Copyrighted material. For private use only.
by Paul Goble
Washington, 14 July 2000 (RFE/RL) -- An official at Turkmenistan's Council for Religious Affairs has acknowledged that his government agency controls the selection, promotion, and dismissal of all Sunni Muslim mullahs and Russian Orthodox clergy in that republic.
Mered Chariyarov, a longtime official at the Turkmenistan Council, this week told a representative of the Keston Institute, an Oxford-based religious rights watchdog organization, that his state body has registered only the Sunni Islam community and Russian Orthodox Church and actively controls the assignment of Muslim mullahs and Christian priests and hierarchs.
That policy leaves Turkmenistan in violation of the principles of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Indeed, it could become the basis for Ashgabat's expulsion from the OSCE. But what is more significant, it also threatens to recreate the Soviet-era division between tightly controlled "official" churches and often radicalized "unofficial" religious activities.
The reemergence of such underground religious groups, particularly among Muslims who had significant experience with them in Soviet times, could contribute to the rise of precisely the kind of fundamentalist challenge to political stability in Central Asia that both regional leaders and many outside powers say they most fear.
As was the case during the Soviet period, both the requirement for registration and the ability to assign religious leaders appear to give the government enormous power over those believers who do register by allowing the regime to pressure religious leaders into cooperating with the state by informing on their congregations or even to place secret police agents in place of genuinely religious people.
But this Soviet approach also had the effect of depriving the mullahs and Christian clergy who participated in such "official" churches of their authority and of driving many of the religious leaders and their followers underground into "unofficial" congregations far beyond the control of the state and often in clear opposition to it.
For no other faith was that trend greater than Islam. On the one hand, Islam does not have a clergy as such. Any believer who can read the Koran can serve as a leader. And on the other, the communist authorities were contemptuous of Islam, an attitude that appears to have made them particularly clumsy in promoting their own "official" version.
Indeed, across Central Asia, followers of what was sometimes called "underground" or the "non-state" version of Islam simultaneously subverted efforts by the communist party authorities to maintain control and provided a popular foundation for the small, pro-independence parties which emerged at the end of the Soviet period.
With the collapse of Soviet power, many expected that this system of official registration and government intervention in the lives of religious groups would end. Some did so because they thought that an end to government interference would be a hallmark of the expected democratic transformations of their countries. Many others had that expectation because they believed the authorities would recognize how counterproductive such involvement was.
But nowhere has the state entirely withdrawn from its involvement with religion. Virtually all post-Soviet governments have retained the Soviet practice of requiring religious groups to register with the authorities in order to operate legally, and most have kept the Soviet-style councils for religious affairs to monitor the situation -- often as in Turkmenistan with the same officials in the same positions.
Until now, however, none of these regimes has admitted to using these councils to control the assignment of religious leaders. It is possible that Turkmenistan is the only one that is now doing so, but both the existence of similar councils in other post-Soviet states and the continuity in structures and personnel in these bodies in many of them suggest that the Turkmenistan admission points to a far larger problem.
Nowhere is this problem likely to be greater than across the predominantly Islamic countries of Central Asia. To the extent that governments there are following Ashgabat's lead, they seem certain to produce precisely what they say they most fear: a religious population increasingly alienated from governments that appear, as did the Soviet regime until the very end, far more powerful and stable than they in fact are.
© 1995-2000 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc., All Rights
Reserved.
by Iraida Semenova
Rossiiskaya Gazeta June 30, 2000 (brief excerpts)
[translation from RIA Novosti, for personal use only]
The Russian Independent Institute of Social and National Studies, acting at the request of the Moscow office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, held a new sociological study of the Russians' mass consciousness in March this year (the previous such study was held in 1995).
Researchers decided to determine the priorities of our compatriots at the turn of the century and their views of the future of Russia. They polled 2,050 respondents aged above 18 in 11 territorial-economic regions of the country, including workers, engineers and technicians, the "humanitarian" intelligentsia, the staff of trades and services, transportation and communications, employees, small and medium businessmen, servicemen and the Interior Ministry staff, urban and rural dwellers, higher school students and jobless. Most of them (82.5%) were Russian, while the rest represented other large ethnic groups living in Russia. . . .
The Czar Is Far Away, and God Is Up High
Only 10% of the respondents do not believe in supernatural forces. A considerable part of the respondents (46.9%) attend church services. A believing Russian of the 21st century is a relatively young man/woman with a general and higher education and a blue-collar profession.
No wonder the number of traditional associations has grown. In particular, the number of associations of the Russian Orthodox Church grew from 3,722 in 1990 to 8,897 in 1999, the number of Moslem associations grew from 914 to 3,072, Buddhist associations from 16 to 167, and Jewish from 34 to 114. However, it would be premature to speak about religious revival now. The trouble is that a considerable part of believers are following the "fashion." Their world outlook is loose and indeterminate, and its contents is not clear-cut.
At the same time, at least a third of Russians believe in witchcraft, signs and omens, and UFOs. They delve into exotic cults and non-traditional confessions preaching pacifism. . . .
(from Johnson's Russia List)
(posted 18 July 2000)
Problems caused by the inadequacy of general attention to the development of theological education
by Nikolai Konstantinov
NG-religii,
12 July 2000
When this issue appears, Patriarch Alexis II will be conducting the divine liturgy in St. Petersburg. He will concelebrate with Metropolitan Vladimir and Bishop Konstantin. It is impossible that the situation in the St. Petersburg ecclesiastical schools, which the two Petersburg hierarchs have been unable to resolve in a spirit of peace and harmony, will not become a topic of investigation and discussion for the patriarch. The time chosen for this discussion could not be better: teachers are on break and students are on vacation so that the opinions of the academic council and the student body cannot be heard. And the position of the metropolitan and rector is well known to the reader of NG-R.
However the future fate of the St. Petersburg Ecclesiastical Academy (SPDA) will not be determined merely by the adoption of pressing decisions. Behind the walls of the seminary building on Obvodny Canal there stands a long tradition of the creation and revival of theological education in Russia. In order to understand just what happened at SPDA and what could happen as a result it is necessary to understand why this happened.
From its very founding in 1721 the Petersburg seminary was oriented at a capital level. The opening to the West with the goal of accepting all the best from Europe and adapting it to the benefit and glory of Russia was the task of both the new capital and the new academy. In 1809 the new charter of the ecclesiastical academy created the theological school in its current form. At the same time it solved (for a time) one of the main problems of ecclesiastical education in Russia--money. The academic interests of the academy were determined very quickly and in the second half of the century produced desired results. Among the ecclesiastical priorities emerged questions connnected with holy tradition, the history of the church, and church law. The high academic potential of the school did not disrupt the spiritual links between academic theology and Christian piety: the academy often was led by future saints and from out of its walls came both saints and new martyrs. Knowledge did not lead to a decline of love.
The elevation of academic scholarship resulted largely because of the academic charter of 1869. The achievement of Christian freedom of creativity against a background of general enlightenment in Russia at the time led to significant results. One and the same names appeared on the lists of the academy's professors and the members of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Their works (N.V. Pokrovsky, V.V. Bolotov, A.A. Dmitrievsky, and others) still are handbooks for many specialists in the areas of the humanities. Theology in the academy always fulfilled its primary purpose; it disclosed the eternal truths of the Gospel in the language of contemporary culture and society. Nobody dared to pose the blasphemous question of which academy's theology was more Orthodox, Moscow's or Petersburg's.
