We have already written about the shameless double standards of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) regarding the prospect of returning the Hagia Sophia mosque to the Muslims in our article «Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,» in which we explored the essence of this issue (https://golosislama.com/news.php?id=38797). We are unlikely to add anything significant to this matter, but we cannot ignore the blatant blackmail by the leadership of Muslim Turkey against the head of the ROC, who has made it the dominant church of multi-denominational Russia. We refer to the relevant statement of the ROC Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev».
«…any attempt to demean or defame the millennia-old spiritual heritage of the Church of Constantinople has always been and continues to be perceived by the Russian people with bitterness and indignation. The threat to Hagia Sophia is a threat to the entire Christian civilization, and thus to our spirituality and history. To this day, Hagia Sophia remains a great Christian holy place for every Russian Orthodox person,» it said.
In this case, Gundyaev is demonstrating his attitude toward what he sees as the «humiliation» of the Church. According to him and those who share his views, the fact that it is currently a museum does not humiliate it. Rather, what he considers humiliating is when it ceases to be visited by tourists and instead assumes a role of exalting the name of the Lord, using the same words as Middle Eastern Christians: «Allahu Akbar.»
But the most interesting part comes next: «The duty of any civilized state is to maintain balance: to reconcile contradictions in society rather than exacerbate them; to promote unity among people rather than division,» the statement reads.
This is coming from a man who, since coming to power in the ROC, has sought to establish it as the dominant church in a country populated by millions of Muslims, Buddhists, shamans, Jews, not to mention the various new religious movements, agnostics and atheists.
Where is this «balance» that Gundyaev now calls for in the construction and consecration of an Orthodox cathedral by the armed forces under his auspices? Why didn’t he propose, as he is doing now, a more «neutral» character for such complexes, where there would be space for temples of other traditional religions in Russia?
And this is the root of the problem, because Gundyaev either does not want to or cannot understand that today’s Turkey and the Russian Federation do not relate to each other as Muslim and Orthodox countries, but rather as a mono-religious country (Turkey) and a multi-confessional country (Russia).
After all, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, Romania and other former Christian provinces of the Ottoman Empire are no longer part of Turkey. On the other hand, the Russian Federation still includes Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Karachay-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria, Adygea, Tatarstan, and Bashkortostan, where millions of indigenous Muslims live.
And that is why the number of «ethnic Christians» in Turkey today does not exceed 2%, while the number of «ethnic Muslims» in Russia, among its citizens alone, is no less than 10-15%.
Nevertheless, by blackmailing the Muslim leadership of Turkey, Gundyaev behaves as if the Russian Federation were a mono-religious Orthodox country, similar to Greece, where Muslims constitute a microscopic minority (although, by the way, even there, in Western Thrace, they have been granted Sharia autonomy). The leadership of multi-denominational Russia, subordinate to the ROC, also continues to act in this conflicted manner, from the voice of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State Duma, all of which support the ROC’s claims to a property in Muslim Turkey, which is no more a church than Russia itself is, starting from the Moscow state, for if anyone can speak on behalf of Kievan Rus today, it is contemporary Ukraine.
And this situation clearly shows the value of all the appeals of the ROC and its subordinate leadership in Russia to observe the inter-religious «balance». For it shows that in a country that proclaims the principle of equality of nations (although it remains in an amended constitution) and that includes seven republics with historically Muslim majorities, representatives of the second largest religious community, comparable in size to the first, have no right to a voice in its politics.
How else can we explain the fact that the Muslim voice in Russia has not been raised against the construction of an Orthodox church that serves as the main church of the armed forces in which they also serve, or that the State Duma does not have a Muslim faction, as it did even in the officially Orthodox Russia of the tsars, which could articulate the position of Muslim voters? Or that conscious Muslims are not represented in the Russian Foreign Ministry, which has long since become a diplomatic agency of the ROC?
It is not the ROC and its supporters who should reflect on these questions, for we cannot expect their conscience to guide them. It is the Muslims of Russia, and especially the titular peoples of the republics within its territory, who should reflect on why this is happening and how it can be changed.
For the time being, they can at least be happy for their co-religionists who can make decisions in their own country according to what they deem necessary. And, insha Allah, they will make their decisions despite the ROC’s blackmail.