Reaching for Religious Reunion (Kremlin Makes Move to Control Russian Emigre Community)

Unlike Poland and the Baltic states, Russia lacks a key source of "soft power": a united body of ethnic expatriates who can be relied on to support the mother country's policies in places like Washington. But this could change in the very near future. Moscow may bring into its sphere of influence what used to be a key ideological base for the Kremlin's emigre foes, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, or ROCOR. The Kremlin and the domestic, Kremlin-dominated Russian Orthodox Church could gain a new seal of moral and historical legitimacy at a time when Russia faces growing criticism for its swing toward authoritarianism.

In the 1920s, when the Bolsheviks were jailing or killing thousands of Orthodox Christians, a small group of refugee bishops formed what eventually became ROCOR. That body inherited or founded hundreds of parishes among Russian emigres in Western Europe and the Americas, while seeing its own existence as temporary. Its position has always been that once the domestic Moscow Patriarchate clearly renounced certain toxic habits adopted under Soviet pressure, the Russian church should reunite.

One of those habits is "Sergyanism," named after the tame bishop chosen by Stalin as patriarch of Moscow. Under Sergy and his successors, the domestic church's top clergy systematically collaborated with a regime that systematically persecuted the church's own members. The habit continued to the end of Soviet rule and beyond. Critics of the Moscow Patriarchate note that to this day, it collaborates with tyrants such as the current rulers of Belarus and Turkmenistan, as well as with Russia's siloviki. Sergyanism lives on, observe these critics, not just as past history the church has never repented, but as unreformed present reality.

Consider the Moscow Patriarchate's relations with Saparmurat Niyazov, better known as Turkmenbashi. Turkmenistan's "president for life" presides over a totalitarian cult of personality bordering on self-deification. He has authored his own personal holy scriptures, which must be studied exhaustively in the state schools and venerated in both Christian and Muslim places of worship along with the Bible and the Koran. The importation of Russian-language religious literature is forbidden: Orthodox Christians in Turkmenistan cannot legally subscribe even to the Patriarchate's theological journals.

Instead of telling the truth about Niyazov, the Russian church has awarded him with the Order of St. Danil, its highest honor for secular rulers. The Patriarchate's priest Andrei Sapunov serves as an official of the Niyazov government's Council for Religious Affairs, the direct continuation of the state agency that controlled religious life when Turkmenistan was a Soviet republic. Sapunov works directly with the secret police in persecuting Protestants who have been arrested, fined or fired from their jobs simply for holding worship services in their own homes.

Nevertheless, the Moscow Patriarchate seems confident that it is on track toward reunification with Orthodox emigres. The public statements of both sides have resumed their previous cordial tone after expressions of disagreement in February over disputed church properties in Palestine. Among the honored guests at the Patriarchate's recent "Worldwide Russian People's Council" in Moscow were several ROCOR clerics.

The speeches at that gathering, devoted to celebrating the Soviet victory in World War II and linking it to the Kremlin's current policies, suggest that the domestic church is counting on Russian nationalism to woo the emigres. Especially striking is the distinctively Soviet flavor of that nationalism. The main speeches failed to mention the victory's dark sides, for example the imposition of totalitarian atheism on traditionally Christian societies such as Romania and Bulgaria. Patriarch Alexy II made the incredible statement that the victory "brought the Orthodox peoples of Europe closer and raised the authority of the Russian Church." If one had no other information, one would think that the establishment of Communist Party governments in the newly conquered countries was purely voluntary -- and that what followed was unfettered religious freedom.

The Moscow "People's Council" also failed to reach out to a peculiarly tragic group of war victims, whose descendants are well represented in the emigre church. Facing cruelly limited choices, General Andrei Vlasov and the ex-POWs who fought in his Russian Liberation Army decided that a temporary alliance with the Nazis offered the best hope of liberating their homeland from Bolshevism. Alexander Solzhenitsyn has poignantly described their dilemma, observing that never before had so many Russians chosen to wage war against their own government. But reflections on why this happened would have diluted the triumphalist, state-worshipping flavor of the Moscow gathering, which declared that the 1945 victory was "achieved on the basis of unprecedented unity among the government, the army and the people." It is as if the United States' religious leaders were still silent about their own country's war atrocities in Dresden and Hiroshima.

Sergyanism is clearly still thriving, despite the Moscow Patriarchate's occasional abstract statements asserting its right to criticize the state. The Patriarchate's leaders still openly celebrate Patriarch Sergy's memory, with some even favoring his canonization as a saint. With rare exceptions, they still issue commentaries on President Vladimir Putin's policies, which read like government press releases. They seem sure that this issue will not be a deal-breaker in their quest for reunion with the emigres. Putin's Kremlin will be hoping that they are right.

