Dmitry Taevsky. The Illusion of Orthodoxy

January 8, 2011 · Adam Bondaruk, Baptists, Victor Belykh, AUCECB, Persecution, Interview, KGB, Books, Unregistered Pentecostals, Nikolay Kotyakov, On Emigration, United Church of Evangelical Christians, Vestibule, Petr Saenko, Pentecostals, Religious Mafia, Slavik Radchuk, Contemporary Persecution, Security Services

Ask any passerby on the street: which religion is in Russia? Actually, just ask yourself. The answer seems easy: Orthodox. And a good half would be surprised to learn that it is also Christian. For some reason, many Russians to this day are convinced that Christianity is only Catholics. And we are Orthodox. Ask them — who are they? Christians? — No, Orthodox, — they will answer. Is that so? And what is our Orthodox Church? What is “right” about it? First, a bit of history.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This is a quote from the Bible. However, that’s exactly how it was at first. There was God on earth — Christ, there was his word, there was the apostolic church founded by Christ’s disciples. There were heads of local churches — bishops. There was a chief bishop recognized by all — the bishop of Rome.

In those distant times, the Christian church did not even think about any power or any wealth. Christians were persecuted by everyone who felt like it — and everyone did. Open a theological dictionary — all its pages are dotted with the names of holy martyrs who died in the 2nd–5th centuries at the hands of persecutors of Christians. Yet, despite persecution, people came to Christ’s faith — so great was the power of the Word.

But everything passes — the mighty Roman Empire began to fade, having finally recognized the faith of Christ as the state religion, while Christianity remained. And not just remained, but flourished in full bloom. That’s when the church gained wealth, glory, and people. The bishop of Rome — the pope — became the mightiest of men, receiving recognition of his complete infallibility in matters of faith and morals, receiving the right of veto over all decisions of all church bodies, receiving the supreme judicial authority in the Christian church. Open the Sommi Pontifici Romani (the official list of Roman pontiffs) — the length of a Roman pope’s reign on the throne varied from a few years to a few days. Pretenders to the highest church throne built intrigues, poisoned one another, stabbed with daggers, infected with smallpox… It’s no wonder — the striving for unlimited power knows no bounds.

Nevertheless, in those times there was no Orthodoxy — the unified Christian church jointly fought against numerous heresies and did not think about division. Yet the preconditions for it were there. The Roman Empire split into Western and Eastern, and in the Eastern part its own church head appeared — the patriarch of Constantinople. Formally subordinate to the Roman pope, the Constantinople church leadership actually had its own special view on the principles of church structure — to put it simply, it wanted to govern the eastern part of the world itself, without the interference of the Roman pope. The prerequisites for a fight were in place — all that remained was to find a pretext, and it didn’t take long. The Western church made a small addition to the Christian Creed about the procession of the Holy Spirit not only from God the Father but also from God the Son. This purely theological nuance, unintelligible to most believers, became the spark for a big fight. In 1054, the Roman pope and the patriarch of Constantinople simultaneously anathematized each other. The famous division of the churches into Catholic (translated as “universal”) and Orthodox took place.

What is the reason for the division of the Christian church into two? We have already given one official reason. In fact, there were and are no fundamental disagreements between the Western and Eastern churches — and the Catholic church quickly realized this and began trying to reunite the two churches. These attempts continue to this day, and, as we see, so far unsuccessfully. More on that later, though. For the time being, the schism had practically no effect on the Catholic church — it remained as unified and well-managed as before. The Orthodox church, on the other hand, continued to fragment into smaller ones, mostly along territorial lines — Russian, Georgian, Bulgarian, American… Some smaller churches entered into contact with Catholicism and, while formally remaining in Orthodoxy, nevertheless belong to the ranks of the Catholic church — these are the so-called Uniate churches.

Question number one: which church is “more correct” — the originally Christian Western one or our Eastern one that broke away from it? And which of today’s nineteen Orthodox churches is “more correct”?

But let’s return to Russia. The history of the emergence of Christianity in Rus is known to everyone. According to the theory accepted in scholarly circles, Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich, for entirely non-religious — simply political — reasons, decided to establish closer contacts with Byzantium and therefore chose to adopt Orthodoxy. Historians know facts that the prince conducted serious negotiations with the Western church as well, and there was a very real chance that you and I would now be going to Gothic cathedrals and singing “Ave, Maria.” But it didn’t work out… Prince Vladimir came to terms with Byzantium and single-handedly decided that from now on, instead of Veles, Perun, and the Rozhanitsy, Russians would believe in Christ.

