RUSSIA Fr. Afanasij and the repentance of Russian Orthodox priests

On Radio Svoboda, one of the religious living abroad testified after refusing to say the war prayer and being suspended by the Moscow Patriarchate. After leaving Jerusalem, where he worked for the Russian mission, he is now studying the Fathers of the Church in Belgium to understand how this slide towards “extreme neo-conservatism, towards the cult of militarism and neo-imperialism” was possible.

Brussels () – Hieromonk Afanasykh (Bukin) is one of the many Russian priests opposed to the aggression against Ukraine. In February 2023, he left the mission of the Russian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, explaining his choice in an open letter. By decree of Patriarch Kirill, he was suspended and then reduced to the lay state. Today he lives in Belgium and is preparing a thesis at the University of Leuven, and told Radio Svoboda about his experience and his reflections on the tragedy that Russian Orthodoxy is experiencing.

Father Afanasykh, born in 1988 in St. Petersburg, stayed in Jerusalem for four years. He had a good knowledge of modern Greek, much needed to welcome the numerous Orthodox pilgrims, and often acted as an interpreter for Patriarch Theophilus III. During Covid, he was primarily responsible for the mission’s website and editorial initiatives, as well as for the shifts of liturgical services. He is now trying to delve into the ecclesiological perspectives of the East and the West, from St. John Chrysostom to St. Augustine, also in order to understand how it was possible for the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church to slide towards “extreme neo-conservatism, towards the cult of militarism and neo-imperialism.”

In his opinion, the Moscow Patriarchate took “one step back and two steps forward” in the post-Soviet period, following the trends of the Russian state. After some openings, with a dialogue with the other Churches that seemed “extremely interesting and stimulated intellectual creativity,” it moved on to total closure, to the great disappointment of those who had dedicated themselves to foreign relations, such as Father Afanasykh himself. It seemed that a new translation of the Bible into modern Russian could finally be achieved (the last one was made 200 years ago, without the chrism of the officialdom), integrating the great developments of Russian theology abroad in the Soviet period, but suddenly “a conservative barrier was raised again, denouncing any opening that was dangerous for our spiritual health.”

What astonishes the hieromonk most is that “the experience of atheistic persecution has not in the least affected the position of the hierarchs of our Church,” even those who have personally suffered such forms of repression, and who have now “without batting an eyelid have passed over to the cult of Stalin.” According to Father Afanasykh, the majority of Russian Orthodox priests “are heirs of the Soviet mentality rather than of the true Orthodox tradition,” so it is paradoxical that a priest who has just recalled the martyrs in the liturgy, five minutes later says that “we need Stalin,” as he happened to hear.

The hieromonk had not joined the three hundred priests who had signed the anti-war letter in 2022, ‘among them were several of my colleagues, braver than me, who tried to remain neutral for the good of all, they told me to wait’; but after a year, he could no longer refrain from taking a position. Many other brothers supported him, saying ‘at least you can do it, we have families’, and even several of the signatories of the pacifist letter had to adapt and keep quiet, as they could not leave Russia. Others advised Father Afanasykh to ‘ask the patriarch for forgiveness, saying that being abroad would plagiarize me’.

There are currently more than twenty Russian priests expelled for refusing to say the prayer for war and victory for Russia, and some of them have left the country. Father Afanasij understands that not everyone has the opportunity to make a new life abroad, at the risk of “ending up in the middle of nowhere.” He himself went to Belgium without knowing what to do, found help from the bi-ritualist Catholic monks of Chevetogne, and has no desire to judge or give advice to others, only to remind them that “we must educate and form conscience, learn to live repentance without condemning anyone, but starting with ourselves.”