Copyrighted material. For private use only.

Symphonia emerging in Russia?

Vladimir Putin has turned over a new page in the dramatic history of church-state relations in Russia. A live broadcast on Russian television (RTR) of the Christmas liturgy from the cathedral of Christ the Savior on the night of 8 January showed a surprising side of the image of the new Russian leader. As Nikolai Derzhavin, the announcer for the service who is an advisor for Patriarch Alexis II, authoritatively informed viewers, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a parishioner of the church of the Life-giving Trinity on Sparrow Hills (his Moscow apartment is located not far from this church). He also worshipped there, in "his" parish, on Christmas Eve. But, the announcer continued, Vladimir Vladimirovich had come to the cathedral of Christ the Savior as a pious Orthodox Christian in order to worship with His Holiness, the patriarch, and, we may add, to seek his primatial blessing for the sovereign task of administering the Russian state. Actually we became witnesses of the way Vladimir Putin deftly, without any uneasiness in movements, received the patriarch's blessing, joining his hands.  Alexis II willingly blessed the highly placed parishioner and they kissed three times in honor of the great holiday.

While I respect and to a certain extent share the religious sentiments of the acting president, I cannot fail to note that his predecessors conducted themselves at the liturgies which their office required them to attend in quite different ways. They stood with an embarrassed look in an alcove set up in front of the iconostasis and invariably held burning candles in their hands. Because of this obligatory characteristic, among church folk the first generation of postsoviet leaders got the nickname "candleholders." The "candleholders" greeted the patriarch with a firm party handshake, but they were somehow hesitant in making the sign of the cross. It is a different affair for Vladimir Vladimirovich: no candles and no embarassment; a confident sign of the cross and firm genuflection; in it all, one senses what is called "being churched."

Evidently the acting president has chosen decisively to link his fate with the patriarch. Soon after being named to the post of prime minister he became a frequent guest at Chisty Lane (the working residence of Alexis II) and once he even went to the Saint Sergius Holy Trinity lavra specifically for a meeting with the patriarch.  In the terse reports about these meetings, the press service of the head of the government and the communications service of the Moscow patriarchate never disclosed the contents of the conversations. The meetings were "intensely personal."  Vladimir Putin also began his service to Russia in the capacity as head of the government with the church's blessing.  On the morning of 31 December of last year the patriarch was urgently summoned to the Kremlin where he was present for the ceremony of the transfer of presidential authority.

We note that the head of the Russian Orthodox church also is quite kindly disposed toward Vladimir Putin. This is confirmed by his active calls "to support Vladimir Vladimirovich in prayer" which resounded from the pulpit of the cathedral of Christ the Savior on 31 December and the unqualified approval of the "antiterrorist operation" in Chechnia.  At the Christmas celebration in the Kremlin on 8 January we heard for the first time from the lips of the Russian primate, who was surrounded by small children, such rare words as "Bandits must be destroyed."  And can't the heightened attention to power structures be explained by the convergence of the priorities of the head of the government and the head of the church? In the last two months the patriarch has met with the heads of various power ministries six (!) times. At the same time, the relations of Alexis II with one of the chief opponents of Vladimir Putin, Yury Luzhkov, have cooled considerably. The capital's mayor, who built the cathedral of Christ the Savior but remained alas a "candleholder," was overtly ignored by the patriarch, both at the jubilee meeting of the Moscow diocese and the Christmas liturgy.

Among non-Orthodox Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists, the demonstrative support of the candidate for only one of the heads of the many religious confessions of Russia evokes only alarm. The highest political leaders on the federal level must show special care in displaying their religious and other personal feelings.

