RUSSIAN WORLD The challenges of the Russian World according to Kirill

The Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow, Kirill (Gundyaev), chaired the XXVI session of the Universal Russian People’s Council, on the theme “The Russian World: external and internal challenges”, accompanied by the administrator of the patriarchate, Metropolitan Grigorij (Petrov) and others ecclesiastical personalities and figures from the field of Russian culture, such as Professor Alexander Shipkov, rector of the Orthodox University of Saint John the Theologian. A general absence of high-level politicians was noted, and President Vladimir Putin’s expeditious greeting message was read by one of his vice-presidents, Sergej Kirienko, probably due to a certain rivalry, given the role assumed by the patriarch, who has recently been dealing to distance himself and highlight his superiority in the Russian “symphony” between the throne and the altar.

But there was also a large number of hierarchs of the Orthodox Church, bishops, priests and monks, and the presence of some deputies of the Duma and members of other institutions, as well as representatives of other religious confessions and academies. The meeting was broadcast live on Orthodox-patriotic television channels Soyuz and Spasas well as on the official portal of the Moscow Patriarchate, and opened with the national anthem of the Russian Federation. In any case, the patriarch thanked President Putin for his “participation in the formation of state policy, which has the support of the Church and the Universal Russian Council,” making a subtle reference to the fact that this institution dates back to the years prior to the arrival to the throne of the president himself, thanks to the initiative in the ’90s of the then Metropolitan Kirill, current patriarch.

Kirill tries to underline his role as ideological guide of the country, in the development of “a policy aimed at the affirmation of freedom, independence, the authentic independence of our homeland in freedom, and at the same time in the custody of those traditional values ​​that are the basis of our civilization”. The patriarch claims sponsorship of the fundamental contents of Putin’s policy, which the Church has proposed since the turbulent times of Yeltsin’s openings to the West, remembering that “tradition is the transmission of everything that is important, indispensable and useful for people, which constitutes the guarantee of their well-being and their future”.

To avoid misunderstandings, given the increasingly fanciful interpretations of “traditional values” by Russian politicians and propagandists, the patriarch insisted that “Orthodoxy is the traditional faith, and we affirm that it is precisely the Church that transmits over time from generation to generation these very important values ​​and meanings, through the teachings of doctrine, prayer and the formation of people’s spiritual and theoretical convictions, and that is why the Church is the main factor in the transmission of values ​​to the contemporary world”. Kirill praises the “particular model of collaboration between Church and State in our country”, which has even “never been seen in the past”, placing Tsar Putin above all the princes and emperors (and Party secretaries) of previous centuries, and himself above all patriarchs, not only Muscovites, that is why today “the potential of the Church in the custody of values ​​is realized at the highest possible level.”

According to this interpretation, there has never been a more Christian state than today’s Russia, “previous generations could only dream of such a perfect system,” Kirill guarantees, in which “the Church lives in the most absolute freedom, no one interferes in its activities, and the State refers to its mission with great respect”, and collaborates above all in the field of education of children and young people and in the creation of “a healthy cultural climate in the country”, all of them things without which “our people would lose their identity,” assures the highest reference of the Russian Orthodox. It describes the special dimensions of the relationship between Church and State in Russia with three terms in particular, vzaimodejstvie (“reciprocal action”), dialogue and sorabotničestvo (“collaboration”, in the old-Russian version), three inflections of the same concept whose purpose is to exalt both the practical decisions, as well as the ideological harmony and the “equality of effectiveness” of both institutions.

In fact, in recent times at least two issues have been raised on which the Russian Orthodox Church has not felt particularly in tune with public institutions at various levels. The first refers to the issue of population growth, an issue that Putin has insisted on since the beginning of his presidency, a quarter of a century ago, without obtaining any results. In 2000, Russia had nearly 150 million inhabitants, today it risks falling below 140, if the Ukrainian populations forcibly “annexed” from Crimea and the Donbass are not taken into account. To stimulate the generation of new children, the Moscow Duma has gone so far as to propose subsidies and aid of all kinds for women from the age of 13, regardless of their marital status, with obsessive propaganda according to which “it is enough to get pregnant “, then the State takes care of everything, a decidedly unorthodox propaganda. Not to mention that the Church would prefer a more determined campaign to prohibit abortions even in private clinics, which all regional administrations reject.

This line of incitement to births “at all costs”, on the other hand, has taken a turn unacceptable for ecclesiastical traditions when it seeks to punish “propaganda”. child-free“, placing under accusation any lifestyle that is not oriented towards generative sexual union, such as the great Orthodox monastic tradition, which only after much insistence was excluded from the measures of reprobation provided for by the new norms in this field. In the In the Russian Church, diocesan priests and parish priests are obligatorily married and have many children, and constitute in fact a very recognized “priestly caste”, but the ecclesiastical leadership is made up exclusively of monks, who are the great preachers of the patriotic religion and holy war, so they must be honored and exalted without casting unnecessary shadows on their way of life, exempt from the generation of children.

The other provision that greatly bothered the Orthodox clergy was the absolute prohibition, also confirmed by legislative provisions, of any form of prayer in private homes, which was intended to especially affect evangelical and Pentecostal communities and sects such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and others. , but it ended up hindering the activities of Orthodox (and Catholic) priests, who have the habit of coming to bless homes and meeting people in their homes, especially during the winter and in Christmas. Also in this case, the considerable distance of mentality between politicians, who very easily adopt some approaches characteristic of the Soviet era, and the representatives of Orthodoxy, who in their relationship with the faithful are not limited to mere propaganda, as is inevitable after more than thirty years of religious freedom, at least at a formal level.

These controversial dimensions of the ideological-religious conception of the “Russian world” remained, however, in the background of the session of the Universal Russian Council, which also planned new celebrations of Russia’s war and patriotic history, such as subsequent demonstrations in St. Petersburg around the figure of the victorious Prince Alexander Nevsky, whose funeral urn is intended to be returned from the city of Vladimir to the northern capital, the birthplace of Kirill and Putin, where everything is done to hide the obvious roots of the “openness to the West” planned since its founding by Peter the Great. The patriarch also highlighted in this case – as happened a few months ago with Rublev’s Trinity icon – the efforts that had been necessary to “overcome the opposition of the museum staff” where the silver urn is kept, which directly involved to the president to return to the symbolic headquarters the remains of the man who defeated the Swedes and Teutons, ancestors of the current “Ukrainian and Western Nazis.”

At the end of his speech, the patriarch also recalled that from the early days of the Russian Universal Council he had recommended the fight against alcoholism, but no one listened to him, and phrases from the psalms were quoted about the “joy of wine” and the responses from Prince Vladimir of kyiv to Muslim emissaries, when he refused to adopt Islam because “we cannot stop drinking.” Today alcoholism in Russia has once again become a plague that crawls from the battlefields to the courtyards of houses, where drunks surrender to the “white death” of frost, without even realizing it. And Kirill’s last blow was indirectly directed at Putin himself, when he condemned “vulgar language” that weakens a person’s moral health. The president is known for his “street” expressions but, even though he is teetotal, when he listened to the patriarch he must have poured himself a glass.

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