The tradition of ecclesiastical thought was so strong that the closing of the ecclesiastical academy in 1918 was unable to prevent the revival of religious education after its opening in 1946. Teachers and graduates of the prerevolutionary academy constituted the golden fund of the new professorial corporation. While Moscow professor V.I. Talyzin expounded a scholastic view of sacred tradition as the source of doctrine, in Leningrad Archbishop Mikhail Mudiugin and Archpriest Livery Voronov taught in the spirit of the holy fathers the tradition as the changeless self-consciousness of the church. In a relatively short period of time the academic and educational potentials of the academy were restored to the extent possible under the circumstances. And circumstances were such that control of the agents of the Council on Religious Affairs extended to discussion of the lists of admitted students, where priority was given to people coming from the western regions of Ukraine and the Russian heartland. Pastors with a provincial cultural level were deliberately chosen for the cultural capital of Russia. Education at the academy was specifically oriented by the Council on Religious Affairs to what was minimally required and general educational topics were excluded from the curriculum. But despite this, genuine theological and ecclesiastical scholarship gradually developed in 1960-1980, thanks to the attention of the church hierarchy to it.
Specifically the hierarchy created the conditions for the development of education and the output of excellent personnel from the academy, it built up the library, and it encouraged the initiative of talented students by sending them abroad for study. The challenge of ecumenism that the Russian church faced and the challenge of western Christian theology facilitated the development of ecclesiastical thought for which it was necessary to give an Orthodox response. Organizing at the academy regular inter-Christian conferences and seminary, the metropolitans and rectors thereby encouraged the professors and student body to think. But not only that. They themselves were truly church people with a very rich intellect and high culture. This forced the others to strive for the level of the hierarchs. At the same time the academy lived as a united community; everybody knew who had a problem and hastened to help one another.
This helped in overcoming the difficulties that were met on the spiritual path. Just at the time when there existed only three seminaries throughout the whole USSR, the accurate saying arose: "In Odessa they work, in Moscow they pray, and in Leningrad they study." The decade after 1984 was marked by decline in the academic, educational, and spiritual life. Frequent replacement of rectors and the fact that none of them held episcopal rank lowered the authority of the schools in the church and in the city of St. Peter itself. There was an exception in the period from autumn 1986 to spring 1990 when the Leningrad see was headed by the current patriarch, Alexis II. By his authority and complete conformity to the image of a Petersburg archpastor he forced everyone to deal with the ecclesiastical schools, devoting a great deal of attention to them as the former chairman of the academic committee. However, on the whole the decline continued. The work of the departments completely ceased so that nothing was done in developing and teaching the most important disciplines. The death of an expert professor led to the death of the respective academic discipline in the academy. They had no students. Sometimes they were not allowed to have any. Sometimes they themselves did not want it, emphasizing thereby their irreplaceability. In this way, liturgics departed into the other world along with N.D. Uspensky, and dogmatics went with Archpriest Livery Voronov, and canon law went with Archpriest Stefan Dymsha. The leadership of the academy in the 1990s could not cope with the new system of social and economic relations for which it was unprepared and continued as previously to count on the budget of the Moscow patriarchate and the patronage of Petersburg bishops. However the transfer of the bishop's residence from the stuffy academic halls to the mansion on Kamenyi Island (1988) and later the candle factory, bakery, and chancellery (1992-1996) removed the academy from the center of diocesan life. Less and less the academy was drawn into resolution of diocesan questions. The practicality of basic parish and diocesan needs crowded aside concern for ecclesiastical education.
Metropolitan Ioann Snychev (r. 1990-1995) visited the academy rather often, since he was a pastor by vocation. However the primitiveness of his theological and academic views and the doubtfulness of a number of his social views made his concern about ecclesiastical schools too burdensome. In everything that the metropolitan did there appeared a shortage of real education and of the Petersburg culture. His replacement in 1996, Metropolitan Vladimir, was an enlightened archpastor. His service at the Jerusalem mission and in foreign dioceses permitted one to hope that he would meet the requirements of the Petersburg church. However within the first year of Metropolitan Vladimir's administration it became clear that his priorities were material interests and personal welfare. He never went to the academy more than twice a year. He almost never served the liturgy, even on the patronal day of the academy. He went to the more well-to-do parishes.
But it was during his administration that a new rector appeared whom, it turned out, the academy did not need. On 17 June 1996 Konstantin Gorianov, the former rector of the Minsk ecclesiastical academy and seminary, was named bishop of Tikhvinsk, a vicar of the St. Petersburg metropolitinate, and rector of SPDA.
From the start the initiative of the new rector produced a great deal. Right away money for cosmetic repair and strengthening of the foundation of the building was found. Young teachers were hired, which had not happened since 1990. Many were impressed by the rector's adherence to principle when he defended teachers and students with whom, for unclear reasons, Metropolitan Vladimir was displeased, demanding their expulsion. The rector welcomed initiatives for conducting conferences and making contacts with secular academic and scientific institutions. He, a graduate of the Moscow ecclesiastical academy, was received by Petersburg with open arms and entrusted with the fate of their academy. Even one of his incidental statements, "We will see where the Moscow traditions are better and where the Petersburg ones are, and where they are simply habits covered by traditions," was taken as normal. Since there had not been any "revolutions" then the Petersburg traditions were fine. Nobody paid any attention to the profound dissatisfaction with its rector and his associates that the Minsk academy had demonstrated.
There was a characteristic episode that happened in 1999. One of the bishop's subdeacons, who had been planning to become a monk, fell in love and decided to marry a student of the choral department. The rector's unhappiness knew no limits. A series of conversations was held with both of them where the rector unsuccessfully tried to dissuade them from marriage. Love proved stronger than threats. Then came the "brutal revenge." The student, who was amazingly talented and even wrote poetry, was dismissed as a subdeacon. He even was evicted from the elite dormitory and moved with his things to the stuffy seminary rooms. Even more befell his fiancee, the "seductress." The rector simply did not bestow on her the diploma upon completion of the seminary; he grabbed it and hid it in a desk. The fellow was forced to retrieve the documents.
Earlier there has been cases when granting of diplomas to several students who had been disciplined really was postponed for a year until receipt of evaluations from their new places of ministry. But this was done only upon decision of the academic council.
Also amazing was the passivity of the rector in the resolution of the complex question of the old building of the academy (Obvodny Canal, no. 7). Back in 1993 the late mayor of Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, had signed an order for the transfer of its former building to the academy. A gymnasium of the ministry of education was located in the building. The ministry quickly protested the order to arbitration court, claiming it was federal and not municipal property. Since then there have been more than thirty arbitration cases with quite equivocal results. Delay in the transfer of the building has been imposed by the highest authorities. In 1996 the matter of the transfer of the building in 2000 was decreed by the vice prime minister Oleg Sysuev himself. And a new date of 2003 decreed by vice premier Valentina Matvienko was sabotaged by the leadership of the ministry and the gymnasium. In exchange for this building from 1819 which is in need of capital repair, they demanded not merely a building of equivalent value but one with completely new infrastructure.