Some think that a genuine intellectual always must be in opposition to the existing authorities. Surely this applies to a true minister of the church to an even greater degree. In church language there even is a special term:  "to bring to repentance." It refers to the patriarch's duty to denounce the secular authority when it makes decisions that are immoral and dangerous for society. The twentieth century testifies that the "symphonia" of the church and the state in the present political conditions is impossible. It is destructive for both sides. And its extremely stormy development once again forces one to worry for the fate of the cathedral of Christ the Savior, which was built and demolished precisely as a symbol of this "symphonia." (tr. by PDS)

Translator's note:  "Symphonia" names the pattern of the relationship between state and church that has traditionally characterized eastern Orthodox Christianity. That pattern was established by the Roman emperor Constantine, when he embraced Christianity personally and summoned the bishops into council to establish orthodox doctrine that would be enforced by civil authority. Subsequently in the Byzantine and Russian empires it designated the intimate relations between church and state that usually entailed the state's manipulation of the church to support its imperial sovereign power. The word "sovereign" in the title of the article referring to acting president Putin is the same as the word that was regularly used in imperial times to designate the tsar. The reporter seems to be using words from Russia's autocratic past deliberately and suggestively. PDS

(posted 22 January 2000)

Putin a believer

It was Orthodox Christmas Eve, and Vladimir Putin went straight to the essence of the Christian understanding of the holiday. "Why did Christ come into the world?" he said, apparently speaking without prepared text or a TelePrompTer. "To liberate people from sickness, troubles, from death. In its essence, Christmas is a holiday of hope."

Putin's Jan. 6 remarks were vastly different from the conventional holiday pronouncements by politicians, who usually confine themselves to praising the role of the Orthodox Church in Russian history and in promoting social harmony. But Putin's remarks could have come straight from a sermon.

As the world tries to understand the often-inscrutable acting president, attempting to figure out what exactly he did as a KGB officer in Germany and as assistant mayor in St. Petersburg, at least one of his personal characteristics is becoming clear: He is an active Orthodox Christian with a more than passable knowledge of the faith.

But the prospect of having, for the first time since the tsarist era, a practicing member of the country's predominant church as Russia's vastly powerful president has met with a mixed response.

Does it mean that Putin as a leader will be bound by high moral standards? Or does it mean that Orthodoxy will become Russia's official ideology, and that non-Orthodox Russians will be discriminated against?

The first bell rang Dec. 31, the day he became acting president. News reports about the transfer of power in the Kremlin from President Boris Yeltsin to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in the presence of Patriarch Alexy II, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, contained an unusual word, "blessing" - not exactly part of Russian political vocabulary.

Putin specifically asked for Alexy's blessing for the three-month transitional period and received it, news agencies and television reported. Many of Russia's leaders are baptized Christians, but whenever they spoke off the cuff on church matters, their statements were full of terminological mistakes and theological absurdities. Yeltsin enjoyed good relations with the church, but was not publicly pious. A special term even arose for top politicians, nearly all of whom came from the ranks of the Communist Party, who hold candles twice a year on Easter and Christmas at televised patriarchal services. They are called ***podsvechniki,*** or candlesticks.

But as Putin made the sign of the cross and listened attentively during the televised Christmas service in the newly opened Cathedral of Christ the Savior, he did not look like a typical podsvechnik.

Newsweek reported last week that Putin became religious three years ago, after rescuing his two daughters, now aged 13 and 14, from a fire at a dacha near St. Petersburg. Journalist Yevgenia Albats, who co-authored Newsweek's profile of Putin, said in a telephone interview she received the information from "a very close friend of Putin's."

It could not immediately be learned, however, when and where he was baptized. At the Church of the Life-Giving Trinity on the Vorobyovy Hills, where Putin stopped by for half an hour Christmas Eve, people could easily tell Putin was not a podsvechnik. "You can instantly tell if a person is a believer or not," Priest Alexander Antipov, who serves at the church, said in an interview Tuesday. "Putin is a believer." "He was the first politician who asked for the Holy Patriarch's blessing," he said. "If any cause begins with prayer, it is already good. It means that the person has a moral basis in life. Let's hope!"

A prominent Orthodox priest in Moscow, who asked not to be identified, said he had talked with Putin about matters of faith before he became prime minister, and confirmed that he is a "believing Orthodox man."

