It would seem that the passions surrounding polygamy, sparked by the hype of the imams of the Spiritual Assembly of Muslims of Russia (https://golosislama.com/news.php?id=37259), should have subsided. After all, the issue was raised more than two weeks ago and has since lost its relevance. However, this did not prevent the highest hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) not only from expressing their unfriendly attitude towards the values of Muslims (https://golosislama.com/news.php?id=37273), but also from making political statements about the organization of the whole of Russia.
The head of the Department for External Church Relations of the ROC, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev (pictured), commented on the imams’ proposal to legalize polygamy as follows: «From our point of view, polygamy is a violation of this God-ordained law, spoken of in the Bible, that a man shall leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.»
In themselves, these words do not go beyond the bounds of proper interfaith polemics, any more than the words of a Muslim imam about the violation of God’s law by monks would go beyond them. However, Alfeyev did not confine himself to religious polemics, but also raised political arguments against the legalization of polygamy. «If individual regions of ours begin to pass laws that contradict the laws of the country, then we will gradually turn from the Russian Federation into the United States of Russia. In each state we will have our own law, in each state we will have our own legislation, somewhere we will have Sharia law, and somewhere we will have ordinary courts,» he said.
From this quote, it is clear that the ROC does not want «Sharia law to be anywhere in our country,» even in purely Muslim regions. This is not surprising, but it is interesting how they justify it. It turns out that if Sharia law exists «somewhere in Russia», it will turn it from the «Russian Federation» into the «United States of Russia». It seems that the main figure of the ROC, who is responsible for interaction with society, does not know that the United States of America, with which he scares Russia, is actually a federation. Nevertheless, no state in the United States has the Sharia law that he is scaring Russians about. However, Sharia law was in effect in certain areas of the Russian Empire, such as the Bukharan Emirate, and polygamy was quite common in communities throughout its territory. But it was not a federation or a «United States,» but rather an Orthodox state with a number of non-Orthodox autonomies.
If the main PR person of the ROC were a person with minimal knowledge of political terminology and political history, he would know all this. But instead of a competent person, the ROC decided to appoint a professional musician (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%98%D0%BB%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BD_(%D0%90%D0%BB%D1%84%D0%B5%D0%B5%D0%B2)) to this position.
On the one hand, of course, such statements should not be taken seriously — the person is simply incompetent. On the other hand, as the well-known Russian saying goes, «a sober man has a clear mind, and a drunk man has a clear speech. In this case, Alfeyev clearly falls into the latter category, but he is talking about things that seem to be on the minds of the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church even in a sober state. They are afraid not only of the recognition of Sharia law in certain parts of Russia, but also of its transformation into a real federation, a union of territories with their own specificities and interests.»