All this time the rector merely sent letters to high offices and received formal replies. No concerted work for getting the building by way of intensive contacts with influential people was done. One can understand the rector: it is hard to get the building and even harder to get it up to proper form. But when into the old building which was intended for the seminary only they squeeze the academy, seminary, choral, and icon painting classes, and add a dormitory, museum, and department for foreign students, this becomes a severe impediment to the development of education and theological scholarship.
The problems of the students and teachers built up and were not settled; nobody wanted to explain. The problem was not just the meagreness of finances or support. The wish to economize in everything could be understood but nobody was in any hurry to take into account the opinions and desires of these people. The teachers were deprived of their lounge in the building of the academic dormitory; after redecoration the quarters of the rector appeared there. The obvious remoteness of many led to a mood of apathy and many teachers frankly said that it had become unpleasant in the academy. The academy's church was deserted. The rector served with only two or three priests. Everybody saw this and it also affected everybody.
All of this produced confusion but it was tolerated. The rector actually had raised the academy to a new level. Many teachers genuinely talked up the new rector in the city of the Neva, indicating his contacts with the cultural and academic societies. Two international conferences, on church archaeology (November 1998) and a consultation on Orthodox theological schools (January 1999), the all-Russian church history conference (April 2000), an agreement on artistic cooperation with the Hermitage (1998), and the preparation for such agreements with the Russian and Ethnography museums--all of these created new mechanisms for interactions between secular and ecclesiastical scholarship. This became possible only because the academy was trusted as a genuine place of theological knowledge and an equally valuable partner in cultural and academic cooperation.
Especially worthy of note is the creation of the museum of church archaeology in 1998, a real base for establishing normal contacts between priests and museum workers. It is no secret that the conflict over former church valuables which today are kept by the state has produced tensions in several places. The academic museum, as the place where a number of meetings occurred with museum workers on related questions, was a distinctive territory of peace: museum workers got used to the needs of the church and priests agreed with the needs of science. The collection itself, which was assembled in the shortest possible time, received high praise from the patriarch in 1999. We will not say that Bishop Konstantin did not participate at all in this; his participation was substantial. But in the last year the rector did not give a single kopeck for the development of the museum. All the expenses for the organization or the museum and conferences were borne by the initiators, including those whom the rector did not hesitate to expel from the academy after the uproar with the shouts of "unworthy."
It was against the background of these ambiguous events and processes that the conflict arose over the consecration of a person whom neither students nor teachers wanted to see as a pastor of Christ's flock.
But is this just a matter regarding Bishop Konstantin? Obviously not. It is not even just a matter of those problems which arose between the rector, on one hand, and the professorial corporation and the students, on the other. It has to do with the attitude toward theological education in the Russian church in general and in the St. Petersburg schools in particular.
Theological education has not been a priority in church life in the past ten years. Just like culture in the government, it has been financed on the principle of leftovers. Since 1997 the budget of the academy has not grown a bit, and the notorious 17 August has intervened. Most of the funds are being used for restoring churches and working out plans for evangelism. There is nobody who is trying to resolve the material problems of theological education. Several provincial ecclesiastical institutes have been deprived entirely of a stable budget; they make do with what the rector gets. But even this could be tolerated.
Several years ago at the Saint Sergius Holy Trinity lavra there was a conference of rectors of Orthodox ecclesiastical schools. At first the patriarch was expected at the opening and then the chief of staff of the Moscow patriarchate, Metropolitan Sergius of Solnechnogorsk; in the end the conference was opened by the chairman of the academic committee, Bishop Evgeny of Vereisk, the rector of the Moscow academy. Evidently the leadership of the church had more important business. Such an attitude spreads to associates. There are more important matters than the schools.
In Russia there are two academies, in Sergeev Posad and Petersburg. While the patriarch visits the former several times a year, he has been at the Petersburg school only twice in the time of his patriarchate. In June 1990, when he was taking leave of the Leningrad see, he granted diplomas to the graduates. In July 1999 he visited the vacant building of the academy; the students were on vacation and teachers on break. Despite frequent promises of meeting with the student body and the professorial corporation, relayed through the rector, they still have not taken place. It was noted long ago that the patriarch prefers graduates of the Moscow academy as candidates for diocesan sees. The conclusion which is very often spoken aloud is that the patriarch is an advocate of solid Orthodoxy while the teachers who arrived at the Petersburg schools in 1946 were experiencing the enticements of renovationism. This spirit is still alive on Obvodny Canal. This conclusion is entwined with the claim of several Ukrainian bishops that the majority of Ukrainian graduates of the Leningrad academy joined the Uniates. The schools had trained personnel for the schismatics. Accusations of ecumenism have become commonplace for Petersburg professors; they simply pay no attention to them. Negative public opinion regarding SPDA has been artificially created and an atmosphere of covert isolation has grown up. And many people have weakly surrendered to this opinion. Bishop Konstantin is no exception, who has sometimes spoken out about the age-long conflict between liberals and conservatives on the banks of the Neva. But this artificial division never has existed in the tradition of the Petersburg academy where they commune from Christ's single chalice. There have been various opinions, but only one church.
In the circumstances of the absence of proper church control over the actions of Bishop Konstantin as rector this situation of conflict has emerged. The patriarch has not exercised his administrative leadership and the metropolitan, who has canonical oversight, is either uninterested or is being intentionally excluded from academic affairs by the rector. The bishop has insisted on dealing with the situation as he sees fit. There also is another reason, namely the lack of substantial development in the area of canon law. If it had been clearly and openly determined by the hierarchy whether the community could pronounce "unworthy" and whether the ordination should be cancelled after such statements, then if the ordination was conducted despite such statements the conflict would not have gone as far. Now many sincerely doubt whether the ordination was valid.
The conflict has overflowed the borders of the academy. It is being
discussed in the university and at the Hermitage and in scientific institutions.
The academic and cultural image of the academy has been shattered and confidence
in the rector in these circles has been undermined. Everything that was
done in four years could crumble. It will be necessary to begin over again.
At the present time there are in Petersburg other higher educational institutions
with a theological and Christian orientation, even though they are weak
(The Religious Philosophical School, the Institute of Theology and Philosophy,
the Russian Christian Humanities Institute). At the same time the
state university has created a state curriculum in the area of theology
and it plans to open a theology department. All of this could lead to the
neglect of an initiative in the area of theological education and academic
ecclesiastical training at the ecclesiastical academy. The conflict has
created tension not only between rector and students, but also between
teachers and rector, with whom the academic council has refused to discuss
the situation that has arisen. To what this intense distrust could lead
God alone knows. But it is obvious that a conversation that has not begun
has not concluded. All indications are that the conflict can be resolved
only from above because it has not been resolved from below. There can
be just one outcome here: the renewal in the academy of genuine community
and openness, recognizing the distinctiveness of the Petersburg church
culture which requires appropriate hierarchs. May peace in the Petersburg
ecclesiastical schools serve the good of the Russian church and the good
of St. Petersburg. (tr. by PDS)
TEACHER AND STUDENT EXPELLED FROM ACADEMY
Reason for the student "unworthy" was extortion of money and things by monastic deacon Ignaty Tarasov
by Maksim Shevchenko
NG-religii,
28 June 2000
The situation in St. Petersburg has followed a most dangerous route, as I wrote in NGR, 31 May 2000 in the article "More than simply a conflict." I refer to my discussion of last month about the ways out of the situation that had arisen (it seems that at the time everything could have concluded peacefully): "There is a threat of the most undesirable consequences: punishment of the students, their quiet expulsion from the academy, and complete silence on the part of the church hierarchy on the principle 'where there is no person there is no problem.'" Now the consequences have arrived: Deacon Alexander Musin, a teacher of the St. Petersburg ecclesiastical schools, by order of Bishop Konstantin of Tikhvinsk, the rector of SPDA, no. 59, 13 June 2000 was dismissed from work without any explanation "for exceeding his responsibilities." The basis for this decision was an edict from Metropolitan Vladimir of St. Petersburg and Ladoga of 9 June 2000. No explanation of what this "exceeding" consisted of was offered. But what is very clear; the famous church historian, creator of the archaeological museum at the academy, and teacher of up to thirty hours per week, member of the Heraldry Council of the presidency of Russia, a man who devoted himself to the church and who started his ministry as a patriarchal subdeacon was thrown out as a cheat, rebel, and rascal.
