The Patriarch's speech, however

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

On October 28, 2017, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia took part in a solemn meeting of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church. His Holiness the Patriarch made a report on the topic "On the confession of the Orthodox faith under the atheist regime and on the significance of our freedom today."

Let's see what the Patriarch said and how it correlates with reality. Report here

This year marks 100 years since the beginning of the revolutionary events in Russia and the atheist persecutions that followed

The revolutionary events in the country did not begin 100 years ago. A hundred years ago, they actually ended, if you mean exactly that time period. Meanwhile, it was the church and no one else that prompted the revolution. It was the preparation of the Decree "On Religious Tolerance," which was fully made public in December 1904, that caused massive popular unrest, including the famous procession to the Tsar on January 9, 1905, known as "Bloody Resurrection". The essence of the decree was that paganism was prohibited. Pagans became criminally prosecuted as adherents of fanatic trends (paragraph 5 of the Decree). The pagan (Vedic) churches were transferred to the jurisdiction of Christians. To mitigate the consequences of the decree, maximum freedoms were given to all other religions, moreover, mixed marriages and the transition from one faith to another were allowed. And even the term "schismatics" has been replaced by the quite euphonious "Old Believers". You say, the Bolsheviks, Lenin, etc. Answer, remember when, where and how Lenin came running to Russia. These are already late events, the Bolsheviks only took advantage of the situation. And even then it was clumsy. What kind of pagans, you say? They have disappeared a thousand years ago. The answer is a modern myth. As of 1905, pagans made up the majority of the population in Russia, well, except perhaps in the capitals and a number of other regions where Christians really represented the majority. For example, a quote from the memoirs of S. Yu. Witte, by the way the author and lobbyist of the decree "On religious tolerance":

- Our church has turned into a dead, bureaucratic institution, church services - into services not to God, but to earthly gods, all Orthodoxy - into Orthodox paganism. This is the main danger for Russia. We are gradually becoming less Christians than adherents of all other Christian religions. We are gradually becoming the least believers.

A number of researchers write that already in 1909 the freedom of transition from one faith to another and mixed marriages were prohibited. The reason is the massive withdrawal from "Orthodox" Christianity, especially in areas bordering on Europe, where people massively converted to Catholicism or Unianism. Moreover, atheism is prohibited! Many documents have not yet been declassified, it is possible that some have been destroyed. An analysis of temples and churches also suggests that many of them were originally pagan and later transferred (converted) to Christianity.

The 20th century was a difficult era for the entire world Orthodoxy

What kind of world Orthodoxy the Patriarch is talking about is not at all clear. In September 1943, at the direction of I. V. Stalin, the Russian Orthodox Church was formed, in a number of regions, mainly where the political influence of the USSR was strong or there was a large number of Russian emigrants, small-town churches were created, despite the fact that most of them are not even officially called Orthodox, but are called orthodox, apostolic. ecumenical, etc. In particular, the Romanian Church, where the Patriarch came on a visit. The official name of the Romanian church is Biserica Ortodoxă Română, that is, the Romanian Orthodox Church. Our Russian church until 1917 was also Orthodox (the official Russian Orthodox Church of the Greek rite), in the period from 1917 to 1943 there were several fragments based on the old church, one of which was indeed a church with the word "Orthodox", this is the Russian Orthodox Church, which I. V. Stalin was chosen as a connecting core to unite the remaining fragments with the renaming of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Brotherly communication between us in those difficult years allowed us to withstand the face of the persecutors

What brotherly fellowship? Everyone shared and tore the blanket over themselves. After 1917, there was a series of schisms and self-proclamations, even within such a fragment as the Russian Orthodox Church, on the basis of which the unification later took place, a series of schisms also occurred. This is the so-called Renovationist split, in which the new Renovationist Council condemned the old clergy and the Patriarch himself as schismatics and counter-revolutionaries. More details here. Then there was the so-called Grigoriev split. The divided branches were divided again and there was no end to this process. The most interesting thing is that in 1935 a meeting took place between two "metropolitans" of the two largest fragments of the Russian Orthodox Church - Sergius and Peter, apparently with the aim of reaching an agreement, including, possibly, uniting. They did not agree and did not unite, and one of the metropolitans (Peter) was shot in 1937. Like spiders in a jar.