Lawrence A. Uzzell is president of International Religious Freedom Watch, a Christian organization dedicated to protecting religious believers of all faiths from persecution by their own governments. He contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.

Key quote:

"The speeches at that gathering, devoted to celebrating the Soviet victory in World War II and linking it to the Kremlin's current policies, suggest that the domestic church is counting on Russian nationalism to woo the emigres. Especially striking is the distinctively Soviet flavor of that nationalism."

...and anyone else who might be concerned with Russia's increasingly totalitarian moves. I am not Russian or Russian Orthodox, but I find the post above and those listed below very relevant to the disturbing direction Putin's Russia is taking:

Also see:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1431124/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1431149/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1431048/posts

THE RESULTS:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1430815/posts

Thanks. I'll continue with it from time to time, and not only on Russia (as other churches are involved in the same movement). I grew up going to a Christian Church almost every weekend (and many days in between) but will be posting more information with less commentary on my part.

The problem with this theory is that the ROCOR church, aka the 'White Army' church has long been very AGAINST soviet ideology. I could see the kremlin wanting to woo them but if they wanted to prentending to be soviet good ol boys wouldn't be a smart tactic at all. These are the remenants of the churh and army that fought on behalf of the Tsar. The big gain to the ROCOR and Russian Church merger for the Russian church is the formerly Russian properties in places like israel are no longer disputed, ROCOR has been contesting those, although losingly, for some time. It's sincerely unlikely that former KGB types like putin reminining about Sovietism is going to make freinds amoung ROCOR, and the other big Russian ethnic group is Jews who have no love for Sovietism either. If the theory is Putin et al want a big group of ethnic lobbiest then the evidence presented does nothing to bolster that claim, interesting theory, no evidence though.

These article is so ignorant of the facts about the White Russians and their survival outside Russia, that I put this article under the file name of: HOGWASH!

KGB has a long history of this...not only that, they are attempting to destroy traditional ROC doctrin. If you asked me, the ROCOR/ROCA are inviting a Trojan Horse into their midst...time will tell.

NONSENSE!!

This has NOTHING to do with Russia trying to control the emigree community and everything to do with the fact that ROCOR was ALWAYS meant to be a temporary thing. ROCOR maintained and kept alive the Russian church for the time that Russia and the Mother Church was under the oppressive Communist regime.

It was always the hope and intention that the whole church would be united eventually.

What is happening now is a step towards that.

Before you go off half-cocked, you might want to also check out the links in post #4. I think they make some very powerful arguments...especially about all the Commie-persecutor/informers that were allowed to remain in the ROC hierarchy (to the present day).

I know all of this. That's not the point.

We are seeking perfection not from men but with God. We ALL, mankind, are fallible and have made many mistakes - some worse than others, but by the example of Christ, all forgivable.

This (reunification) is an ongoing process and it is being dealt with very carefully.

Met. Laurus (who happens to be a long-time close family friend, btw) is an extremely intelligent man and he is not one to be taken advantage of. He knows what he's doing...as does the Synod of Bishops.

==We are seeking perfection not from men but with God. We ALL, mankind, are fallible and have made many mistakes - some worse than others, but by the example of Christ, all forgivable.

Fine. But these people should not be allowed to retain their high positions in the ROC hierarchy. Look what they advocating after all (Sergianism). Allowing the current state of affairs to go unnoticed and unchecked is like inviting the wolves to guard the hen house. Let them go to church (once they have repented for their crimes and sincerely asked for forgiveness), but they should not be allowed to LEAD the ROC.

I think some of these folks may have thought they were doing what they needed to in order to keep the church alive and som may well have been malicious agents. Romania suffers the same history with regard to church infiltration as I recall. Still given the The Moscow church has really little pull over external churches, and that there is no more communism or state mandated athiesm, what's the point? If you did up anyone who ever had a past with the KGB most of the Russian government would be guilty. I think that only with time can these folks be replaced by folks not tainted with the same kind of past. Working for democracy in Russia is productive but calling everyone former KGB swine accomplishes nothing. Putin is former KGB, that worries me more that a Bishop with no real interest to report religious activites to a state that no longer has the time to care.

Fair enough but remember: that is up to the Synod of the ROC. We, as laypeople, are not always privy to what happens in the meetings of the Synod. We are also not privy to whatever confessions may have taken place between "these people" and their own spiritual fathers and we should not be. Confessions are a private matter - for the church hierarchy as well as her laypersons. It is up to us to trust the Synod of Bishops to do what is right and to have faith. I, for one, do trust MEt. Laurus and as I have said before - he is an extremely intelligent man and more than that, he is an extremely Godly man. He knows what he's doing.

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