church authorities. The leader of the activists is Dmitry "Enteo" Tsorionov.
In the 1990s - early 2000s, he was the brightest and most successful church missionary, traveled with lectures on Orthodoxy throughout the country, organized disputes, and participated in talk shows on television. He wrote several theological works, in particular - on the exposure of the teachings of the Roerichs. He has been teaching at the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University for more than 15 years, and there is usually nowhere to sit at his lectures. In the winter of 2008–2009, he actively agitated for the election of Metropolitan Kirill as patriarch, wrote revealing articles about his main rival in the elections, Metropolitan Clement. For this, after his election, the patriarch awarded him the honorary rank of protodeacon and instructed him to write a textbook "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture" for grades 4-5 of schools. It is Kuraev's textbook that is recommended by the Ministry of Education as the main textbook for the OPK course. However, in 2012, the protodeacon began to increasingly disagree with the position of church officials. In particular, immediately after Pussy Riot's performance at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, he urged them to "feed them pancakes" and let them go in peace; during the trial he repeatedly reminded of mercy. After that, they began to talk about the fact that Kuraev fell out of favor. His presence in the media has declined significantly, but the LiveJournal blog remains the clergyman's most popular blog.
Rector of the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity in Khokhly. He is considered one of the leaders of church liberals (despite the traditional and even conservative theological views). This is partly due to the composition of the parish: intellectuals, artists, musicians. But in many ways - with the speeches of Father Alexy in the media. In 2011, he published on the website "Orthodoxy and the World" the text "Silent Church" about the priority of the moral principle in the relationship of the church with the people and the state, predicting the problems that the church faced in the following years. This article was followed by a discussion about the place of the intelligentsia in the church. The main opponent of Father Alexy was Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, who claims that the intelligentsia are the Evangelical Pharisees.
Why and what is the MP heresy and false church?
Let's start with the most important thing - the name. The Russian Orthodox Church has never existed in history. Until 1917, there was the Russian Church (it was fully called the Greek-Russian Local Orthodox Eastern Church). Approximately 100 (even more) years before the Revolution there was no Patriarch in Russia. Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovich offered himself as a Patriarch (and at the end of history it will be so that our Tsar will also be the Head of the Russian Church) - however, the then Churchmen (among them future heresiarchs) refused to do this.
There are two main main Heresies in the ROC MP:
1. Name theomachism.
2. Sergianism. With the justification of the Soviet Power and Tyrant-Stalin.
There are ecclesiastical heresies (from the Greek word εκλεσσια - church, as an assembly of Believers):
3. Violation of the dogma of the infallibility of the Church
4. ecumenism, mechanically connecting all heretical gatherings together
5. ecumenism, dividing the Church into various branches, in which truth and grace fragmented into parts are allegedly stored
6. church modernism and renovationism
7. calendar heresy or new calendarism (mainly for foreign "MP" parishes)
8. The heresy of automatism, which confesses that the grace of God passes through the hierarchs of the church automatically, regardless of their heresies, delusions, impiety and serious sins
9. The heresy of kingship, perverting the teaching of the Church about the royal service
10. The heresy of king-worship, attributing to the king a non-existent redemption of his people
11. The heresy of the neo-Expectants, proclaiming the unity of Christians with the sons of the synagogue and borrowing some ideas from apostate Judaism
12. The heresy of Judaism, proclaiming the Jews to be the culprits of all the troubles of the Russian people and professing zoological anti-Semitism
13. The heresy of Russian nationalism, which puts the nation higher and more important than the Church
14. The heresy of patriotism, which puts the earthly fatherland and its interests above the Church and the heavenly Fatherland
15. The heresy of practical concelebrations with heretics condemned by the Church and the "theological" justification of these concelebrations
There are private opinions and heresies of certain false bishops and false priests of this false church:
anti-apocalypticism, assuring that one should not read and think about the events of the end of this world, because there is still a lot of time before these events;
false apocalypse, claiming that the TIN and barcodes are the seal of the beast and that we must zealously fight against these phenomena;
false catholicity, which considers that the catholicity of the Church is manifested in the assemblies of bishops or the hierarchy and laity;
the heresy of sophianism;
the heresy of "Archpriest" A. Menya;
the heresies of Professor MDA Osipov;
the heresy of the "priest" G. Kochetkov;
various opinions of protestant heretics, gnostics, agnostics and other false teachers
The grave acts of the "hierarchs" of the "MP" include:
cooperation with special agencies of a godless state and subordination to them as agents;
sale of sacraments and ceremonies for money;
the sin of simony (ordaining for a bribe) and ordination through the indication of godless authorities;
justification by some "bishops" and "blessing" of the activities of psychics and folk "healers (i.e. sorcerers). These included, for example, John Snych;
youth and pseudo-old age;
planting ritual belief;
justification of the Old Believer schism;
allowing Roman Catholics to receive communion in MP churches, commemorating the Pope of Rome at services, allowing Catholic priests and other heretics to serve;
false canonization of non-holy persons;
worship of demonic manifestations under the guise of massive myrrh-streaming icons and photographs;
false exorcism;
incomplete immersion at baptism;
the lack of proper preaching that teaches repentance and salvation;
approval and dissemination of heretical literature;
occupation by hierarchs of worldly business, including vodka, tobacco, oil, real estate, diamonds and jewelry;
trade in things in temples;
sodomy and ritual sodomy among bishops, in monasteries and among the white "clergy";
commemoration of the health and repose of Soviet and other godless leaders;
trampling the images of crosses and the use of false symbols in temples (pentagram, hexagram, etc.).
So, as you can see, the ROC MP has a huge list of track records. There is a certain note to paragraphs 12-14, although in principle everything should be immediately clear here.
We also recommend
Productive and reproductive thinking
Reasonable egoism - what is the theory of reasonable egoism?
Boris Nikolaevich Yeltsin, the first President of Russia
Underground fights. Underground kings. What is “fighting not for the masses”? Where can you fight for money?
Yakov Pavlov and Other Heroes of Stalingrad You Need to Know
Survive an accident at sea in a dream - in reality experience a new love
Loading...