Russian Orthodox Church clergy allowed to enter politics
Russia’s Orthodox Church has allowed its clergy to enter politics in certain cases, in the latest sign of its growing presence in Russia’s secular society. Endorsed by Kremlin leaders as Russia’s main faith, the Church has grown increasingly powerful since communism fell two decades ago. Its role has drawn criticism from human rights groups who say it undermines Russia’s constitution.
On Thursday, President Dmitry Medvedev backed a decision by the Church to allow clergy to enter politics in certain cases. “The Russian Orthodox church is the largest and the most respected social institution in the modern Russia,” Medvedev told top clergy visiting the Kremlin.
The Church, which made the announcement on Wednesday, said it had made some exceptions allowing clergy to enter the political arena in cases where the Church encounters hostility from other faiths and factions. It did not elaborate.
“Exceptions to this rule can be made only in a case when the election (to government) of clergy … arises from the need to counteract forces…,” a statement posted on Patriarch Kirill’s official website mospatriarchia.ru said.
Although Russia officially separates church from state, Medvedev said the two should work more closely. “In order to strengthen social stability today …(the state and the Church), probably like never before, need to act together,” he said.
The consolidation and dominance of the Church is criticized by human rights campaigners who say its power is encroaching on Russia’s separation between religion and state and the country’s large Muslim minority says it feels excluded.
God absent from Russian church’s new spiritual guide
God is absent from a new spiritual guide the Russian Orthodox Church is drafting in tandem with Russia’s ruling party, a newspaper said on Thursday. Instead justice, patriotism and solidarity top the list of the guideline, dubbed “Eternal Values: The Foundation of Russian Identity,” which the Church is to publish with the dominant United Russia party, headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The moral guide lists the values in order of their importance in the eyes of the church and the party, as reported by the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta:
1. justice
2. freedom
3. solidarity
4. unity
5. self-restraint and sacrifice
Orthodox Church asks Russian women to dress modestly
Russian feminists have expressed outrage after the country’s increasingly powerful Orthodox Church proposed an official dress code to ensure that women dress more modestly.
A top Church official, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, called for the code in a letter in which he said: “Either scantily clad or painted like a clown, a woman who counts on meeting men on the street, in the metro or a bar not only risks running into a drunken idiot but will meet men with no self-respect.”
Chaplin, who heads the Church’s department for relations with society, said last month that women in mini-skirts were to blame if raped as they “provoke men.”
“The Kremlin has given the Church carte blanche to lead their own ideological campaigns,” renowned Russian feminist and writer Maria Arbatova told Reuters. The Russian group “For Feminism” said on their website that they had collected 1,738 signatures in their petition against the dress-code, which they will send to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill.
Russian extremism law targets religious minorities, dissenters
When armed Russian security officers forced their way into Alexander Kalistratov’s home, he hardly imagined they were after his books. The local leader of a congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Siberia now faces up to two years in prison if found guilty this week of inciting religious hatred for distributing literature about his beliefs.
“They swept everything from my shelves without even bothering to sort it, even my Bible,” Kalistratov, a street sweeper, said by telephone from the Siberian town of Gorno-Altaysk, 3,600 km (2,200 miles) east of Moscow. His trial is the first of a dozen pending against Jehovah’s Witnesses and scores of others caught up in the widening net of criminal prosecutions brought under Russia’s anti-extremism law.
Rights activists say the vaguely worded legislation, first passed in 2002, is increasingly being exploited by the authorities to persecute religious minorities, intimidate the media and clamp down on opposition activists.
“It can be used to target anybody … political, religious or even completely apolitical groups such as labor union activists,” said Alexander Verkhovsky, whose SOVA rights group monitors hate crimes, extremism and religious freedoms. “In practice, it’s a universal tool.
In the case against Kalistratov, activists say local authorities are really aiming at cracking down on groups frowned upon by the Russian Orthodox Church. The Church has undergone a revival since the fall of the Soviet Union ended decades of repression under Communism and it has strong ties to the state. It has repeatedly complained that other churches are poaching converts in its territory.
