Posted on 02/23/2008 4:42:20 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
Russia's Orthodox Church, despite decades of brutal repression under Soviet rule, is putting its trust in the KGB to ensure that a remarkable religious revival does not fade with the departure of President Vladimir Putin.
In an unusual move, Alexei II, the Church's patriarch, has endorsed deputy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev ahead of next week's presidential election.
The influence of his support on Russia's estimated 100 million Orthodox worshippers is immense.
It also illustrates the unholy alliance the Church has forged with the Kremlin since Mr Putin came to power eight years ago.
The president, a proud adherent, has allowed the Orthodox Church to regain much of its Tsarist-era lustre and has won the enthusiastic support of religious leaders in return.
With his hand-picked successor almost guaranteed victory in the March 2 poll, Mr Putin is determined to maintain the arrangement by holding on to the reins of power as prime minister.
The relationship might seem odd. It was the KGB, after all, that led persecution of the Church in Soviet times, when priests were regularly jailed, tortured and executed. Neither this nor accusations that Mr Putin is restoring many of the attributes of Soviet rule seem to bother Alexei.
Although he has never confirmed it, the patriarch, like the president, is a former KGB agent codenamed Drozdov, according to Soviet archives opened to experts in the 1990s.
Many in the Orthodox hierarchy are also accused of working as KGB informers, a fact that critics say the Church has never fully acknowledged.
"Essentially, the Orthodox Church is one of the only Soviet institutions that has never been reformed," said one priest, who declined to be identified for fear that he could be defrocked. That fate already befell another colleague, Gleb Yakunin, in the 1990s when he called on Church leaders with KGB links to repent.
Yet it is not just the KGB that binds the Church and the Kremlin. In the Tsarist era, the Church was a committed supporter of the imperial rallying cry "orthodoxy, autocracy and nationhood." Critics say that Mr Putin, who draws as much of inspiration from imperial Russia as he does from the Soviet Union, has adopted the same mantra - making the president and the Church ideal bedfellows.
Both have blossomed from the relationship. The number of Russians who identify themselves as Orthodox has doubled in the past decade, with two-thirds of the 140 million population proclaiming the faith - quite a feat after seven decades of official atheism.
Yet most Russians say they follow Orthodoxy for national rather than moral reasons. Deeply patriotic and with a declared intention of making Russia great again, the Church has milked the sentiment.
Priests are regularly seen on television sprinkling holy water on bombers and even nuclear missiles, a blessing that reinforces Mr Putin's own militaristic philosophy.
The Church has even supported Mr Putin's repression of democracy, with a senior bishop last year comparing human rights activists to traitors.
When a prison chaplain suggested that the jailed oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a personal enemy of the president, was a political prisoner, he was promptly defrocked.
Late last year, Sergei Taratukhin - who served five years in a Soviet gulag for defying the authorities - recanted, falling to his knees in front of television cameras and won a partial reprieve. He is now employed as a rubbish collector at the cathedral in the far-eastern city of Chita, near where Khodorkovsky is jailed.
In return, Mr Putin has worn his religious credentials very publicly and is regularly shown on state television kissing icons at Church services.
Given his popularity, Mr Putin's example has been emulated by many Russians. The business and political elite have assiduously followed instructions to fund the rebuilding of churches destroyed by the Soviets across the country.
Last year the magnificent Assumption cathedral in the Siberian city of Omsk, blown up by the Bolsheviks in 1935, was rebuilt with donations from the city mandarins.
The result is that Russia, at least in religious terms, is beginning to take on a Tsarist-era hue - and not just in terms of architecture.
Sister Varvara, who lived under a tree for many years before locals helped her to build a wooden church, is Omsk's local prophetess, healer and mind reader - a throwback to the wandering mystics such as Rasputin, who dominated religious rural life at the turn of the 19th century.
Dignitaries from across Siberia visit her to hear their fortune or just get advice. Sometimes, she gives Mr Putin a helping hand. A few years ago she told Tatyana Chertova, a retired actress with a shock of red hair, that she would become famous by writing a play about the president.