Just one morning, before a meeting of the academic council, his way into the building was blocked by two grown subdeacons of Bishop Konstantin who told him that he did not work here any longer. Rather the dismissal of Deacon Musin was accompanied by an interpretation by Bishop Konstatin and Metropolitan Vladimir of the position of His Holiness the patriarch, in conversation with whom they had presented their version of what happened. Surely they told His Holiness that a conspiracy of teachers and an uprising of hooligans and troublemakers had occurred at the academy and Deacon Musin conducted the "unworthy" from the platform.
This dismissal is connected with both the participation of Fr Alexander in a "round table" on the situation in the academy, which the reader can find in the last issue of NG-R, and the petition he submitted to the academic council for a review of the situation. Ten minutes before the council was to meet he was dismissed. Thus the situation was not reviewed.
Moreover, Metropolitan Vladimir made a speech at the academic council which was characterized by those who heard it as "incoherent," "aggressive," and "offensive" to members of the academic council. In it the prelate attacked the students with threats and spoke of some kind of uprisings that must be nipped in the bud. The two hierarchs refused to explain to the teachers the reasons for Deacon Musin's dismissal. Although at the end of the session the rector did not forget to offer to sign after the fact the falsified minutes of the April educational conference that opposed the consecration of Ignaty Tarasov. According to the new version the conference supposedly left this matter "to the discretion of the father confessor." Six teachers (including some of the best known people in Petersburg) refused to sign the fabrication.
At the same time repression also was begun against "the rebellious seminarians" who dared to understand the divine ministry in a literal way. The first to be expelled, it seems, was a third-year student Andrei Pinchuk, who acted as a leader of the students. He was denied the right of studying at the academy "for poor progress." Actually Andrei Pinchuk had been promoted without examinations from the second to the fourth year of the seminary on account of his academic excellence. He and Archpriest Boris Bezmenov and some students had organized a unique system of Sunday schools (27 in St. Petersburg and suburbs) in which more than 600 children (including young drug addicts, homeless youth, orphans, and retarded children) received religious education and humanitarian help. It was in connection with the activity of the Sunday schools that the conflict arose between the students and Ignaty Tarasov, whose consecration Bishop Konstantin conducted. Almost from the very beginning of the conflict we had possession of detailed explanations of their conduct from the side of Pinchuk and his comrades. But we did not publish them, hoping that a church commission would investigate "ecclesiastically." Such a church commission was not formed, but in the "Orthodox press" (Radonezh) there appeared the slander (and we are prepared to prove that it is that, before any tribunal) against Deacon Musin, Pinchuk, and other students over the signature of the French language teacher Vladimir Vasilik, who has worked at the academy less than a year but who is well known for his closeness to ultra-Karlovci circles. According to his false version of what happened, in the academy there arose a conspiracy of ecumenists and adherents of Fr Alexander Men against the rector, who has been defending the values of Orthodoxy in this nest of Uniatism and Nikodimites, the SPDA. According to this version, Ignaty Tarasov engaged in a bitter struggle with the ecumenists (which apparently was the majority of students and teachers) and, being a most honest person, fell victim to revenge.
It remains to be said that on the night of 19-11 June there appeared on the wall of the academy a large sign under a sketch of an Orthodox cross: "Away with heretics and Jews!" Coincidentally the rector loves to proclaim in his lectures about the "heresy of ecumenism" and the "protocols of the elders of Zion," which often puts Metropolitan Vladimir in an equivocal position.
The following is the text of a declaration sent by Andrei Pinchuk to the higher levels of the church and to the academic council of the academy (in neither place has there been any response to it). It needs no commentary.
"To His Eminence Archbishop Evgeny of Vereisk, chairman of the Academic
Committee of the Moscow patriarchate
from Andrei Pinchuk, third-year student of SPDA
Declaration
Most respectfully I call to the attention of your eminence that I did not agree, nor do I now agree, with the consecration of Ignaty Tarasov as presbyter because of his crimes of a moral character.
As an assistant to the prorector for educational activity, Ignaty Tarasov committed the following acts:
1. He extorted and seized from guilty, and not just guilty, students and pupils bribes in the form of money, alcoholic beverages, and food.
2. He committed in dealings with teachers, students, and pupils offenses, insults, and baseless accusations accompanied by threats of subsequent expulsion.
Over the course of a long period of time various students undertook attempts to exhort Ignaty Tarasov. However these efforts were in vain. On the eve of the consecration of the monastic deacon Ignaty he was again warned about the dissent of many against his consecration. But instead of reconciling with his associates, he said that nobody would dare to express disagreement because of fear of him as the assistant to the prorector for educational activity.
After his "consecration" Ignaty Tarasov has shown by word and deeds, consisting in the conduct of searches and pressure and intimidation through expulsion and other discipline, that he has no desire to leave all his former crimes behind the threshold of his consecration and to forgive and be reconciled with his associates, which again confirms my fear of seeing such a person as a pastor of Christ's flock.
I ask you, your eminence, to take this into consideration and to investigate the facts I have laid out above. As an Orthodox Christian, I declare responsibly that I am ready to confirm again everything that I have written before the holy cross and Gospel in the presence of any commission, as well as that in my actions I have been guided only by facts known to me and by the voice of my conscience.
I deny any sort of personal ambition in this matter, since other than some inconvenience it will not now nor in the future bring anything to me. I deny that I had any previous conspiracy with anyone nor any desire to produce a revolt or disorder within the walls of SPDA. I am prepared to produce the names of persons who can confirm the facts I have laid out above, but I will do this only on condition that an official inquiry is begun and I am formally called as a witness. I regret that my actions could have served as a stumbling block. I sincerely believe and hope that a Christian resolution of this affair will lead to the long-awaited peace within the walls of SPDA and will lead to the correction of Ignaty Tarasov. I ask your prayers and blessing.