The first murder of a priest happened in a few days after the October coup - in Tsarskoye Selo, Archpriest John Kochurov was shot. He became the first new martyr to suffer at the hands of the Bolsheviks

Such an event really took place. However, there is a shadow on the fence. The Red Army soldiers shot Kochurov not as a priest, but as an ardent supporter of the Provisional Government and an active rebel. Quote from John Reed from The Ten Days That Shook the World:

On March 19, 1922, in a secret letter to members of the Politburo, Lenin wrote: “The confiscation of valuables, especially the richest lavras, monasteries and churches, must be carried out with merciless determination, without stopping at anything and in the shortest possible time. The more representatives of the reactionary bourgeoisie and reactionary clergy we manage to shoot on this occasion, the better. It is now necessary to teach this audience a lesson so that for several decades they would not dare to think about any resistance."

It's also not so simple here. If you analyze the entire text of the letter, then it is not about the clergy, but about the reactionary clergy. This is a big difference. As I wrote above, by 1922 there were already several fragments of the former Russian Orthodox Church in the country. Some recognized the Soviet regime. And some did not recognize and actively resisted her. These are the ones who did not recognize and were the reactionary clergy. Now, to make it clearer what a reactionary clergy is. And these are those who actively opposed the new government. Including with a gun. In the winter of 1918-1919 alone, 138 communists were brutally murdered by Christian priests. In particular, in the Yakovlevsky monastery of the Penza province, nuns (nuns!) Killed a young employee of the Cheka, Pasha Putilina. In the Raifa desert (in one of the Kazan monasteries), the monks burned alive seven representatives of the workers' council. In Soligalich, the priests shot the chairman of the local council Viluzgin, and his body was torn to pieces. But these are flowers. There were also berries. In Syzran, a crowd, incited by priests, rushed into the orphanage, where they began to examine the children to see if they had crosses, after which they beat six children who did not have crosses to death. In general, the civil war as it is. Horror.

Since 1918, the widespread closure of monasteries and parish churches began. By January 1, 1930, there were 224 functioning churches in Moscow, and in 1932 - only 87. In 1931, the Cathedral of Christ the Savior was blown up. In 1928, the Russian Orthodox Church still had more than 30 thousand parishes. The closure of churches and the development of a mocking, mocking anti-church propaganda proceeded at an increasing pace. So, in 1928, 534 churches were closed, and in 1929 - already 1119. In the 1930s, the number of churches that were closed was in the thousands. By 1939, about 100 Orthodox churches remained open throughout the country out of more than 60 thousand operating in 1917

Here again the tale of the white bull. Once again, no RUSSIAN Orthodox Church existed until 1943. There were fragments of the old Russian Orthodox Church. One of the fragments was the RUSSIAN Orthodox Church. Maybe the Patriarch means it? What parishes is the Patriarch talking about in this case? Whose are they? Or maybe the Bolsheviks did the right thing by fighting sects? The true Russian church, all sorts of Fedorovites, Ionians, various catacomb churches, etc… And what happened after 1943? After the unification of the church, the election of the Patriarch and its recognition by the state? And there was a massive construction of new churches, the restoration of old ones and even the opening of a theological academy (1946). Why is the Patriarch silent about this? Where are his words about 22 thousand new and restored parishes in just 5 years? Is silent. Do you know why? Because already in 1948, at the Meeting of Heads and Representatives of Orthodox Churches held in Moscow, there was a riot, that is, the leadership of our ROC banally failed the high trust placed in him. The foreign policy of the USSR received a serious blow. And the oppression of the ROC began again. Why feed the parasites? And rightly so. You have to pay for everything and work well. To be loved. And not just wave a censer and sing psalms.

And further. With regards to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The Patriarch naturally "forgot" to say that the Alekseevsky women's monastery had to be demolished in order to build this temple. There were also many dissatisfied and active resistance in society. One of the nuns of the destroyed monastery said that the newly built church would not stand here for more than 50 years. Construction lasted almost 44 years: the temple was founded on September 23, 1839, consecrated on May 26, 1883. And the prophecy began to come true even before the revolution. The temple collapsed, the walls cracked and the process was progressive. By the beginning of the 20s, there was already a clear understanding that the temple needed to be dismantled, the only open question was what to build on this site. There was a project for the construction of a grand palace of the Soviets. However, after the explosion of the temple (1931), it turned out that its foundation was completely impossible to use in the construction of the palace, it was in disrepair due to water erosion. Additional financial investments were required, in general, all this hung for a long time, and then the war will continue you you know.

