(In the photo — Kirill Gundyaev and Alexander Ageikin) Last week we wrote about a serious challenge to the ideological system of the current regime and its relationship with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), caused by the coronavirus epidemic (https://golosislama.com/news.php?id=38426). And recently it became known that the current leadership of the ROC and Kirill Gundyaev personally suffered a serious loss — Alexander Ageikin, the abbot of the very important for Orthodox Moscow Elokhovskaya Church (Theophany Cathedral), died from the coronavirus. Ageikin is not only a close person to Gundyaev. Last year we wrote about a scandal in which he was involved — a visit of an official delegation of Russian Freemasons to his church, who, judging by this episode, have good relations with him and the current ROC MP establishment (https://golosislama.com/news.php?id=36692).
Another noteworthy moment — Ageikin was one of the public and active opponents of closing churches to parishioners because of the coronavirus, believing that healing from it can be given by God (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmrwXDRf7L0). It seems that he was not.
Against the background of all these events, we offer our readers a fresh article by analyst Konstantin Eggert: The head of the ROC has turned the Kremlin, the intelligentsia and Orthodox fundamentalists against himself. Patriarch Kirill’s actions during the pandemic have undermined his authority forever, according to Konstantin Eggert. «I am sitting in an empty church. OMON dispersed my old women when they tried to attend the service…» The voice of a well-known bishop, whom I called to congratulate on Easter, sounded clearly confused.
Opposition monks In his poor provincial Russian town and surrounding villages, the faithful are mostly elderly people who, according to the bishop himself, say: «What restrictions? This may be our last Easter!
And I don’t know what to say to them. I asked the bishop if he had received any instructions from the Patriarchate. «They said they could not order the closure of churches and urged cooperation with local authorities. How are we to understand that?» he replied.
But Patriarch Kirill himself was in a no less difficult situation. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) conducted the Easter service in an empty Christ the Savior Cathedral in Moscow. At the same time, the morning and liturgy in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra near Moscow, which many consider a kind of «Orthodox Vatican,» took place with the participation not only of the brothers, but also a significant number of ordinary parishioners, judging by the online broadcast.
According to his status, the Patriarch of the ROC is also the abbot (archimandrite) of the Lavra. It turns out that the conservative monks of the Lavra simply ignored their own «boss». This fact will certainly be noticed by the episcopate and, more importantly, by the Kremlin. The Patriarch’s request to freeze the church’s utility bills will cause irritation in the government, to which everyone is already turning with a request for money, and has already provoked a negative reaction on social media — as if the head of the ROC, instead of asking for help for the poor parishioners, is asking for help for «the company».
Atheists and fundamentalists against Navalny and the Patriarch The pandemic has shown everyone the weakness of the Putin system of governing Russia. And just like that, it revealed the disastrous consequences of the ROC flirting with the state on the one hand, and the fundamentalist «activists» among the active believers on the other.
The endless compliments to Putin, the readiness of the church leadership to support the new-old Putin ideology of Soviet greatness, and the ostentatious display of wealth by some hierarchs and clergy have turned influential minorities-primarily (but not only) educated urbanites-against the ROC. These people, through their willingness to participate in protest rallies, volunteer movements, and social media activity, are actively shaping today’s ideological alternative to Putinism — and thus the image of Russia’s future. This future does not include a public role for the Church and, in a broader context, for religious faith. The reaction of these people to Alexei Navalny’s tweet congratulating believers on Palm Sunday is an excellent example of the radical «new atheism» that has become almost the norm among Kremlin opponents. My observation is that not only will this trend not change in the coming years, but it will become more pronounced.
On the other hand, the pandemic has exposed a rift between the top hierarchy of the ROC and the active believers as well as the monastic community. Most of these «activists» see Christianity as the only true ideology and feed on conspiracy theories. For them, the coronavirus is either a hoax launched by the multifaceted West (CIA, Bill Gates, and so on in the list), or a test of faith — a temptation. Fighting it should involve disregard for danger and even readiness to die, but not abandoning worship.
For this part of the faithful, the Patriarch is a stranger with his eloquence, closeness to secular power (which church activists consider corrupt, pro-Western and not very Orthodox), «Mercedes cars» and contacts with «heretics» from the Vatican. These people have their own heroes — first and foremost elders like the late Archimandrite Ioann (Krestyankin). Many bishops appointed by Patriarch Kirill belong to this «activist» group and are oriented to it. Under the conditions of the pandemic, many of them felt like mini-patriarchs in their dioceses (which is actually in accordance with tradition and canons), and essentially sabotaged the government’s quarantine orders.
What will the Kremlin do? An absolutely paradoxical situation has arisen: the opposition critics of the Patriarch, who demanded the closure of churches (and collective prayer places in general), have in fact ended up on the side of the authorities they do not like. And it seems that the pro-government episcopate and a significant group of believers have, on the contrary, found themselves in opposition. The fact that the Patriarch, out of fear of confrontation with monasticism and «activism,» as well as unwillingness to lose income, agreed to close the churches slowly, reluctantly, and vaguely, did not earn him any points in the eyes of Putin. «If we notice from our side that the patriarch is no longer leading the church, the Kremlin will certainly notice,» one of the veteran priests told me.
On the contrary, Metropolitan Tikhon of Pskov and Porkhov, probably the most popular bishop and Orthodox writer in Russia, has decisively closed churches, stopped collecting donations from parishes, and begun to support priests and the poor, many of whom are children. The Patriarch has become a stranger to everyone: to the authorities, who see him as a weak and incompetent manager; to the active faithful, in whose eyes he has betrayed «true Orthodoxy»; and to a significant part of the urban middle class, for whom the Patriarch is a very wealthy, detached member of the ruling corporation, an enemy of science and progress.
Patriarch Kirill has suffered a collapse — as an administrator, de facto politician, and public figure. If the current regime can survive the pandemic, there are serious doubts about the head of the ROC. There are reasons for many members of the episcopate, the Kremlin, and part of society, both church and anti-church, to seek his removal. But even if he formally retains the patriarchal throne, the authority of the current primate has been dealt such a blow in recent weeks that it will not be able to recover.
Author: Konstantin Eggert — Russian journalist, presenter of programs on the Dozhd TV channel. Author of a weekly column in DW. Konstantin Eggert on Facebook: Konstantin von Eggert