6 June 2000"
Did Tarasov extort money from his fellow students? This answer can be given only by an official church investigation. (tr. by PDS)
SEMINARIANS PROTEST AGAINST ORDINATION OF UNWORTHY
COMRADE
by Ivan Ivanov
Sobornost,
26 April 2000
From the editors: A scandal has occurred in the St. Petersburg seminary and academy. Again, as last year, it happened at the time of the Great Fast. Again, as last year, this scandal is connected to the actions of a bishop, in another area to be sure. The scandal developed after Bishop Konstantin of Tikhvinsk, the rector of the Petersburg ecclesiastical schools, decided to ordain as priest a seminarian and informant who was hated not only by fellow classmates but also by the overwhelming majority of students. At the time of the consecration a "revolt" broke out and the church loudly sang "unworthy!" instead of the "worthy" that is specified by the rules. As a result almost half of the seminarians were excommunicated. If they do not repent then even on the feast of Pascha these future priests will not be able to take communion. We received this material from the St. Petersburg seminary. For understandable reasons it is printed under a pseudonym. We hope that soon an official reaction by the hierarchy will be forthcoming.
Our "brother" N entered the first year of the St. Petersburg Ecclesiastical Academy (SPDA) in 1997 and from the first months of study he also showed that he had a brilliant future. Obedient to the daily schedule, he diligently did everything prescribed and he criticized the established list of church leaders (Fr Alexander Men, Fr A. Schmemann, Metropolitan Nikodim, Metropolitan Kirill, and others) as is necessary for recognition in conservative circles. N led what is called the proper form of life. His diligence was noted and led to his appointment the next year to the post of aide to the inspector (dean or monitor). Performing his role meticulously without sparing any efforts N attracted the kindly attention of the master, the rector. After a brief spiritual ordeal N agreed to the rector's suggestion that he be tonsured a monk, since this is the direct route to the "upper echelons."
At the same time N (now our "brother" monk Ignaty) became yet more vigorous in his obedience. He started using dirty tactics: betraying classmates, insulting the human dignity of guilty students, threatening to use his position for personal gain, etc. But people who are as dedicated as N always get ahead and he soon was ordained a deacon. On 11 April at the educational conference of SPDA the rector decided to continue the ascent of his faithful comrade up the ladder and he nominated him as candidate for ordination as priest. But to his genuine amazement the conference for some reason did not agree with him. He got an earful, both about his meanness in doing his job and about threats against some people and about his arrogance (pearls from N's pedagogical notes: "this person is casual in church," used with regard to people who disagree with N's opinion, who of course is not casual in church; "shut up, you layman," accompanied with the typical horizontal motion of the hand with extended index finger in front of the layman's nose; or "are you, a layman, going to instruct a clergyman?" addressed to persons older then he but who are unordained). The rector was warned about the possibility of dissent against the consecration on the part of believers, that is, students, during the ceremony. But these revelations were hardly news for the rector. It was simply that when N was on duty in the cafeteria during a meal, it was always as quiet as a tomb, while when other aides of the inspector were on duty (there were four in all) the sounds of life were heard. Guided by this reason (which was not contrary to logic which, he noted, was taught in the seminary) the rector continued on his way. But the educational conference still resolved "to postpone the consecration." Everybody's amazement knew no limits when on 22 April at the time of the evening vigil N appeared in the vestments of a candidate for ordination. This was a violation of all church and human principles. Discontent boiled up but neither N nor the rector would acknowledge it.
The next day before the liturgy at which the rector intended to ordain N he again was warned about the mood in the church. Guided by his beloved principle "what can this animal do?" he nevertheless started the consecration. N was brought by the archdeacon to the lectern and after the latter's appeal to the church to "command" (that is, to give consent to the ordination) he heard a many-voiced "unworthy." After a couple of minutes the rector delivered from the lectern an amazingly absurd speech to the effect that he was not Pontius Pilate, and N was like Christ while the people standing in the church had taken the role of the crowd demanding the crucifixion. After this the demarche continued. To the accompaniment of the unceasing accusation "unworthy," N was again safely conducted to the lectern, after the bishop laid hands upon him, and they began dressing him in priest's robes. After each of the clerical items was given to the ordinand the three choirs of the academic church were supposed to sing "worthy" three times. The choirs refused to sing and there was just a murmur from a few (more out of fear) about N's worthiness which was drowned out by waves of general dissent against the illegal actions that were going on. The uproar was so loud that it was heard throughout the building of the seminary and academy.
How about the rector? It seems that the bishop who has spoken so much about the policy of the "double standard" among Catholics likes this simple theme. After the service he forced the father confessor of the SPDA, the aged archemandrite, to declare that everyone who did not agree with his decision and expressed dissent was barred from communion until they repented. Can one repent that one's personal convictions disagree with the current rector? It would be interesting to know whether his eminence himself repents that he violated the charter of the academy, transgressed the church canons, and called his students "animals," "crowd," and "Petersburg rabble in contrast to Moscow's well-disciplined youth." (tr. by PDS)
(posted 17 July 2000)
The first congress of the All-civilian Christian Union ended is complete failure.
by Oleg Nedumov
NG-religii, 12 July 2000
What NG-R and NG warned about happened! The convocation of the first congress of the new public movement, the All-civilian Christian Union (VKhS), which was scheduled to occur on 5 July in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, culminated in an enormous scandal.
Congress delegates, who had begun gathering at the Kremlin gates around nine o'clock, were not admitted by the police who acted on the basis that the congress had supposedly been postponed. At the same time representatives of the planning committee asked those who had assembled not to disperse. After two hours several hundred persons had already assembled at the Kremlin gates, many of whom had arrive from the provinces and abroad. Information was circulated that the planning committee, which at the time was in the Kremlin palace, was "setting the stage" and the congress should begin soon. However after some time a representative of VKhS leadership, a certain Sergei Malashenko, announced through a megaphone that the congress planned for the day had been postponed "for technical reasons," and a new date would be designated several days later.
A great variety of rumors circulated regarding the true reasons for the failure of the congress. Some said that on the eve the head of the presidential administration, Alexander Voloshin, refused to give permission for renting the Kremlin palace. Other sources said that the program of VKhS had evoked a sharply negative reaction on the part of His Holiness Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow and all-Rus, which forced its leadership to delay the congress. Somebody stated that everything that happened was the intrigue of political parties who see in VKhS a serious competitor. Finally one of those who came, considering the leadership of the movement, somewhat jokingly said: "Perhaps they have already taken the money and gone abroad?" As regards the negative reaction of the patriarch, this information seems correct: that very morning His Holiness declared that the Russian Orthodox church had nothing to do with VKhS.
So what really happened? Just the day before the scandal VKhS was being called the "Kremlin" party. There was serious discussion whether it would in the future become a part of "Unity" or become its counterpart oriented toward the Orthodox electorate. How did it happen that the new "party of power" which had barely appeared suffered such an enormous fiasco? If one studies carefully all available information about VKhS (which we must say directly it has not made public) then the outcome seems quite logical. Even more than that, it would be amazing if this organization could withstand such persistent public scrutiny.
Let's start with the fact that the names of the leaders of the movement, Igor Pidzigun, Ivan Mazur, and Valentin Skorobogatov, mean nothing to anybody. Evidently, in order to give the movement a more solid political status, an aide to the chief of staff of the president of the Russian federation, a certain Goloshchapov, was mentioned as one of the members of the planning committee. However at the presidential administration itself they were not about to find on the staff a person with such a family name.
The Russian Orthodox church was represented in the new movement only by the chairman of the Department on Catechesis and Religious Education of the Moscow patriarchate, Hegumen Ioann Ekonomtsev. VKhS, in all likelihood, attracted his attention with its ecological orientation. However at events at various stages in the development of the failed plans of VKhS names were mentioned (sometimes simultaneously) of both Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad and various patriarchal and associated personages who are considered opponents of the head of OVTsS.
