Freedom of religion was declared de jure in
the USSR in 1990, when perestroika was in full swing. Nowadays,
however, a major U-turn is happening. VTsIOM, a social research agency close to the powers-that-be in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, has recently published a poll revealing that half of the respondents supported the creation of a voluntary militia controlled by the Moscow Patriarchate, whose role would be to support the police.
Wearing a ready-made black uniform with red stripes on the sleeves, this army will focus on places of worship. The idea was first launched by Ivan Otrakovsky, the famous leader of the extreme right-wing movement Svyataya Rus (Holy Russia).
Otrakovsky aims to set up “training classes” in every parish for teaching worshippers how to stave off vandals from places of worship. Parishes will therefore become instruments of public order.
According to the news agency Interfax-Religion, these “Patriarchate vigilantes” will also be responsible for patrolling streets and public places. It appears that several Pussy Riot-inspired vandals have recently defaced places of worship and religious objects by scribbling graffiti on them.
The situation in Russia, however, is not so clear cut for two reasons. First of all, acts of vandalism against churches and religious objects do not seem to be mere “pranks” or blasphemous acts but take on a more complex meaning: they manifest political dissent against Putin’s regime and the Patriarchate itself, which increasingly acts like a religious long arm of the state.
It is no coincidence that many dissidents have described the church as reverting to Soviet times, when the Moscow Patriarchate was ruled by KGB agents and the old ecclesiastical tradition was reduced to what was known as the “Catacomb Church”, confined as it was to private homes and buildings.
Secondly, these vigilante groups have existed for at least 10 years and have already staged acts of vandalism and, to say the least, “Pussy Riot-like” raids. Their real targets, however, are Orthodox jurisdictions in Russia.
Recent, as well as not-so-recent, events reported by the media confirm one thing: the Svyataya Rus vigilante groups have been de facto operational for years now, perpetrating violence with the full support of Moscow as well as local religious hierarchies. This haphazard, man-made justice is now about to receive “institutional blessing” after years of uncertainty by the Interior Ministry. After all, violence is a fact -- and facts are pretty eloquent.
In July 2011 a group of men forcefully occupied the Holy Protection church in Malyn, Ukraine on behalf of the Patriarchate. The church is in jurisdiction of ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia) and run by Agafangel, the metropolitan of Odessa. He is one of the three bishops who refused to unite with Moscow in 2007, against the will of the ROCOR leadership, thus perpetrating an ecclesiastical diaspora that had started in the ’30s.
According to news reports and eyewitnesses, vigilantes assaulted Archpriest Vasily Demchenko, twisted his arms, threw him to the ground and dragged him outside the church. Things, however, took an unexpected turn for the aggressors, as worshippers gathered around the church, making sure no food could get to the aggressors from the outside.
The nature of the attack became obvious when the Moscow-affiliated archbishop of the Ovruch and Korosten jurisdiction in Ukraine, Metropolitan Vissarion (Stretovich), arrived to give his blessing to the occupation and take formal possession of the church. Expecting a warm welcome, he was met with protests from the crowd, who successfully pushed him and the vigilantes away from the church.
The controversy surrounding Malyn began more than 10 years ago, when Father Vasily Demchenko and his congregation started using the run-down church in the town centre, restoring it with their own work and money. The pastor had the exterior renovated and frescoed and this is when Moscow started claiming the church back.
The Patriarchate, having no property rights over the church, which belongs to ROCOR, waged a veritable war against the Malyn community through legal proceedings, string-pulling and occupations. Attacks continued during celebrations for Saint Peter and Saint Paul on 8 and 12 July 2011, when religious ceremonies were violently suspended. On 15 July some vigilantes waited for the pastor outside the church, waiting for the right time to occupy it.
On 16 July the Patriarchate authorities in Moscow organised three unauthorised processions around the church, thus declaring a state of siege on the church. As the processions unfolded, a dozen buses full of vigilantes in uniforms arrived at the church, lying in wait to occupy it again. Agafangel wrote a letter to the authorities stating: “The Moscow Patriarchate has tried to occupy Malyn’s church nine times already. These illegal actions are currently headed by Metropolitan Vissarion of Ovruch with the connivance of the regional and district authorities, the police and the prosecutor’s office.”