The ban on Jehovah’s Witnesses’ basic texts has spurred over 150 police detentions and searches in a three-month period alone, according to SOVA.
Russian Orthodox Church’s Kirill on ecumenism, via Wikileaks
Some interesting comments on Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, back in April 2008 when he was still Metropolitan Kirill, in a cable from the U.S. embassy in Moscow published by Wikileaks:
¶8. (C) Kirill seemed to be in good health was preoccupied as always with the, in his view, excessive emphasis on the individual in the West, and stressed the need to harmonize traditional human rights concerns with “morality and ethics.” Economic progress had been a two-edged sword for Russia, Kirill thought. With prosperity, Russians had “lost something” and Kirill, who is Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, pointed to less prosperous Smolensk as “better preserved” than Moscow or St. Petersburg.
¶9. (C) Kirill spoke highly of a UN-sponsored effort to bridge the gap between East and West by seeking an alliance of civilizations. Kirill was attempting to interest the UN in his efforts to sponsor ecumenical dialogue especially, he said, in the Middle East. As he has in past conversations, Kirill contrasted Roman Catholic Pope Benedict favourably with his predecessor John Paul II, and again held out the prospect of significant improvement in Russian Orthodox – Roman Catholic relations. Also on the ecumenical front, Kirill reported to the Ambassador efforts, via the Russian Orthodox Church of America and the National Council of Churches, to reach out to Protestant denominations in the U.S.
Although the three great monotheist faiths of the world — that is, Jews, Christians, and Muslims — seem to clash and grate against each other, there is an oasis of peace and agreement and sanctuary among them that can be found in the immortal account of the Prophet Elijah. All three of these enormous religions believe in and respect and honor the prophet Elijah. A new motion picture has just been made (fresh out of Hollywood) of the life of Elijah. This wonderful movie is called “Blast and Whisper”. Check it out on YouTube at:
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On Tolstoy centenary, Russian Orthodox won’t lift excommunication
The Russian Orthodox Church refused to rehabilitate him and the state chose to ignore him, but the official silence surrounding the 100th anniversary of Leo Tolstoy’s death has not muffled praise or quelled debate.
Unlike the 150th anniversary of writer Anton Chekhov’s birth this year — which prompted an emotional outpouring from President Dmitry Medvedev and spurred a nationwide festival — the November centenary of one of Russia’s most universally acclaimed writers has been met with surreal silence.
Neither Medvedev nor Prime Minister Vladimir Putin mentioned the “War and Peace” author for the actual centenary on November 20th, the Culture Ministry planned no events in his honor and there were no major programs on state television — Russia’s favored outlet for tributes.
“There was a deathly silence…Tolstoy is a reminder of greatness, of humanity and their significance. And that is why we prefer not to remember,” popular novelist Dmitry Bykov wrote in business magazine Profil earlier this month.
Though a devout Christian, Tolstoy’s radical theological philosophy — he compared the Russian Orthodox Church to witchcraft and preached that guidance should come from within and not from the church — got him excommunicated in 1901. Ahead of the November 20 centenary, Sergei Stepashin, the head of Russia’s Book Union and a former prime minister, wrote an open letter to Church Patriarch Kirill to forgive the author. “I ask you, Your Holiness, to show today the compassion that only the Church can afford,” he wrote in Rossiiskaya Gazeta.
The Church was quick to respond, to the same paper, saying Tolstoy was Russian literature’s “most tragic personality.”
“Several generations of Orthodox readers both at home and abroad appreciate Tolstoy’s literary work… However, his excommunication will not be lifted,” wrote Tikhon Shevkunov, executive secretary of the Patriarch’s Arts Council.
“Unlike the 150th anniversary of writer Anton Chekhov’s birth this year — which prompted an emotional outpouring from President Dmitry Medvedev and spurred a nationwide festival”
Be that as it may, the “new Chekhov” was not what Solzhenitsyn wanted to be. It won’t be what the next great Russian writer is aiming for either. And I don’t recall any film quite like ‘the Russian’ War and Peace. I think the budget on that is what actually drained the economy.
They know, they just don’t know what to do about it. Sort of like all the rest of Russian history.