In modern terms, Vladimir’s compatriots didn’t need Christianity either for free or with money. Russians got along just fine with their numerous gods, and the alien Jewish god was strange and incomprehensible to them. So, without much ado, the prince assembled his druzhina and went to chop off recalcitrant heads. And in a short time, instead of the familiar and primordial Russian faith, he imposed an alien, Christian one. And from that faith, we are left only with pancakes, Maslenitsa, and painted eggs…

Question number two. Approach any passerby again and ask — what faith is ours, the primordial Russian one? From what moment does one primordial Russian faith turn into another?

For more than four centuries, Russians lived “under the roof” of the Byzantine church. But the Moscow church wanted power and claimed its own exclusivity and the title of the “Third Rome.” In 1448, Moscow priests declared their own independence, unrecognized by Constantinople or anyone else in the rest of the world, and another 140 years later the new church acquired an official head—a patriarch, installed by Boris Godunov and again recognized by no one. Because the church was formally part of the state structure, the patriarch possessed colossal rights, comparable to those of the tsar himself. Naturally, the most “democratic” of Russian tsars—Peter I—did not like this state of affairs. In an instant he drove the patriarch from his throne and created the Most Holy Synod—an assembly of high clergy wholly subordinate to the tsar, dealing only with matters of church censorship and internal church life. By the way, another interesting fact: Peter I ordered priests to hand over information obtained in confession to the authorities without fail—and that order has never been revoked to this day.

Before that, however, an event occurred in Russia that split the now-Russian church into two—and both are “right.” Our world’s most far-sighted tsar, Peter, decided not only to shave beards and build ships on European models, but also to bring uniformity to the church. The church reform begun by his father Alexei Mikhailovich aimed at correcting service books according to Greek models, replacing the two-fingered sign of the cross with the three-fingered sign, replacing the name “Isus” with “Iisus,” and other trifles. Still, in our time, thanks to a certain Soviet writer, we know for sure that Peter carried out revolutionary transformations of society. Peter’s contemporaries understood things more simply: a complex-ridden, heavy-drinking ruler was indulging in elementary tyranny. And, naturally, everyone rose up against this tyranny—from the high clergy to the poorest peasants. After watching this disgrace, the tsar voiced his opinion in the classic “the will of the people is the tsar’s will,” and then followed the example of his ancestor Prince Vladimir, organizing the harshest repressions against his opponents and consigning them to anathema.

Unlike us, Russian people at that time believed firmly, and they believed in Christ far more strongly than in the tsar, and therefore simply fled into the forests, to the north, and to Siberia. And so that the tsar would not be tempted to goad his own people further (and as a lesson to posterity), they would occasionally stage public self-immolations as a protest. Between 1675 and 1695 no fewer than 20,000 people perished in such self-immolations. Those who remained hid in the forests and continued to live according to the “old” faith. They were only “forgiven” in 1971. Question number three: Which faith is more correct—the one the Russian people embraced before 1666, or the modern one, invented by the tyrant tsars?

And now comes the most interesting part. Until 1917, almost no collisions arose in the Russian church. It grew strong, grew rich, lived peacefully with the people, with the authorities, and with competing organizations. And there were plenty of those before the revolution. Just walk along Nevsky Prospekt and count the number of “non-Russian” churches. Everyone lived side by side—Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants, Uniates, Buddhists, Muslims. In 1917, the opposing sides had no time for the church—there was turmoil and a struggle for secular, not spiritual, power. The Bolsheviks who came to power in one fell swoop separated church from state, and school from church. Here, of course, they did not think it through—Russia was a peasant country; peasants believed in God to a man, and it would have been far more convenient to govern a people left without the Father-Tsar with the help of the church than with grain requisitioning. But what happened, happened. The Bolshevik authorities did not recognize the church, and the church did not remain in debt and, with all Christian humility, cursed that authority. However, there is a black sheep in every family—among the Russian clergy a Renovationist movement arose, advocating a radical change of the Russian church in the light of the Bolshevik victory, close contact and cooperation with the new authorities. It is hard to say whether the clergy really independently came up with the decision to sell themselves to the Bolsheviks, or whether the agents of the timely-repentant Dzerzhinsky skillfully worked their magic—but nonetheless, the church split into two parts. The Renovationist faction received certain relaxations from the Bolsheviks, while the remaining part quite naturally began to be subjected to oppression and repression. But the matter did not end there.