As regards the goals of VKhS, here is how they were formulated in the text of the declaration which was proposed for the delegates at the congress: "The goal of the All-civilian Christian Union is the organization of a transformed dialogue between the public and government, among people of various national cultures and religious confessions, and among various social groups for the unification of creative forces in the interest of an ecologically sound environment in Russia." The vagueness of this sentence borders on absurdity.
The original success of VKhS was greatly determined by the way it managed to interest various groups of the Orthodox public. Conservatives were attracted by the scope of VKhS and its apparent support from the government. At the same time the ecological orientation of the new movement was attractive to the more liberal part of the Orthodox electorate. The VKhS story still has not come to a conclusion. The Russian church has already defined its relationship to this movement, although from the side of the agencies of state power there still has not been any official comment about the situation that developed, despite the way the words "Kremlin" and "president" resounded rather often in connection with VKhS.
So what is the outcome of the VKhS furor? We note three basic ones:
the organizers will have to explain to the sponsors about the funds
that were contributed in vain; the period of "link up" with "Unity" has
ended--whoever did not succeed is too late; the patriarchate does not intend
to create a public Christian movement. It does not need one, and if it
did it would be easy to roll out the already formed World Russian Assembly,
the Orthodox party, etc. But public movements are hard to control and thus
there will not be any.
There is still much more that could be written. But new attempts to get into politics at the expense of exploiting a religious idea will be undertaken many more times. So there will always be occasion to write about it. (tr. by PDS)
(posted 16 July 2000)
Father Georgy Kochetkov
NG-religii, 28 June 2000
In my Christian life serious and prolonged persecutions have happened more than once. In 1968 to 1970 I faced them from relatives; in 1974-1977, at work; in 1983-1988, from the security guards of state atheism (expulsion from ecclesiastical academy and exclusion from ministry), and later from my own people, in 1993-1996 by eviction from the church of St. Vladimir of the Presentation monastery and in 1997-1999 by eviction from the church of the Dormition in Pechatniki, when many clergymen from many churches, especially those of Moscow, were misled by slanderous propaganda from the "Radonezh" radio and newspaper and their cinematic fabrication "Expose." And now, all indications are that, almost without interruption, persecutions are beginning again.
All of this compels me once again to declare openly and directly my church position in the hope that I shall be able to be heard and to defend myself against the absurd accusations of very many people.
His Holiness Alexis II, patriarch of Moscow and all-Rus, has spoken frequently of the need for genuine church regeneration. I also have been an advocate of such regeneration and renewal of the church, the grounds for which were prepared by the Moscow council of 1917-1918. It is just this sort of regeneration in accordance with church tradition and canons that must occur.
But in recent years it has become clear that the seventy-year-long soviet adversity was not without effect: the church was not destroyed but it was abased and weakened and thus it was thrown back to the level of the problems of the end of the eighteenth century and it was deprived of the accomplishments of the period of spiritual renewal of the second half of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. It developed something like an ideology of spiritual depression or "protective Orthodoxy" and then the things that grew out of it, isolationism, nationalism, establishmentarian notions, seminarian scholasticism, and magical clericalism. As well, success was achieved by ideas that are close to those of the schismatic "Karlovci" or the "free," synodal church outside Russia, which not only demanded an end to the practice of renewal in church administration and were aided by unchristian power but also promoted ideas of church nationalism, church monarchism, and church isolationism. This expressed itself in insistent demands for the canonization of former emperor Nicholas II and withdrawal from inter-Christian dialogue and fellowship. These were also connected to ideas of the impossibility of correcting the Julian calendar or any other kind of improvements, especially in the text and language of the liturgy. Besides this throughout the world fundamentalistic (not to be confused with fundamental), ritualistic, and traditionalistic (not to be confused with traditional) forces went on the offensive, reacting against the entry of humanity into a new spiritual, cultural, civilizational, and socio-economic epoch which now some call a "postmodern" or "postconstantinian", and even "postchristian" period.
As a result, instead of dealing with all the complications of contemporary church life, a portion of the church leadership which could not overcome the fears and inertia of the past has begun to desert its own better intentions, notions, and principles.
Ritualism, fascination with miracles, and heresy-mania have grown yet more, and this means that the power of the spirit has been diminished yet more. Obscurantist tendencies have not confronted any resistance within the church. Good, thoughtful, and responsible church people have taken cover and hid their head in the sand, as if to say that we hope to survive until the bright future. And those who cannot take it have stopped trusting the church, stopped taking communion and attending church, or have transferred into other jurisdictions and confessions. One often has occasion to hear from such people: "In church I was looking for God, love, peace, mutual help, mutual understanding, and support, but I found the opposite, just like in the world." Is there any reason to be surprised by the easy successes of missionaries of other confessions? From here it is only a single step to all church attitudes.
On the basis of this, any healthy minded person cannot help posing to himself and to others a multitude of perplexing questions. For example, what is non-Orthodox in the traditional "ritual for blessing and breaking bread" of the Serbian church? What is wrong with the agapes, the ancient Christian "love feasts," when according to the canons those who scorn them are supposed to be excommunicated and unfrocked (the eleventh rule of the council of Gangra)? Which specific "principles of the Moscow Kochetkovite parish" are being condemned: greater comprehension and clarity of the church's language? work with people and mutual aid not only in the church but also at home? extended, serious catechesis? faithfulness to the entire Orthodox sacred scripture and holy tradition, and not just arbitrarily selected parts? Finally, what kind of an innovation is this "heresy of renovationism and neorenovationism" and which council has ruled that it necessitates unfrocking and even anathematization?
I can declare responsibly that in all matters I hold strictly to the Orthodox faith and tradition, and that means to all of the fundamental propositions and principles of sacred scripture and tradition, the works of the holy fathers and teachers of the church and of the councils and authoritative theologians (although I distinguish between doctrine and theological opinion, that is, the faith itself and these traditions and their numerous and various interpretations on which not only theologians but also the holy fathers are not able to agree and which thus are not always obligatory for everyone). My articles and books are not required texts for anybody, like the "Cathechism" of Metropolitan Filaret or the "Dogmatic Theology" of Metropolitan Makary. They do not purport to be texts of doctrine; they merely explain the Orthodox faith to contemporary adults, taking into account their mentality, or they help in doing this contemporary teachers, who already understand doctrine and all the rest at a level of secondary or more often advanced theological education, for which we have used all the authoritative prerevolutionary and contemporary Orthodox resources. We do not force anybody into parish or brotherhood life or into special home meeting or agapes, although I personally value greatly these ancient traditions of our church along with the tradition of church evangelism (and not counter-evangelism) and adult catechesis. At the same time I have always been, and I remain a direct and decisive opponent of extreme ecumenism and secularist modernism which replace canonical and traditional renewal of the church with merely formal and pseudo-church reforms.
I always have baptized unconditionally and I am ready to baptize children whose parents and sponsors intend to raise them in the faith, as well as adults, on the basis of their faith and not on the basis of having been catechized by us. We all have always professed the principle of faithfulness to God and the church, and that means the Russian Orthodox church and its hierarchy, and we have never supported any parallel ecclesiastical and hierarchical structures.