Russian Orthodox say “no breakthrough” at Catholic-Orthodox talks last week
The Russian Orthodox Church said on Tuesday there was no “breakthrough” at a Catholic-Orthodox theological dialogue meeting in Vienna last week that ended with reports of promising progress on the thorny issue of the role of the Catholic pope. The statement may be more interesting for what it doesn’t say than what it does. It’s not clear which reports Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the “foreign minister” of the Moscow Patriarchate, was referring to when he said that “contrary to allegations in the press, the Orthodox-Catholic Commission meeting in Vienna has made no ‘breakthrough’ whatsoever.”
Did any media report a breakthrough? Not that I’ve seen. Is it possible that Hilarion was actually referring to the cautiously upbeat statements given at a final news conference by Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon and Archbishop Kurt Koch, the top Vatican official for Christian unity?
Hilarion was in Vienna last week but did not appear at the news conference. Metropolitan John, who spoke for the Orthodox side, is affiliated with the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul, the spiritual leader of all Orthodox which Moscow seems to compete with for a leadership role. Could this have played a part?
The issue was the role the pope played in the millennium before the Great Schism of 1054. At the 2007 dialogue meeting in Ravenna, the Orthodox confirmed that the pope, as the bishop of Rome, was traditionally the first of the five ancient patriarchs. At the news conference in Vienna, the two delegation heads said that Catholics and Orthodox could eventually come to see themselves as “sister churches” if they could agree to translate that traditional role of the pope into a modern understanding of how the churches related to each other.
In his statement, Hilarion said: “For the Orthodox participants, it is clear that in the first millennium the jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome was exercised only in the West, while in the East, the territories were divided between four Patriarchs – those of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem.”
“The bishop of Rome did not exercise any direct jurisdiction in the East in spite of the fact that in some cases Eastern hierarchs appealed to him as arbiter in theological disputes. These appeals were not systematic and can in no way be interpreted in the sense that the bishop of Rome was seen in the East as the supreme authority in the whole Universal Church. It is hoped that at the next meetings of the Commission, the Catholic side will agree with this position which is confirmed by numerous historical evidence.”
John didn’t elaborate on these points at the news conference, so it’s not clear if he might disagree with Hilarion’s view. Koch said that “unity without the Bishop of Rome is unimaginable. That’s because the issue of the Bishop of Rome is not just an organisational question, but also a theological one. The dialogue about just how this unity should be shaped must be continued intensively.” That means there are still years of discussions ahead of these theologians, but it doesn’t seem to contradict their message that progress was made.
Catholics and Orthodox report promising progress in latest round of unity talks
Roman Catholic and Orthodox theologians reported promising progress on Friday in talks on overcoming their Great Schism of 1054 and bringing the two largest denominations in Christianity back to full communion. Experts meeting in Vienna this week agreed the two could eventually become “sister churches” that recognize the Roman pope as their titular head but retain many church structures, liturgy and customs that developed over the past millennium.
The delegation heads for the international commission for Catholic-Orthodox dialogue stressed that unity was still far off, but their upbeat report reflected growing cooperation between Rome and the Orthodox churches traditionally centred in Russia, Greece, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
“There are no clouds of mistrust between our two churches,” Orthodox Metropolitan John Zizioulas of Pergamon told a news conference. “If we continue like that, God will find a way to overcome all the difficulties that remain.” Archbishop Kurt Koch, the top Vatican official for Christian unity, said the joint dialogue must continue “intensively” so that “we see each other fully as sister churches.”
The rapprochement of the Catholic and Orthodox churches must be the slowest “big story” on the religion beat. About 30 theologians meet in a joint Catholic-Orthodox commission about once every year or so to see how far they have come in reassessing Christian history so that the Great Schism can be laid to rest and the two churches can move forward to full communion. These talks produced their first joint declaration back in 1982 and have had ups and downs since then. The push towards unity has clearly gained momentum since Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill took office on February, 2009. The goal is still far off – hey, they have 1,000 years of division to get over — but they’re getting close enough now that an agreement now looks increasingly possible.