Priest Maxim Kozlov, dean of Moscow State University's St. Tatyana Chapel, said the fact that Putin is a believer does not necessarily say much about him as a politician. "But it gives us hope that a person, who understands himself as an Orthodox Christian, would refuse to do certain things in politics," Kozlov said. "Unfortunately, we cannot say the same about others. There, money rules everything."

The problem for Putin's image advisers, however, is that what makes Orthodox Christians optimistic may alarm those who are not Orthodox. Putin's frequent appearances together with the patriarch - be it at the Kremlin's New Year's reception or at the Christmas service in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior - are seen as a sign that the close relations between the Russian state and the Orthodox Church, which began under Yeltsin, will only deepen under Putin, to the detriment of other beliefs. The Izvestia newspaper came out last Saturday with a banner headline "It is Ordered to Believe." Next to a picture of Putin during the Christmas church service, there was an article by Valery Kichin, who described himself as an atheist. Kichin wrote that he felt threatened by the country's leaders officially embracing the church.

"Atheists are the majority in our country, but atheism is thrown off the books, as if it is outlawed, and an atheist must feel alien," Kichin wrote. "So does a Moslem, my Protestant neighbor, my Catholic friend and people in a Sinagogue. _ Now they too became a sort of second-class people." Anatoly Pchelintsev, a human rights lawyer and a practicing Baptist, said in an interview this week that although he is inclined to trust a religious person more than a nonreligious one, Putin's public demonstration of his closeness to the Orthodox Church was noticed with alarm by many of the non-Orthodox people whom he spoke with.

"If he is a religious man, it means that he has conscience, and it's good," Pchelintsev said. "But we are a multinational, multi-religious nation, and when he constantly appears in public with the patriarch, it generates a contrary reaction on the part of many. Do we have a secular state or what? What is going to happen tomorrow - are people going to be herded into churches by force?"

Perhaps as a result of his own belief, Putin has been more careful than his predecessors not to alienate Russia's millions of Moslems, particularly during the war against predominantly Moslem Chechnya. He was the first prime minister to receive Russian Moslem leaders in the White House, and stated firmly that Russia was not fighting Islam in Chechnya but only "bandits" and "terrorists."

Announcing the short-lived lull in bombings of Grozny on Jan. 7, Putin tied it not only to Orthodox Christmas, but also to the Moslem holiday of Eid-al-Fatr, known in Russia by its Turkic name, Uraza-Bairam - the end of Ramadan fasting. The holiday, for the first time, received wide coverage in Russian media, including Putin's greetings.

"Russian Moslems react very painfully to the strengthening of Christianity in Russia's public life," said Alexei Malashenko, an expert on Islam with the Moscow Carnegie Center. But Putin, he said, "has behaved more balanced as far as Moslems were concerned than Russia's previous leaders."

(posted 21 January 2000)

Putin's piety worries non-Orthodox

MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian priests and churchgoers disagree over whether Vladimir Putin faithfully adhered to intricate Orthodox rituals during a Christmas liturgy this month. Did he touch his lips and genuflect at the right times? Did he face the proper direction upon entrance and exit?

Yet even the purists aren't questioning why Russia's acting president attended church in the first place, despite his 15 years with the Soviet-era KGB, which mercilessly repressed religion and its followers for decades.

Putin's perceived piety, which should work in his favor in the March presidential elections, reflects the increasingly visible role of the Orthodox Church in Russian politics -- and in reforging Russia's long-lost national identity.

Few Russians will forget the image of Orthodox Patriarch Alexy II, in his imposing gold-and-white cape, presiding over Boris Yeltsin as he resigned and handed over Russia's helm to Putin in a Kremlin ceremony on Dec. 31.

Moscow's mayor has lavished money on rebuilding Orthodox cathedrals; Orthodox Cossacks are serving as auxiliary police and gaining political powers in areas with large Muslim minorities; and the patriarch recently received federally funded bodyguards.