There was a number of clergy who in principle would not accept any contacts with the already anathematized godless authorities, nor did they approve of the passive behavior of the “old” church, and at the same time they did not want to go to the camps for an idea. These priests created their own, secret church, which adhered to all the canons of the Russian pre-revolutionary church. This church was later called the Catacomb Church. To this church belong the groups that still exist today: “True Orthodox Church,” “True Orthodox Christians,” “Iaonnites,” and others.

During the same period, in the wake of emigration, a large part of the clergy found themselves abroad, where there were no obstacles to normal Orthodox church activity. Unlike the clergy who remained in Russia, the representatives of this church called themselves the “Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia.” Despite political difficulties, the church abroad maintained close ties with the one in Russia, but…

Since 1917, the Russian Orthodox Church was led by Patriarch Tikhon. He was an opponent of the Renovationist movement, did not go underground into the catacombs, nor did he flee abroad. Patiently enduring all oppression from the new authorities, in 1922 he was put on trial for opposing the confiscation of church valuables, and in 1923 a “Renovationist” council defrocked him, stripping him of his priesthood and monastic status. He was succeeded by Sergiy Stargorodsky — a man who also suffered considerably under Soviet rule, was imprisoned twice, and as a result came to the conclusion that cooperation with the Soviet authorities was necessary. In 1927, Sergiy entered into negotiations with the NKVD, formulated the Church’s position of loyal attitude toward the Soviet government, and called upon all clergy to be faithful citizens of the Soviet Union. For anyone who lived in the Soviet era, this meant only one thing — voluntary consent to strict control by the NKVD-KGB.

Sergiy’s decision definitively split the Russian Church into three: the Russian Church Abroad, the Catacomb Church (officially banned in 1957), and the currently active Church, which calls itself the True Orthodox Church. Question Number Four: To which church should a true believer belong?

For a long time, the secular authorities wavered — was this Church even needed at all? After all, the more or less doubting part of the population was already imprisoned, while the rest were unanimously working for a crust of bread and a ration of vodka. Therefore, the 1930s, despite the Church having completely surrendered itself to the power of Stalin’s gang, passed under the big question mark of its very existence on Russian territory. Those fourteen years (from 1927 to 1941) were quite enough to replace the “old” priests with new ones — perhaps not very well-versed in Greek and Latin, but seasoned in political debates and skilled at writing reports where they needed to go.

However, in 1941, what happened happened, and it turned out that the Stakhanovite spirit alone wouldn’t carry one into an attack. This is precisely when the Church came in handy. The spiritual influence of the Church on the warring people was so great that in 1943, Stalin was even forced to acknowledge its significance for the country as a whole. After that, times that were, if not the best, then far from the worst, came for the Church. At the very least, priests were no longer imprisoned and shot. True, they were not removed from KGB control either.

After this, a strange time began for the Russian Orthodox Church. Under the complete control of the KGB and party organs, it sort of existed, and yet it sort of did not. Going to church was considered indecent, though one was not punished for it (at least, for “non-party” people). Any research on religion was published in a form absolutely neutered to fit Soviet standards, and so-called “scientific atheism” in Soviet Russia, either out of a strange sense of masochism or in all seriousness, descended to the conclusion that all world religions originated from imperialist ideologues. However, the idiotic subject of “scientific atheism” in higher education institutions was eventually replaced by the no less idiotic “Marxist-Leninist philosophy.” Christianity was examined as consisting of Catholicism, Protestantism, and Orthodoxy (meaning, of course, modern Russian Orthodoxy). Other Orthodox churches seemingly did not exist, although the occasionally manifesting “Catacomb” churches still had to be reckoned with — starting in 1957, they were diligently banned, classified as sects. Probably, the idea, so characteristic later on, of the exclusive role of the ROC had not yet fully manifested here; rather, the similarity of the very idea of a “Catacomb Church” to some kind of underground played a role. As for the Russian Church Abroad, it was as if it did not exist at all.

Incidentally, all observers of today’s processes in the Russian Church should remember one interesting fact. Any appointment to any church post until 1991 happened exclusively with the blessing of the Department for Religious Affairs of the regional or territorial committee of the CPSU. And consequently, all Russian priests who received their ordination before 1991, including all of today’s ROC leadership without exception, are essentially appointees of the KGB and party organs. We speak of the holiness of the Church, do we not?