Kirill and Pope Benedict are both conservative theologians keen to work together to have Christianity’s voice heard in Europe, a continent they both think should return to its Christian roots. They’ve met in the past, including when Kirill visited Benedict at the Vatican in his former role as “foreign minister” of the Russian church. They haven’t yet held a summit meeting, so to speak, but religion reporters in Europe keep waiting for signs they will finally set a date for their first top-level talks. The Russians aren’t the only Orthodox in the game, but their size gives them a kind of veto power that has to be considered in this equation. The Vatican has good relations with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Istanbul and the new Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Irinej has invited the pope to Belgrade.
Given the long-term importance of these talks for Christianity’s two largest denominations, our busy Vienna bureau chief Boris Groendahl agreed to trek out to the city’s suburbs to cover a news conference with the two delegation leaders and Vienna Cardinal Christoph Schönborn. You can read his full report on the news conference here.
Boris sent me such long verbatim excerpts from the news conference that I wanted to post them here to give an idea of how the Catholic and Orthodox theologians imagine that this long process towards unity might develop. There’s no guarantee, of course, that they will eventually reach full communion. But the two sides already broke the ice back in 2007 when their meeting in Ravenna, Italy produced an agreement in which both sides recognised the Bishop of Rome as the traditionally most senior bishop in Christianity. They made further progress last year in Cyprus. The intensity of the work involved and the upbeat tone of the delegation heads’ comments today says even this slowest of religion stories is moving ahead in interesting ways.
Bless be God! This is so encouraging! I hope that the next trip Pope Benedict XVI makes will be to see Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church. At the national and local levels, I hope to see more Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians come together for liturgical celebrations, and that could begin with Catholics going to Byzantine Catholic and other Orthodox Catholic churches already in communion with Rome.
Chau T. Phan, Christian Unity Ministry, Santa Maria del Mar Catholic Church, Flagler Beach, Florida, USA.
New Russian holiday marked as Kremlin boosts Orthodox Church
Russia marked its adoption of Christianity in 988 on Wednesday with a new public holiday, the latest show of Kremlin support for the Russian Orthodox Church that has grown increasingly powerful since the fall of Communism.
Rights groups have criticized the new holiday, approved by President Dmitry Medvedev, as undermining Russia’s secular constitution and members of the country’s large Muslim minority have complained that it excludes them.
Marking the anniversary Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, held a liturgy in Kiev, the capital of modern Ukraine and mediaeval Kievan Rus, whose leader Prince Vladimir made Christianity the state religion more than 1,000 years ago. Kievan Rus is seen as the precursor of modern-day Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
“Facing aggressive atheism and resurgent paganism we remain firm in our belief in God,” Kirill, clad in a flowing gold cloak, told thousands of followers in Kiev’s historic Pecherska Lavra monastery.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Russia’s adoption of Christianity had brought it closer to Europe. “This was an event of colossal significance … Russia made a historical choice,” he said after lighting a candle in Veliky Novgorod’s Saint Sophia Cathedral, considered Russia’s oldest.
Moscow art curators anger Russian Orthodox church but escape jail
Two art curators have been found guilty in Moscow of inciting religious hatred in a case that has highlighted the growing influence of the Russian Orthodox church and its links to the Russian government.
Yuri Samodurov and Andrei Yerofeyev must pay fines of 200,000 roubles ($6,477) and 150,000 roubles, respectively, to the state for their 2007 Forbidden Art exhibit, which mixed religious icons with sexual and pop-culture images.
Among the art on display in the exhibit were works depicting an Orthodox icon adorned with Mickey Mouse, a Russian general raping a soldier, and a Soviet-era Order of Lenin medal over Christ’s head. Leading cultural figures had appealed to President Dmitry Medvedev to drop the charges, saying it heralded a new era of censorship.
Outside the court, men clad in black leather jackets raised icons and crosses and two priests looked on in silence as Samodurov and Yerofeyev emerged from the courtroom. Mikhail Nalimov, head of the United Orthodox Youth movement, told reporters in court the curators should be sent into exile.
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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It’s a better propostion than secularization of church and state!