The tendency worries adherents of Russia's other religions, particularly its more than 20 million Muslims, whose brethren in Chechnya have been under Russian fire for months.

But the church's expanding role is welcomed by believers such as Father Alexander, a priest whose mother hid her faith for years from the Soviet authorities.

"We welcome it when politicians come to pray, whatever the reason," Father Alexander said after leading a service in the Holy Trinity Church overlooking Moscow's Sparrow Hills. Putin attended the green-and-white church on Orthodox Christmas on Jan. 7.

It's impossible to gauge how much of Putin's faith is genuine. Some who saw Putin on Christmas say he touched an icon in the wrong place and didn't bow when he was supposed to, but they conceded what he did do was unprecedented for a modern Russian politician.

"It didn't look forced or unnatural" when Putin prayed, Father Alexander said. "Yeltsin was never so smooth."

Even Yeltsin, who was a Communist Party boss and rarely attended church as president, went to Bethlehem to celebrate Orthodox Christmas this year.

"In the holy land, I feel holy myself," he said in Israel.

Yeltsin's religious overtures were often seen as petty politicking. Putin, however, is of a younger generation, one less tainted by the Soviet years.

"It shows that we have reached a new threshold of acceptance, when it's not a surprise when the president goes to church," Father Alexander said.

A 1995 report on Soviet repression says 200,000 people were killed by the Communist regime for religious beliefs -- shot, strangled, even crucified on church gates.

Orthodoxy, the bedrock of Russian society for centuries, suffered massively but maintained the tacit support of some Soviet leaders. It is again the country's dominant faith, and while its leadership is officially apolitical, it has cultivated ties with today's Kremlin.

The Orthodox Church is still struggling to regain the following it enjoyed in czarist times, and lobbied successfully in recent years for a law that restricts "nontraditional" religions, including foreign missionaries.

The church's pro-Russia message is welcome at a time when nationalist sentiment is rising, driven by the Chechen war and souring relations with the West. Many Russians have turned to Orthodoxy to fill the ideological vacuum left by the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

Some, however, fear the church is assuming too great a role in Russian life.

In an article titled "Ordered to Believe," commentator Valery Kichin wrote in the liberal daily Izvestia earlier this month: "Orthodoxy is unconditionally recognized as indisputable, and the concept is more and more identified with the concept of 'Russian."'

"In place of a red (Communist Party) card in your breast pocket you must carry a holy cross," he wrote.

Muslims also feel threatened, and dispute Putin's insistence that the war in Chechnya is targeted not at Islam but at terrorists.

"National patriotism is Putin's banner. If he is elected, the consequences will be very serious for all of Russia's Muslims," said Faud Yusupov, head of the Bait-Allakh Society, a prominent Russian Muslim organization. "Life for Muslims is better than in Soviet times. But there are many things to worry about."

Even today's Communist Party has stripped atheism from its charter and party chief Gennady Zyuganov -- also a presidential candidate -- calls Jesus Christ "the first real communist."

While polls show about two-thirds of Russians call themselves Orthodox, just 2 percent attend church regularly, according to Geraldine Fagan of the independent Keston Institute in Britain.

"The church is trying to increase its public profile regardless of whether they have any real support among the public," she said.

    Copyright 1999 The Associated Press.All rights reserved.

(posted 21 January 2000)

Jewish leader murdered

by Ilia Skakunov
Segodnia, 21 January 2000

"It is not appropriate to speak of murder on the basis of antisemitism in this particular case." This was the assessment yesterday by police officials of the killing of the administrator of the Mountain Jews congregation of the Moscow Choral synagogue, Rakhomin Yukhanov.  His body was discovered on Wednesday morning in his apartment on Severnyi Boulevard. The Segodnia reporter was able to determine that when Yukhanov did not show up for services in the synagogue on Bolshoy Spasoglinishchev Lane two days in a row, members of the Mountain Jews Sephardic congregation of Moscow became concerned and went to his home.