After Gorbachev came to power and the notorious perestroika began, the Russian Orthodox Church revived. However, it did not engage in restoring churches or in questions of educating the people, as would have happened before the revolution. One didn’t need to be a genius to understand that with the attainment of the long-awaited freedom of conscience, many could lay claim to the role of spiritual leader of the Russian people — the “Catacombniks,” the Russian Church Abroad, the Catholic Church, the Protestants…

Therefore, the ROC’s first order of business was to secure its own positions. Yet this was far from simple — religious spirituality in the Russian people had been completely uprooted or mutilated to death over 70 years. The attempt to accustom people to going to church with the help of TV broadcasts of Yeltsin at some prayer service had an effect, but more as a sign of a new fashion or new initiative — the people understood neither the essence of visiting church nor the rules of church order. So the ROC took the simplest and long-tested path — the path of searching for an enemy. To avoid delving into deep philosophy, a priori incomprehensible to the common person, all other confessions besides the ROC were simply declared sects. However, you can’t just frighten a Russian person with the word “sect” — even during the stagnant times, there were groups known as “sects,” actually the most powerful Protestant churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, which were absolutely harmless and called for working for the good of one’s family and for non-resistance to evil, which was very convenient, as representatives of these churches were very systematically arrested by the KGB.

As if by chance, certain religious confessions suddenly appeared in the world, ones that actively promoted their views—the White Brotherhood in particular. Despite the often utter delusional nature of the ideas they put forward, these confessions enjoyed unprecedented success, especially among young people. And that is when a definition as concrete as a hydraulic press surfaced: totalitarian destructive cult. First, all newly emerged confessions of the White Brothers type were pigeonholed under this definition, then all ideological opponents, specifically the catacomb churches (the previous year’s famous bogeyman, the “Theotokos Center,” also traces its origins back to the “catacombniks,” incidentally). Satanists, Krishnaites, Roerich devotees, and even the wretched followers of Porfiry Ivanov—all turned out to be totalitarian sectarians. In the spirit of the stagnation period, all leaders of all “repugnant” confessions were declared “not entirely mentally healthy,” while all their adherents were said to have been deceived, zombified, and forcibly drawn into the sect. In their attempts to vilify everyone and everything, the ROC’s ideologues clearly lost all sense of proportion—in the numerous handbooks on sects published by church figures there is not a single positive comment about any confession on Russian territory, except the ROC, of course.

The ROC had the worst time of it dealing with representatives of the largest world religions on the territory of Russia—Muslims, Buddhists, and Catholics. It was simply impossible to classify them as sects. Carrying out any propaganda against them would have meant turning at least the global community against itself and bringing down the wrath of the secular elite, who were actively seeking loans from the West. To ban them—strange as it may seem, the Russian Orthodox Church on the territory of Russia cannot ban anything at all (or permit anything, for that matter), because according to Lenin’s 1918 decree the church is separated from the state, and nobody has yet repealed that decree. Consequently, the church on Russian territory has no civil rights whatsoever. At the same time, the ROC could not afford to leave its major competitors in its own rear either, and here is why.

First, the ROC’s own position was, and remains, extremely shaky. Despite the skillfully provoked (with the total indifference of a president who had drunk himself into oblivion) illusion of a religious boom, the people have in reality not gone any further in their religiosity than the traditional christening of a child “just in case,” showy wearing of little crosses, and clumsy crossing themselves at every church dome they pass. And over 70 years of joint Soviet-KGB life, the ROC lost all skills in any kind of effective propaganda, to this day using for that purpose old wives’ tales about “hellfire,” the illnesses of unbaptized children, and family troubles if one’s faith is weak. Its competitors, on the other hand, who did not sit behind the “Iron Curtain” all that time but actively engaged with the global community, have moved much further ahead and, even without any special effort, enjoy far greater success than the ROC. How many websites of the Russian Orthodox Church have you seen on the Internet itself? I’m afraid only those tiresome pseudo-exposés by Deacon Kuraev, who went so far as to declare the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God to be a fabrication of the Papists. Meanwhile, Catholic news feeds, Buddhist tantric literature, and Muslim preachers’ explanations regarding Afghanistan and Chechnya enjoy well-deserved success.

Second, the ROC remembers very well the existence of “opponents” in the form of the catacomb churches and the Russian Church Abroad. While the catacombniks—since there are not many of them left and they behave quietly—could until recently simply be ignored, with their occasional manifestations declared the schemes of sectarians, the Russian Church Abroad is active and in a direction entirely different from what the ROC would wish. The Russian Orthodox abroad (though their abroad-ness is quite relative, as over the last decade several dozen “local” Russian churches have joined ROCOR) actively dislike both the spiritual and commercial policies of the ROC (more on the latter below), and ROCOR does not hide this. Before 1991 one could still pretend that ROCOR, like the catacombniks, simply did not exist, but with the development of the Internet and active ties with the West, ROC figures increasingly have to enter into polemics with their former colleagues one way or another. However, it is quite difficult to call it polemics—in response to serious and well-founded accusations from ROCOR of deviating from the basic canons of Orthodoxy, Christianity in general, and Russian traditions in particular, ROC figures can find nothing better than to simply and monotonously accuse the church abroad, ROCOR, of apostasy—and nothing more.

