Ultra-conservatives, liberals inside Russian Orthodox Church at odds

In the Russian Orthodoxy there has developed an ever clearer standoff of the ultra-conservatives and those whom they consider as ”liberals” and ”modernists.” It looks like the Moscow Patriarchate does not have a clear understanding what is to be done about this, and it offers practically no comment on this matter.

This confrontation, says the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta, is accompanied by not just verbal exchanges, as before, but mass demonstrations by Orthodox radicals on the brink of a scandal. It has turned out that there is no one capable of stopping the marginal dissenters as long as the law enforcement authorities stay away from the conflict.

One of the leaders of the Orthodox ”ultras” is Archimandrite Pyotr (Kucher), whose views are highly radical. Starting from 1997 he has determined the spiritual atmosphere at the women’s monastery in Bogolyubovo, in the Vladimir region. In 2004, an attempt by the diocesan leadership to remove the Archimandrite of the monastery was foiled by a mass street procession in the center of Vladimir and threats of setting fire to the residence of the bishop, who was forced to return to the nuns their spiritual father, recalls the website NEWSru.com.

On November 7 this year Bogolyubovo people besieged the diocesan school in Suzdal, which earlier gave refuge to juveniles, who had escaped from the convent to complain about cruel treatment. The next day they besieged the residence of the bishop of Vladimir. Now the fugitives are under the protection of Suzdal prosecutors.

Another radical branch, says Nezavisimaya Gazeta, is the Society of Blessed Matrona of Moscow, led by Archpriest Anatoly (Chibrik), which has operated in Chisinau since 2003.

In May this year the society opposed Patriarch Kirill, of Moscow and All Russia, to address him with an appeal containing ultimatum-like demands and this message: ”You do not represent us.” They also called on the head of the Russian Orthodox Church to ”repent”. The main complaint of the authors of the messages is this. The ROC’s participation in the ecumenical movement has considerably intensified. This means that pretty soon there will happen ”the emergence of a unified church – in our view, the Church of the Antichrist.”

Archdeacon Andrei Kurayev, a figure close to the Patriarch, was the main target of their next attack. On October 12 tens of Blessed Matrona society followers burst into the room at the Theological University of Chisinau, where Kurayev was delivering a lecture, and upset the event. On November 10, when he arrived at the building of Moldova’s archdiocese, Kurayev was blocked by a crowd of aggressive ”ultras.” After the hours-long siege Kurayev was rescued from the building by reinforced police patrols.

There are other examples. On November 10 it suddenly turned out that the Pokrovsky Convent, in Udmurtia, according to the local diocese of the ROC, has for about ten years been ”in schism with the Russian Orthodox Church and obeyed no authority,” and that ”its abbot, Vladimir (Naumov) is prohibited from serving, but continues to serve of his own accord.” He teaches his flock to reject the new passports and the taxpayer identification number, to refuse to send children to school, and to defy the hierarchy of subordination. Also, he maintains contact with Archimandrite Pyotr (Kucher).

By the way, as the ROC has said, the priests who call on their spiritual children to refuse to have passports, including Archpriest Anatoly (Chibrik), Archimandrite Pyotr (Kucher) and the former Bishop of Anadyr and Chukotka, Diomid all have the necessary documents of Russian citizens.

It is impossible not to recall in this connection the monks and believers who boycotted the recent national population census, which they labeled as ”the Antichrist list sign-up campaign.” This trend has its own influential religious centers, such as the Pochayevo Monastery in Ukraine.

Archpriest Alexei Lebedev in an article for Portal-Credo.Ru writes that among the existing ”religious parties” within the ROC one observes approximately the same alignment as the rest of society. There are the ”officials”, the ”liberals” and the ”patriots,” who try to influence the largest ”party of the majority.”

Today’s tide of passions is explained by the fact that inside each of the parties within the church there are enough support groups consisting of church, government and business elites, says Lebedev. ”The situation looks abnormal, because the exposed the conflict is being dealt with at the level of ”external”, secular authorities and the mass media, and as the dispute proceeds, one can hear the voices of everybody but those of the ROC clergy. Neither the Patriarch, nor the heads of the synodal departments, nor the diocesan bishop provide any public comment,” he stressed.

The attitude of the so-called party of ”officials” is the clearest of all. That party, Lebedev said, unites the highest ecclesiastical functionaries, who are most interested in the stability of the contemporary social situation.

The opponents of the ultra-conservatives within the ROC are quite varied. First and foremost, they are newly-baptized intellectuals, concerned about adequate responses by the Church to the questions posed to it by the predominantly post-Christian world. They have confidence in such supporters of the liberalization of Orthodoxy as late Alexander Menh.

Secondly, there are advocates of the so-called ”mission” in modern society, who try to convey their ”politicized ecclesiasticism” with modern media tools: rock concerts, internet technologies and social networking. ”There is no place for the Church in the spiritual ghetto,” says one of the prominent ”missionaries,” Kirill Frolov.

Among those on the side of Elder Peter and the other ”ultras” there are several groups of people. First of all, the adorers of contemporary ”eldership,” a phenomenon that began to flourish inside the ROC literally from the moment of its latest rebirth.

Another group of support for the ultra-conservatives are church ”patriots” and ”Orthodox Stalinists.” Their spiritual father in the 1990s was Metropolitan Ioann (Snychev), of St. Petersburg. This party is a living reflection of the so-called ”patriotic forces” existing in the country’s political spectrum.

Apparently, the Moscow Patriarchate does not seem to really understand what is to be done about the ultra-conservatives, says Nezavisimaya Gazeta. ”The dismissal of Archimandrite Pyotr (Kucher) and his main opponent Priest Vitaly Rysev from all posts looks like an attempt to escape from making a fundamental decision and to drive the conflict deep inside, until a new outbreak.”