At the doors of the apartment they came across agents of the Otradnoe Department of Internal Affairs and Rakhomin Yukhanov's son, who reported the tragedy that had happened. As it turned out, he was the one who discovered the body of the synagogue administrator. When he was not able to reach his father by phone, the son went to the apartment on Severnyi Boulevard. Nobody opened the door when he rang the bell, although a light could be seen burning in the window. Along with policemen who had been summoned, the son opened the door and found the body of his father. Investigators who arrived came to the conclusion that the death of Rakhomin Yukhanov had happened two days previously from trauma to the skull and brain. Examining the apartment for traces of the murderer, detectives found a knife with a broken handle, a chain with a medallion, a passport, and retirement papers with the name of the apartment resident. However as far as is known they did not manage to find the murder weapon.  Police explained that several small things of little value had disappeared from the residence. This is not surprising.  At the Sephardic congregation the Segodnia reporter was told that their administrator was not a rich man; "it even can be said that he was a poor man."

Incidentally even the police do not consider that the reason for the murder was robbery of the apartment. Investigators lifted a large number of fingerprints from china and things which gave the investigation reason to conclude that several persons had been in the apartment. As far as is known, the detectives have several versions of what happened which they prefer not to make public. Moreover there already are several young suspects whom the police now are actively searching for. (tr. by PDS)

ADMINISTRATOR OF MOUNTAIN JEWS BEATEN TO DEATH
Moskovskii komsomolets, 20 January 2000

The administrator of the Mountain Jews congregation of the Moscow Choral synagogue Rafael Yukhananov was brutally killed yesterday in his apartment on Severny Boulevard.  The head of the elderly man was battered with some heavy object.  The murder seems to be absolutely senseless: nothing was taken from the sixty-eight-year-old Muscovite and the idea that he had connections with the criminal world is absolutely stupid. As MK learned at the State Administration of Internal Affairs of the capital, the body of Yukhananov was found around noon. The day before he had not gone to work and this surprised everyone because the administrator  was renowned for his responsibility. The fears of his colleagues, alas, were justified. By the time the police broke into the apartment the official of the synagogue had been dead several hours. His skull had been crushed.

On initial inspection it seems nothing was taken from the apartment but this will become more precisely established after an inventory of all his things. At the Moscow Choral synagogue which is on Bolshoy Spasoglinishchev Lane everyone is upset by what happened. Here they still remember last year's attack directly within the walls of the sacred refuge upon the director of the Jewish Art Center and they are worried that this represents a new outbreak of antisemitism.

Yukhananov had worked as administrator about a year and had conducted all communal events of the Mountain Jews congregation.  Separate premises for the Mountain Jews already have been built but they still have not moved and they are still occupying a vacant room in the synagogue. Friends recall the deceased administrator as a very even tempered, calm man and they cannot imagine whom he could have crossed paths with.  (tr. by PDS)

(posted 21 January 2000)

Russian monastery confiscated in Jericho

For the second time in the last three years Palestinian authorities have confiscated and turned over to the Moscow patriarchate (MP) property of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR).  In July 1997 the Holy Trinity monastery in Hebron was seized from ROCOR. The monks who were in it and the abbess of the Olivet cloister Mother Juliana were beaten and thrown out onto the street.  On 15 January of this year, Palestinian authorities seized the mission of ROCOR in Jericho suggesting to its inhabitants that they either transfer to the jurisdiction of MP or scatter to the four winds.

They were given a half hour to collect their things. After the personal intervention of American consul John Herbst the Palestinian authorities were forced to allow two nuns who have American citizenship to stay on the grounds.  One of them, Sister Maria (Anastasia Stephanopolous), a sister of a former advisor to President Clinton, George Stephanopolous, declared a hunger strike, demanding an end to the illegal action.  Both nuns still are refusing to leave the mission's building, although Russian representatives, often drunk, are harassing them by all means. Outside the gates of the mission monks and nuns of ROCOR are maintaining round-the-clock watch.

