Orthodox nationalists want an ‘imperial’ Russia

In the Urals, the Universal Russian People’s Council met, a politico-religious society founded in the 1990s by the current Patriarch of Moscow, Kirill. The group wants a country with its own vision, free from Western influence.

Moscow () – In Yekaterinburg, in the Urals, the forum of the local branch of the Universal Russian People’s Council (VRNS), the political-religious society founded in the 1990s by the current Patriarch of Moscow Kirill (Gundyaev), was finally held. ). The event had been postponed for two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The meeting was chaired by the local Metropolitan Evgenij (Kulberg), and the main guest was the well-known Orthodox nationalist ideologue Konstantin Malofeev, who delivered the opening speech on “Orthodoxy and the world in the 21st century”.

During the pandemic, Malofeev had tried to liven up the situation in the region: with his “Double-headed Eagle” movement, he organized a pilgrimage to the places consecrated by the martyrdom of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, located on the outskirts of Yekaterinburg. At the Forum, he presented his trilogy “Empire: the image of the future”, with his views on the future of geopolitics. He was heard by various representatives of the Ministry of Defense and other military circles, such as the Rosgvardija, as well as local and national politicians.

During the event another metropolitan also spoke: Makarij (Morar) from Tashkent and Uzbekistan. The former head of the Ural eparchy a decade ago reported his concern about the situation of the Russians in Central Asia: “Where we are it is a little more difficult than in Russia, but we have the support of VRNS to unite our compatriots from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan”, so that Russians in the region, who were previously part of the common Soviet homeland, do not feel abandoned. “Now we feel like we live in foreign countries,” he said. The intention is to strengthen the spirit of Russians and Asians, according to Makarij, “because these peoples are the vanguard and the front line of the great Eurasian Russia.”

Representatives of the VRNS from the Ural section focused on the image of the capital Yekaterinburg. They rejected derogatory accusations from some propagandists, such as TV presenter Vladimir Solov’ev, who had referred to it as “the city of demons” alluding to the cases of radical monks during the Covid years. One of the heads of the association, Anna Gromova, recalled the initiatives aimed at raising the spiritual dimension of the city, such as the construction of the great church of Santa Catalina and the activism of volunteer movements during the most difficult period of the propagation of the coronavirus.

Another speaker, Dmitry Poljanin, assured that local citizens are committed to “expelling demons by purifying the memory of our brothers and sisters who have given their lives on the altar of the Fatherland in every way, in the past and in the present. “, from the Tsar to the fallen in the Ukraine war. The city has been reorganized, uniting the avenues that evoke these memories and placing in the center the “Church on Blood” in memory of the martyrs.

Malofeev concluded the meeting by explaining that “each state has its own vision of the world, as in the globalist West, which we oppose with all our might in Ukraine. China also has its own vision, and based on it has prepared programs for the next few years, which foresee the hegemony of Beijing for the 21st century. We too must have a vision of the future, since we have said goodbye to the West for at least the next decade, and we need a model of identity development of our Russian civilization , as per the exhortation of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill”.

The new work of the ideologue and businessman aims to propose the Russian imperial idea updated to the current times. Part of the statement that “ours is a naturally authoritarian state, while Ukraine pretends to be democratic, that is, a slave to a group of oligarchs who buy politicians.” That is why an “imperial liberation” is necessary, for a radiant future, free from economic and cultural dependence on the West.