More processions took place on 22 July as new vigilante groups clashed with Malyn parishioners. Metropolitan Agafangel said that the chief of the Malyn police force had given instructions to the vigilantes on how to proceed with the occupation.
The cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC) dedicated to “Tsar Constantine” in Suzdal, Russia, has also been the target of an on-going siege. The ROAC is an old “Catacomb Church”, i.e. the part of the Russian church that refused to join the Moscow Patriarchate in Soviet times and was therefore violently persecuted. To some, the ROAC is the modern successor of Russia’s pre-Revolutionary church.
In 2002, subdeacon Andrey Smirnov was violently beaten up in the cathedral at the end of the divine liturgy as he had apparently refused to disclose “sensitive information” about the leader of the ROAC to a group of vigilantes. This is just one of the many episodes of violence and intimidation brought to bear on the ROAC.
Last month, in the run-up to Patriarch Kirill’s visit to the Vladimir diocese, which includes the town of Suzdal, the Russian police individually “targeted” members of the ROAC congregation. The police, concerned that a mass protest against the patriarch might erupt, visited each family of the congregation.
It should not be forgotten that there is another unresolved legal dispute in the Vladimir region over the relics of the Saints Euphemius and Euphrosyne, which have historically belonged to the ROAC since 1917, when it stopped them being requisitioned.
This is not all.
The parishes facing the greatest challenges are those in Russia, where the Moscow Patriarchate reigns supreme and other jurisdictions do not have large followings.
In Ukraine things are definitely easier for such jurisdictions as the Patriarchate of Kiev which has been locked in a long-lasting war against the Patriarchate of Moscow in a bid to foil its expansion plans.
In Russia, vigilante groups are much more violent. In April 2011, during the Easter vigils, 10 men attacked the ROCOR New Martyrs and Confessors Church in Moscow. The parishioners managed to shut the doors as the vigilantes hurled stones and bottles at the gate, shouting abuse at the congregation.
The police, alerted by the worshippers, arrived at the church far too late and the aggressors managed to get off scot-free.
Another case in point is the ROAC Ascension Church in Barnaul, Siberia, which was set on fire for the fourth time in 2012 on the night of 24 April.
In 2004-05 groups of vigilantes torched the garage of the building hosting the ROAC synod (which, interestingly, is located near a police station) as well as a monastery in Vasilievskaya Street, Moscow.
This is not to mention the numerous vigilante raids on liturgies and the endless legal proceedings against the ROAC and ROCOR in Russia, Ukraine and the USA over property claims, which the Patriarchate often wins.
Moldova, an erstwhile Soviet stronghold now in the hands of Putin and the Moscow Patriarchate, is another prime example. In September 2011 a number of local representatives and twelve Moscow priests broke into the Resurrection Monastery in Sagaidac.
The alleged reason for the raid was yet again a property dispute. The monks said that the Moscow representatives had assaulted them physically, and told the senior monk that his problems would stop if he joined the Moscow Patriarchate.
Some time ago Aleksey Makarin, director of the Centre for Political Technology, cynically endorsed the persecutions: “The separation of the ROAC from the Moscow Patriarchate was nothing but a hideous schism. It was after the split that the Patriarchate started taking harsh measures against the ROAC. Right now the ROAC is being dismantled. In order for that to happen, its property, i.e. places of worship and religious objects, have to be confiscated. Deprived of its churches and holy items, the ROAC will be reduced to a meaningless organisation.”
The Svyataya Rus raids are, therefore, much more than a mere defence strategy against vandals. As Russian dissident Dimitry Savvin wrote, Putin’s regime uses the Moscow Patriarchate to reiterate its “vertical of power” and presents the Patriarchate itself as flourishing and prosperous under the aegis of its patriarch.
In fact, Savvin says, the Russian state is simply reverting to a Stalin-like approach to religion, whereby Christianity is nothing more than an instrumentum regni.
It is no coincidence that the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, led by Metropolitan Agafangel, recently united in condemnation of what is known as “Sergianism”, a word derived from the Stalin-appointed Moscow Patriarch Sergius, who brought the Patriarchate close to the Soviet regime in 1941.
“Sergianism”, therefore, is used to describe the Church’s subservience to the State.
A term that is becoming increasingly widespread, not only in the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, to describe the situation in Putin’s Russia.