Palestinian sources have reported that Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow personally requested of Arafat that the mission be transferred to MP when they met on Christmas in the Holy Land. At the time of this trip he stayed at the monastery in Hebron which had been seized by the patriarchate. At the time of the confiscation  representatives of MP were staying at Jericho.  Their delegation was led by Archimandrite Feodosy, who personally thanked Yasir Arafat and Palestinian authorities for the transfer of the parcel.

Meanwhile voices of concern have been raised.  The head of the old-style synod of the Greek church in North America, Archbishop Chrisostom, wrote a letter of protest to American Secretary of State Madeline Albright, asking her personally to raise this question in a meeting with Arafat who will soon arrive in Washington.  After the seizure of the monastery at Hebron, because of international protests a Palentinian commission for investigation of the affair was created but it never met.  Arbitrariness reigns on the autonomous Palestinian territory.

Church property in the Holy Land never belonged to MP. It was managed by the Imperial Orthodox Palestinian Society which after the revolution came under the jurisdiction of the synod abroad. After the fall of USSR Patriarch Alexis II created his own Imperial Palestinian Society, retaining even the word "Imperial" in order to give it the appearance of continuity with the prerevolutionary society. On this basis the patriarch of Moscow demanded Russian property in the Holy land be turned over to him. Meanwhile, a member of the bishops' council of ROCOR, Archbishop Mark of Berlin, has arrived in Jericho. Earlier he tried unsuccessfully to recover the Trinity monastery in Hebron for ROCOR.

From the editorial board:  We have published this information on the basis of ROCOR sources, since the Russian Orthodox church (MP) has not presented its version of the event.  (tr. by PDS)

SISTER MARIA'S STATEMENT
My name is Sister Maria (Anastasia) Stephanopoulos. I am a member of the convent of St. Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem,  a community of the R.O.C.A. As an obedience I serve as the Administrator of the  Orthodox School of Bethany, a school for  Palestinian girls ages 4-17. The school was established and has been operated by the sisters of St. Mary Magdalene since 1936. On Saturday morning January 14th I was driving to Tiberius to pick up a boarding student of ours for the next semester. Approximately 11.00am I received call on my mobile phone.

The Chief of our Mission, Fr. Alexis Biron, said that the three people (two monks and one lay person) of our community had been arrested and taken from our property in Jericho. I was not far from Jericho and immediately turned my car around and headed for the Jericho monastery. I and my companion, sister Martha, arrived on the scene. We passed by the gates of the monastery, (green with a large 8 bar cross attached) and I saw a crowd of people as well as  a number of Palestinian soldiers standing in front of the gate. I drove a little past the gate and called Fr. Alexis for instructions on how to proceed. He said try to go to the gate and ask  what is happening. I went and I was pushed back by soldiers guarding the gate. During the struggle I could see through the gate on our property Fr. Theodosius, the Chief of the Mission of the Moscow Patriarchate as well as another MP monk whose name I do not know. I said that I wanted to enter the property but was rebuffed by the soldiers and other plain clothed (Palestinian security) officials at the gate.

After about five minutes the gate reopened enough and I made my way onto the property. I had my mobile phone in my hand and was  describing the scene to a representative of the US Consulate in Jerusalem. As I  entered the property Palestinian soldiers immediately surrounded me and tried to pull and drag me off the property. The US representative was asking if she could speak to one of the Palestinian  officials or soldiers but such a melee was developing as I tried to pull the soldiers off me that the phone was thrown from my hand. I refused  to leave the monastery voluntarily and it took a number of soldiers to eventually drag me outside the gate. Fr. Theodosius of the MP was simply  standing and watching with his arms folded as they dragged me off. Having been thrown outside the gate I sat and refused to leave. Soon our monks were returned from prison and were told to go in and gather their belongings and  then be put in a van and sent to Jerusalem. The Palestinian officials kept badgering me to get in the van and go with the monks. (I had yelled to Sr. Martha to get in the car and return to Bethany School  while I was entering the monastery.)