Indeed, I can affirm and sign all of this. But my accusers are seeking not mercy but a victim, so they hardly want to understand and hear anything. And if that is the way it is, then the madness is going to continue until a reconciler comes along who will speak with authority to every demon: "Be still!" and pronounce an anathema upon every spirit of falsehood and darkness, exorcising them and liberating those who now are their victims. (tr. by PDS)
(posted 16 July 2000)
In Alma-Ata a cross was torn off of a priest for the "heresy of renovationism."
Facts and Commentary (unsigned item)
NG-religii,
28 June 2000
From 3 to 9 June a diocesan meeting was held in the Alma-Ata diocese. All of its work, and especially that of its last two days, was devoted to "exposure" within the ranks of the clergy of the diocese of the "heresy of renovationism and Kochetkovism" and to its almost unanimous "anathemitizing." The targets selected for the attack were members of the Commission on the Revival of the Kirgiz Mission, Fr Evgeny Melnik and monastic priest Serafim Kenisarin, and the priest of the Kazan church of Alma-Ata, Vasily Teleutov. They were accused of the crimes of . . . giving lectures on holy scripture, meeting with parishioners not only in the church but in their homes, and general "sympathy for the activity of the Kochetkov parish." The priests were not intimidated by the crude pressure and they refused to acknowledge that their educational activity was "heresy" and to anathematize "Kochetkovism." In response to this Archbishop Alexis Kutepov of Astanaisk and Alma-Ata personally ripped the pectoral cross off of Fr Evgeny and the cross and vestment (popping the buttons) off of Fr Vasily, thereby "depriving" them of their clerical rank. After this the entire clerical assembly under the leadership of the prelate entoned: "Anathema!"
As reported from Alma-Ata, during all five days of the work of the assembly the three priests were subjected to slanderous and uncanonical pressure. In particular, they were accused of using the service of the Serbian Trebnik known as the "ritual of blessing and breaking bread" (as if it were like a notorious agape). Also subjected to reproach were the lectures which they had given in Alma-Ata with the blessing of the ruling bishop expounding holy scripture, the fundamentals of Orthodox dogmatic theology, and the history of Christianity in Central Asia and Kazakhstan.
At the beginning of its work the assembly reviewed the question of the creation of the Commission for the Revival of the Kirgiz Mission. Fr Serafim and Fr Evgeny were chosen for this commission because they had certain skills for this activity (Fr Serafim was named vice chairman). Fathers Evgeny and Serafim advocated taking account of the distinctives of the Kazakh culture and mentality. Among the proposals for the principles of the evangelistic activity that they made were the use in the liturgy for the Kazakhs not only of the Kazakh but also of the Russian language, parish work in the homes, and comprehensive catechesis of the believers. (Confining the mission only to the church, in the young priests' opinion, would not produce desired results because of the patriarchal tradition in the Kazakh family.)
For this they were called "neorenovationists" and "sectarians." Then the verbal accusations of "nonveneration of saints" and "neglect of their own parishes" began pouring forth. When all of these accusations were solidly refuted, the last resort was taken. Archbishop Alexis demanded of the priests a public anathema of the "neorenovationism of Kochetkovism." Then came the tearing off of the crosses and the entoning of the anathema.
The pogrom against "Kochetkovism" began back on Thursday, 8 June, and culminated in the anathematizing of Fr Vasily. On that day, Fr Evgeny Melnik was not accused of the "Kochetkov heresy," and Fr Serafin had gone to his parish. Everyone agreed that the scene was one of vengeance. Every day it was adjusted by someone, new painful points were discovered and new blows were delivered. The issue of the "agapes" did not succeed so then charges of neglect of their parishes were begun. Actually, their chief crime was "annoying the bishop."
And how was the archbishop himself able in most cases to stop himself at the right moment and not say too much? On Sunday in Ascension cathedral he addressed the flock and urged it to keep itself from heresy and to beware of sectarians. Apparently somebody needed this slander. Moreover somebody needed it not only in Alma-Ata.
In conclusion we provide the reader the text of the resolution of the diocesan assembly that was read in the churches of Astanaisk diocese on Sunday 11 June.
"The assembly also noted the general concern with regard to the practice of 'breaking of bread' using the ritual of the Serbian Orthodox church by the diocesan clergymen, the priest Evgeny Melnik, the monastic priest Serafim, and the priest Vasily Teleutov, which they performed in house meetings. Such a practice, which is similar to the protestant 'agapes,' replaces the meaning of the Orthodox Divine Eucharist and causes confusion in the souls of ordinary believing people, and it leads to disruption of church unity and that is impermissible. Besides this, in the course of its activity, guided by the Holy Spirit, the assembly declared as a departure from the purity of Holy Orthodoxy on the part of the above named clerics of the diocese in their promotion of neorenovationism by claiming that the one holy catholic and apontolic church of Christ needs improvement in order to function as a saving force both for the individual and for the whole of humanity, that is, it is not the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Tim 3.15). This improvement, in their opinion, is supposed to occur on the basis of the experience of the Moscow Kochetkov parish.
"Taking into account their strong advocacy of such ecclesiastical heresy, the assembly unanimously resolved
"1. To ask his grace, Archbishop Alexis, in accordance with the requirement of the holy canons, to place on leave and to ban from ministry the priests Evgeny Melnik, Vasily Teleutov, and Serafim, until they fully repent of their delusion and produce fruits worthy of repentance.
"2. To ask his holiness, the patriarch of Moscow and all-Rus, Alexis II and the upcoming bishops' council of the Russian Orthodox church to make a canonical determination regarding the relationship to the practice of church life occurring in the Moscow Kochetkov parish."
On 9 June, on the basis of this resolution, as well as of the thirty-first apostolic canon, the sixth rule of the second ecumenical council, and the sixth rule of the council of Gangra (is it necessary to say that all of these have nothing to do with this case?), Archbishop Alexis Kutepov signed a "determination" banning all three priests from ministry indefinitely.
One can only thank God that in this nightmare the three priests found within themselves the spiritual strength and power to overcome fear and to speak the truth, thereby we hope bringing nearer that not-far-off time when throughout all of the church there will be no fear that is incompatible with love. (tr. by PDS)
(posted 15 July 2000)
by Oleg Nedumov
NG-religii,
12 July 2000
NG-religii has already dealt with the subject of the canonization of the tsarist family. The last time this question was raised in an interview with a member of the synodal commission on saints, Archpriest Georgy Mitrofanov, in the 31 May issue. Now we call the reader's attention to this summary of a paper by Metropolitan Yuvenaly, "Church tradition and contemporary historical scholarship," which he gave at the recent Moscow conference on "Christianity at the threshold of the third millennium" and which became a kind of sensation. The issue was that Metropolitan Yuvenaly, departing from the announced topic, devoted his paper to a detailed report on the work of the commission on canonization which he heads in advance of the jubilee bishops' council. He stressed that he had previously avoided conferences and contacts with reporters because they, in his opinion, "might present the commission's position inaccurately."