Third, it is no secret to anyone that the ROC eagerly and actively entered the initial phase of Russian capitalism—senseless and merciless. Many business spheres, often very far from the traditional production of candles and tombstones, were taken under the ROC’s wing. The ROC engages in the sale of vodka, in book publishing (in no way theological, by the way), in transportation, and in general does not shun any sphere of commercial activity. Not to mention the blessing of absolutely anything you pay for—from a diamond-studded cross to a new mansion. The appearance of other large churches on Russian territory means the ROC will have to share its income—and no businessman will tolerate that. In this situation, the fact of the separation of church and state is very much to the church’s advantage—no taxes, no other problems of that sort. Of course, as in any organization, there are people in the ROC who honestly do their duty and serve the spirit, not the letter. But right now we are not talking about them, but about the trends overall.

Many still remember the discussion between the Irkutsk Catholic parish and the philharmonic society regarding the historically Catholic church building in the city center. This dispute was not initiated by the Orthodox Church, which had nothing to do with the matter, but by the philharmonic—and even more so from a sense of its own helplessness and lack of funds. However, representatives of the ROC still took part in this dispute, actively adding grist to the mill of public opinion concerning the primordial Orthodoxy of the Russian nation and the inadmissibility of alien Catholics in the native city. For some reason, the Orthodox priests completely forgot history at that moment—namely, that it was precisely the Catholics, the Jesuits, who taught literacy to all of Europe and half of Russia; that it was the Russian emperor who invited Catholics to Russia, including to Irkutsk, for the purpose of educating the youth; that it was the Catholics and Lutherans, and not (for some reason) the Orthodox priests, who brought knowledge and literacy to the people.

The Irkutsk Catholics were allocated land for the construction of a new church (one is forced not to think about the logic of its placement in this case). It was presumably expected that the construction would drag on in the best traditions of domestic building, but the church was erected within a year. Representatives of the leadership (at the highest level) of all denominations came to the opening, except, naturally, the ROC and—you will laugh!—the Pope, who had planned this trip but did not receive an invitation. As a well-bred man, despite the fact that our patriarch had no right either to permit or forbid anything, he waited for an invitation to his own, so to speak, housewarming—and did not receive it…

The deeper Russia enters the curve of capitalism, the more the Orthodox figures begin to seize power. Alexy II, who in appearance, voice, and mannerisms more closely resembles a provincial obkom secretary than a patriarch (Lord forgive me, but how hideously he reads prayers on television), appears alongside state officials, blesses presidents, bans tax identification numbers (future generations will long laugh at this idiocy), and generally behaves as if the church is not separated from the state but is something like a ceremonial signboard of the government: garish, annoying, yet impossible to discard—image…

A religion law is being pushed through the Duma, in which, between the lines but clearly written, is: only one church has the right to a normal and comfortable existence in this country. It is not difficult to say which one. What is the ROC aiming for by this? It is easy to guess, even without being a genius. So that all of Russia would be uniformly Orthodox, without any of those Catholics and sectarians, so that everyone uniformly attends church, be God-fearing and God-obedient parishioners, honestly reveal all their secrets in confession, and respect God, the Tsar, and the Fatherland. An idyllic picture. Though, in the not-so-distant stagnant times, such a picture was called more honestly: a social order. Whose? Those who do not need a thinking and developing people. Those who need freedom of speech, conscience, and religion only as slogans in election campaigns. Those who are ready to gamble for superprofits not only the natural riches of the country but also their own people.

So, the final question: what can be said about the Orthodoxy or the general Christian orientation of the modern Russian church institution? That the church promotes the spiritual growth and moral strengthening of its parishioners, comforting and supporting, humbling itself in trials and preaching non-acquisitiveness—or that to it apply the famous “drive out the merchants from the temple,” “let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” “if someone strikes you on the left cheek, turn the right,” and the call to “love your neighbor as yourself”: although, if it has long ceased to call itself “Christian,” Christ’s calls might not have any effect? So what is that church, which we pass and drive by every day, in which we baptize children and at whose domes we occasionally cross ourselves—a symbol of God or a den of Satan (“Satan” translated from Hebrew means “apostate”)?

Dmitry Taievsky
Irkutsk, 2000
e-mail: [email protected]

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