I absolutely refused to leave the gate entrance. Soldiers tried to drag me away but I first held onto the gate and then onto a waterpipe jutting out of the sidewalk. I was also calling out to the crowd gathered (The monastery is located just off the city center of Jericho) that Fr. Tichon had been arrested and that they were throwing him out of his home. (Fr. Tichon is 87 years old, I believe a Russian emigre who raised a family in Australia and then later in life decided to be a monk.  He has been taking care of the orchards of our monastery in Jericho for at least the last ten years and is very well known among the local populace.) All during this time there were at least 15-20 Palestinian soldiers outside the gate (they eventually brought a squad of women soldiers to carry me away).  I could also see soldiers on the roof tops of the monastery buildings (guns drawn). Eventually the Palestinian officials decided it was more of a problem having me outside the gate so they invited me inside the monastery compound saying; "Please sister, come in you are free to be here.".  At first I just sat inside near the gate resting from all the tumult of the last hour. I also wanted to be near the gate to I could call out in case any people from  our Church of US officials appeared on the scene. At first some soldiers kept close to me but then they just all dispersed to an area about 20 yards away. No MP members were visible at that point. All was relatively quiet and settled down and after about 20 minutes the thought occurred to me to go to the  monastery chapel to pray. The chapel was at the other end of the monastery compound about two football field lengths away. Above the chapel  are Fr. Tichon?s quarters and in front of the chapel is a small flagstone courtyard and then a small citrus fruit orchard. I had been here many times on visits with pilgrims. So I started walking towards the chapel. As I passed the Palestinian officials they appeared a little startled and confused as to what to do, but they had told me that I was free to be there and they allowed me to continue  walking towards the chapel. As I came closer to the chapel I could see  Fr. Theodosius of the MP sitting in a chair not far from the chapel building. I  continued walking and then an MP monk (fairly young, not so tall, well built with an untrimmed reddish beard dressed in black pants and a black shirt) started yelling to me (No, No, Matushka!) and trying to block my way in an aggressive manner. I said I'm just coming to pray, the officials said that I am free to pray. He barricade himself in front of the door of the chapel. I tried to lift the  door handle and then I felt the presence of another much larger bulkier Russian  man. He too was dressed in black pants and shirt. He was balding and had a little beard.  I am not sure if he is a monk or not but he was definitely part of the MP contingent. He pried my fingers off the handle and then both monks pulled me away from the chapel. They kept holding me tight. After a couple of minutes there was some shouting, the monks became real aggressive and tried to hustle me away. I put up a struggle, grabbing the leg of one, interlocking my legs around the other making it difficult for them to carry me off. At times they dragged me across the ground and concrete steps, at others they had me lifted totally off the ground. During all of this time Fr. Theodosius was sitting in the same spot, not a sound or movement. I yelled out to him; ?Is this how we go about healing the division in the Church?" -Silence- The monks dragged me and carried me all the way back to the gate  I had entered in an literally threw me out like a sack of potatoes. Absolutely no Palestinian personnel interfered during this time, either to aid me or assist the MP in their work. This incident is the only time I felt any fear during the whole ordeal. While the monks were carrying me off, most of the time I was in a most painful position.  Arms and legs pulled back, arched back and my apostolnik (head covering) pulled  over my face making it difficult to breath. As it turned out they were hurriedly trying to get me off the property because the US Consul General John Herbst had just arrived on the scene and was trying to enter the gate (not the one I had entered, another one closer to the chapel). After some discussion inside Mr. Herbst came around to the gate where I was and asked me how I was doing. I said sore but OK and explained that I felt it was important to stay here until the situation was resolved and our monks were safely returned to their monastery. He said he understood and after some negotiations I was allowed to return inside  the monastery much to the chagrin of the MP people. I positioned  myself on the sloop directly in front of the chapel door. The red bearded MP monk sat right in front of me blocking the door. After about an hour or so  of this Fr. Theodosius appeared with another heiromonk. The monk in front of me  jumped up and said Fr. Seraphim, your blessing?. Fr. Seraphim just  stood about 10 meters from the door, pulled out a camera and took one shot of the red bearded monk standing in front of the chapel door. Then he and Fr. Theodosius walked briskly into the chapel, absolutely refusing to let me enter. They looked around for five minutes and then turned around and left, locking the  door behind them. I looked down from the window where I had been looking into the chapel to watch them.