Mrs Chertova's play, Putin's Holiday, premiered last year.
Fascinating.
MAN that so weird having Russian Orthrodx church which I naive believing that they don’t like Vlady
I’d read that the Orthodox churches generally tend to be more closely allied to the state than other denominations.
The name Chertova.... Translates to “Devil’s Daughter”... LOL
Communism and socialism are living lies -— I guess you have to do what you have to do, to survive under it. It is a bit of a paradox; Godliness and Communism.
They communists never left power, they only sacrificed a few old men and did a little slight of hand with Yeltsin.
Three steps forward, two backward.
Still movement forward, isn’t it.
You wrote:
“I’d read that the Orthodox churches generally tend to be more closely allied to the state than other denominations.”
True. Historically, many Orthodox churches were essentially run by the secular rulers. Caesaropapism is usually the term used to describe this subservient relationship of church to state.
actually I read how the church in the kremlin in moscow was saved.
Turns out Lennin ordered it to be torn down and all the little grandmothers surrounded the church and would not leave until they committeed to not tear it down.
Putin is giving more protection to the christians than the USA. The USA is siding with the cult of islamofascism.
What did they expect.
Been that way since 325
Putin is giving more protection to the christians than the USA. The USA is siding with the cult of islamofascism.
:::::::
Good point. The radical socialists in America are doing everything they can to tear down any system that tends to hold man accountable for his actions and measure him in that regard. Religion is but one aspect of that Godless crusade of the radical left. The dark side marches on....
Orthodox church IS in som way a state. Orthodox church is a leader of nations spiritual and moral ways. In other hand, politicians must allways bare in thir minds stanc of Orthodox church.
position of Patriarch himself in Orthodox countries is basicaly “presidend in the shaddow”... something like a cardinal Richelleu...
Patriarc dont lead gov. but he is very powerfull, and if he and Church say “No” no some gov. mouve, gov. will obay.
Article is pretty ignorant about orthodoxy.
Actually same position of Church is in NATo countries Romania, Bulgaria and Greece.
Orthodoxy is state-religion or better even, religion-state.
Othodox... Shmorthodox. Follow the money. Always follow the money. The Orthodoxers are afraid of competition from Lutherans, Mormons, Baptists, etc. It’s no more complicated than that.
Yes, the Tsars were de facto heads of the Orthodox church, and the Metropolitans all toed the government line. Even under the Communists, the church maintained it’s subservient role. Stalin used the church to his advantage during the Great Patriotic War, even giving a joint radio address with the Metropolitan.
In return the church took up a special offering and “purchased” a brigade of T-34’s for the state.
Nope.
there are many Christian denominations in Orthodox nations. In serbia herself, there are Baptists, Catholics, Pentacostal, Evangelists, but vast majority are Orthodox, and all denomination respecd... well “primus inter pares” of Orthodox Patriarch as a leader of countries christians.
Problem with West is that Orthodoxy is not a religion as Protestantism or Catholicism is. Orthodoxy is culutre, way of life and fundamet of an nation.
Orthodoxy is so much incorporated into scoscieties of nation that is dictatin overall national and public values of an nation.
Per example, when Serbs adress to Russia, they go to President and to Russian Patriarcs, and stance of Russian Orthodox church is as allmost as importand as stance of state of Russia.
Per example, when Orthodox child is born, it will be thought to respect church, be a good Christian and be ready to sacrifice in order to protect word of our Lord, and country.
For all Orthodox, Church=God=Country
When country calls you to go to war, it is like God called you. We are thought our entire lives that it is ultimate honor to give your life to God and Country.
That may explain how Serbs, Greeks and Russians fought so stubbornly In wars.
vales=values
Russians should have sacrificed in order to struggle against Godless Communism. Instead they betrayed their own people and supported the Communists who enslaved them. Mindless animals like KGB Putin are traitors to the Russians people. Putin was a servant of the EVIL EMPIRE which assaulted Christianity. He does not repent for this, but rather he misses the Soviet Union and defends its evil to this day. Those who serve Putin are not Christians at all, but satanic liars.
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