According to the prelate's paper, in studying the materials about the new martyrs and confessors, the commission confronted a number of problems, one of which had to do with the possibility of canonizing those clergymen and laity who suffered while they were in separation from the Moscow patriarchate, for various reasons. "The essence of our approach to this problem," the speaker said, "was that it was necessary to distinguish, on one hand, schisms which arose because of profound ecclesiological errors bordering on heresy or occurring as the result of criminal ambition and willingness to serve as instruments in the hands of the church's enemies who were intent upon the destruction of church life, such as the renovationist, or self-ordained, or Grigorian, or other divisions associated with the activities of the so-called 'noncommemorators.'" This last group, who were opposed to the deputy acting patriarch Metropolitan Sergius out of disagreement with his ecclesiastical political line, nevertheless did not break fellowship with the head of the church, represented by the imprisoned acting patriarch Metropolitan Peter. The majority of such members of the opposition made no attempt to form their own church center as an alternative to the Moscow patriarchate. According to Metropolitan Yuvenaly, the commission did not see any canonical impediments to their glorification. At the same time, it came to the conclusion that the canonization of renovationists, Grigorians, self-ordained clerics, and the like was impossible, even if they perished in the years of persecution. There was a more complicated matter regarding the possibility of canonizing persons in opposition who maintained prayer fellowship with the acting patriarch but at the same time did not refrain from attempts to form or provide leadership for an alternative church center.
Another complicated question the commission faced in reviewing the materials consisted, according to the prelate, in the discovery in documents from the agencies of repression that some of the victims during interrogation and torture incriminated themselves by signing false confessions, sometimes even giving names of co-conspirators, as a result of which others whom they incriminated also suffered repression. In such cases involving compromising materials in the investigative and judicial affairs, the commission was not able to conclude that there were no impediments to canonization. But such a decision, presumably, is not conclusive and does not rule out the possibility of the canonization of some cleric or lay person who suffered in the future, if in the course of subsequent study it turns out that the information found in the investigative files is unreliable. The speaker stated that these difficulties arose mainly in connection with the repressions of the 1930s.
Metropolitan Yuvenaly devoted a great deal of attention to the question of the possibility of canonizing Emperor Nicholas II and members of his family. According to him, the commission studied with special care the questions that could lead to possible difficulties in reaching a positive decision on this matter, in particular the extremely important elements of the governmental and church policies of the emperor, the relationship of the tsarist family with Rasputin, and the circumstances of the tsar's abdication of the throne. The speaker noted that the commission saw its main task to be an objective review of all the circumstances of the lives of members of the imperial family without regard to ideological stereotypes which have dominated over the course of the past decades.
Metropolitan Juvenaly gave special attention to the way the commission approached this subject in an attempt to assure that the possible glorification of the royal martyrs would not divide but would unite people. For this, in his opinion, it was necessary that the act of canonization be free from any political or other qualifications. At the same time the speaker emphasized, the activity of the head of the state cannot be separated from its political context, but this does not mean that in carrying out the canonization of a tsar or prince, the church is being guided by political or ideological considerations. (tr. by PDS)
(posted 15 July 2000)
Never have other political initiatives associated with the church or with Christian democracy culminated in such a scandal as occurred yesterday in connection with the congress of the All-civilian Christian Union.
Participant registration, scheduled for nine in the morning, had not started as late as eleven. Nobody was even permitted entrance to the Kremlin State Palace . Instead of the expected 5,000 participants, around 500 persons assembled at the Trinity tower, and around eleven one of the members of the planning committee announced that "for technical reasons" the congress would be postposed several days. Details will be available by evening today.
The political processes of the nineties demonstrated the complete impossibility of creating an Orthodox party in contemporary Russia. RKhDD, KhDS, "Orthodox Russia," the Union of Orthodox Citizens, and numerous other minuscule parties and movements were unable to find an electoral base for themselves or to write serious programs, and in the final analysis they showed conclusively that the political elite is not concerned with the problems of Christian democracy and simple believers either are apolitical or have associated themselves with one of the political parties.
What has changed today? It is no secret that many Orthodox persons supported Vladimir Putin in the presidential election. How can Orthodox believers today express their support for the president in conditions of "cold civil war," as Kremlin analysts are calling the situation that is emerging in Russia? One answer is by forming a mass political movement. Thus, it is possible to find points of contact between the interests of the Kremlin and of the organizers of the All-civilian Christian Union (VKhS). However Igor Podzigun, the chairman of VKhS, is responding for the time being in a negative way to the direct question about the participation of the movement in politics: "VKhS does not intend to participate in political life for now." The qualification "for now" is quite typical. The initial programmatic documents have emphasized the "creation of a Christian ecological culture," but even here there occurs the idea of a "strong state, based on national unity."
The new movement has been created in a vacuum and this, it seems, suits both governmental and church authorities. The names of the organizers of the movement, Igor Pudzigun, Ivan Mazur, and Valentin Skorobogatov, mean virtually nothing to us today, but the Kremlin is able to develop the political potential rapidly. Cooperation between VKhS and the presidential administration is already going on at a rather high level. The locations of basic activities speak eloquently of the status of the movement: the planning committee of the movement held its meeting in the "President" hotel and the founding congress will happen tomorrow in the Kremlin State Palace.
It is not surprising that the issue of the participation of the Russian Orthodox church is much more complicated. To be sure, an active part in the work of the planning committee was taken by Hegumen Ioann Ekonomtsev, the chairman of the synodal Department for Catechesis and Religious Education, but the Orthodox church's participation has been limited to this. Nobody of those who are in genuine dialogue with the political elite has participated in the preparation of the congress and the development of the movement's program. It is still unknown whether church hierarchs, the patriarch himself or perhaps Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, will participate in the congress' work.
The main issue of the movement is the combination of ecology with a Christian world view. Igor Podzigun maintains that the program "has been moving along for three years" but still some of its provisions evoke deep confusion among both Christians and political thinkers. "The All-civilian Christian Union takes upon itself the role of the organizer of a broad public dialogue initiated by the Russian Orthodox church," according to the program of the movement. However there is no church document that says anything about the church's needing to organize such a dialogue or to have any help in doing so. On the contrary, the thousand-year history of Russian Orthodoxy shows that the church has never transferred this ministry to other people. But VKhS's claim to be equal to the task is proclaimed self-confidently. In this regard there is a numerical argument alongside the theological and historical ones: VKhS has departments in 55 of the constituent elements of the Russian federation while the Russian Orthodox church has 19,000 parishes throughout Russia and the near abroad.
From the point of view of political thinkers, "the organization of a dialogue" cannot be a goal but only a means or instrument for achieving one. Still the VKhS has a chance of surviving, but several leaders and documents could be changed in time. (tr by PDS)
RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH HAS NO RELATIONSHIP WITH "ALL-CIVILIAN CHRISTIAN
UNION" CONGRESS
ITAR-TASS/Pravoslavie
2000, 5 July 2000
A source at the Moscow patriarchate reported this to an ITAR-TASS correspondent. The VKhS congress was supposed to open on 5 July in the Kremlin State Palace, but at the last moment, according to representatives of the security guard, it was postponed "for technical reasons."
In accordance with the decision of the last bishops' council, the patriarchate source noted, the church cannot display exclusive support to any one of the political parties and movements although, as Patriarch Alexis has often declared, the russian orthodox church always is open to joint actions with any political or other organization in the work of achieving the spiritual and material regeneration of Russia and the welfare of its people. (tr. by PDS)
(posted 15 July 2000)
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