I smiled. Facing down was a small laminated icon of St. Archbishop John of San Francisco. Encouraged by the thought that he was with me there in prayer, I settled back down in my spot in front of the chapel door. By this time the sun  had already set an it was getting rather chilly. The monk was in his spot facing me and a few Palestinian soldiers were posted on the grounds surrounding the chapel. The bigger monk came after an hour or so and replaced the one  facing me. Apparently he went inside to eat and warm up. I was not offered food  or warm clothing by the MP personnel. During this time workers came  to pull out the old locks and put new locks on the chapel door. It sounded like  they were changing all the locks on the complex. Eventually the monks  gave up watching me and I was left basically alone in front of the locked chapel in the dark and cold. Around 9.00pm Sr. Xenia of our convent was  allowed to join me. We both spent the night on the cold courtyard floor with a couple of thin blankets and sweaters.

ARCHBISHOP MARK'S STATEMENT
Today, Saturday 2/15 January 2000, Palestinian militia forced their way in to the compound of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Jericho. On this site there are two large houses and a sizeable area planted with fruit trees. The militia arrested our monks and took them away to police headquarters. There they were informed that they would be released by noon, but they were forbidden to return to their home. Meanwhile the U.S. consul telephoned Emile Jajourie, the Minister of Religious Affairs, who in turn contacted Arafat, who stated that our monks could return home. When they arrived, they found that Theodosius, head of the Moscow Patriarchate's Ecclesiastical Mission, was in the house, and he told them that on Tuesday (that is to say, in four days time) they could come and collect their air-conditioner. When our monks cited Arafat's statement, the Moscow clergyman said that he was only carrying out the instructions of his government, and did not admit them to the house. This is yet another example of the Moscow Patriarchate?s very close ties with the state. This is precisely what we are referring to when we speak of "Sergianism", which is one of the most important areas of disagreement between us and the Moscow Patriarchate.

During the Moscow patriarch's visit to the Holy Land (4 - 7 January) for the celebration of the Nativity, officials of the Palestinian administration paid a visit to Abbot Alexis, the Head of our Ecclesiastical Mission, and during the course of a lengthy conversation, insisted that the two parts of the Russian Church must unite. Abbot Alexis explained to them that we are ourselves concerned about church matters, but on the other hand, the Palestinian Authority had in July of 1997 put an end for a long time to any chance of peaceful discussion of these pressing questions when they subjected our monks to vicious beatings, expelled them from the Holy Trinity Monastery in Hebron and forcibly installed the Moscow Patriarchate there. For decades the monks of the Russian Church Abroad had preserved the Holy Trinity Monastery with its principal holy shrine - the Oak of Mamre as well as the garden in Jericho, which contains remains from the first century of Christianity and guarded them against numerous attacks.

This latest attack from the Moscow Patriarchate, which is held firmly in the embrace of the post-Soviet state, is evidence of an  outrageous trampling on human and religious rights by all the participants of these dark deeds, both in Hebron and in Jericho, and testifies to their readiness to violate the delicate status quo in the Holy Land in the most irresponsible manner. Evidently Arafat wishes to go down in world history as a persecutor of the Russian Orthodox Church.

We call upon world public opinion to protest against this iniquity.
 

(posted 19 January 2000)
 

If material is quoted, please give credit to the publication from which it came.
It is not necessary to credit this Web page. If material is transmitted electronically, please include reference to the URL, http://www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/.