In the 1930s, the number of victims of repression among the clergy was in the tens of thousands, and among the believers - in the millions. The statistics of the application of "the highest measure of social protection" to the ministers of the Church, as the death penalty was then cynically called, is striking. In 1937, according to the now published statistics of the NKVD, 33,382 "clergymen" were arrested, in 1938 for "church-sectarian counter-revolution" - 13,438 people. In 1937, 44% of the total number of sentences were executed by firing squad; in 1938, the share of execution sentences increased to 59%

Well, how can it be without this item. Neither give nor take, all repressed are exclusively believers. And only in Christ and only in a certain way. And the purge in the party or the purge in the army was exclusively among the believing officers and communists. Otherwise, the numbers will not converge.

So that there is no feeling that I am campaigning for the Bolsheviks, I will give a picture from the enemy resource, as they counted the number of repressed.

According to this table, from 1934 to 1939, the total number of deaths is 241 thousand people. Where did the Patriarch find millions of exclusively believers, probably only he himself knows. The words of the Patriarch about 44% of the execution sentences of the total in 1937 and about 59% in 1938 will be absolutely ridiculous. The table gives us a figure of 3.1% of the total number of deaths in 1937 and 9.1% in 1938, that is, this means that the number of those executed should be less, because in the camps the mortality rate was high (1937-38 - the beginning of the construction of forest camps). Interestingly, this can be regarded as libel and what we have with criminal liability? Is there a brave prosecutor? If someone does not agree with this table, then the open access is full of information on this matter, all sorts of information to Khrushchev, etc., I generally wonder how the Patriarch can now voice this kind of nonsense. Now is not the end of the 80s and not the beginning of the 90s, when, on the wave of the democratic Sabbath, there was a socialist competition among the liberals who would invent more than a million Stalinist victims.

Only four ruling bishops remained at large in 1939, and even on them “testimonies” were fabricated for an arrest, which could occur at any time

Oh how. The testimony was just fabricated. For everyone. Probably the Patriarch saw these deeds. I would also like to find out specifically by personalities and to which sect, that is, to which fragment of the church they belonged to. Official statistics tell us that only the number of fragments of the church was large, and there were bishops in each fragment. Or is it not so?

The anti-religious ideologists who prepared the program materials of the "godless five-year plans" boastfully promised …

Well.., I don't even know how to comment. Well, there is about industrialization, GOELRO, we will catch up and overtake, … Oh, that's how

During the Great Patriotic War, the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church was temporarily weakened

But in vain. In the occupied, and in some cases, and front-line territories, the priests actively sided with the Germans. And priests of all stripes.

Who is interested in the Internet is full of information. For example here or here.

Further in the text, the Patriarch goes on to the period of the collapse of the USSR.

Since that time, the number of churches of the Russian Orthodox Church has increased by 30 thousand: from 6 thousand in 1988 to almost 36 thousand today8. The number of monasteries during this period increased from 21 to 10009, most of the monasteries were restored from ruins, and some were rebuilt. In 1988, we had three theological seminaries and two theological academies. Today, we have 56 theological academies and seminaries alone, not counting other educational institutions

Not sickly, really. At whose expense is the banquet? Who is there more than others yelling about officials, warriors and cops? Or teachers. They don't have enough money. Do you think the church is self-sustaining? According to RBC, in 2012-15, the ROC received 14 billion rubles from the budget. This is official, which means the minimum. This is for current needs, that is, salaries, business trips and other vital needs. Another 10.8 billion rubles for the maintenance of heritage sites and another half a billion for restoration. Another quarter of a billion was allocated for the purchase of literature through the Ministry of Culture, another quarter of a billion through presidential grants, etc. across all ministries. And appetite, as you know, comes with eating. Now the question of building 350 new churches with a capacity of 1000 people or more is being resolved in Moscow alone. And if you remember that besides the Russian Orthodox Church, we still have a bunch of confessions or all sorts of "directions" … Horror…. Now it is clear why the Russian Orthodox Church needed St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg with an annual profit of one billion rubles? And by the way, do not forget that the Russian Orthodox Church is exempt from paying taxes.

An important milestone in the history of the de-churching of Russian society was the decree issued in 1764 by Empress Catherine II on the secularization of church property, in accordance with which colossal church property was appropriated by the state. The clergy were forced to be content with a meager salary, which put them in the humiliated and despised position of a “poor relative” of the mighty of this world, who considered themselves entitled to widely interfere in the management of the Church

She was a wise woman, although she was "German". The Church pressed, defeated the Turks, annexed Siberia, Poland, Kuban and Crimea. Our rulers learn and learn.

Well, our days.

Christianity today is faced with a growing aggressive invasion of militant secularism in all areas of society

Who does not know, secularism is a concept according to which government and other sources of the rule of law should exist separately from any type of religion. Translated from clever into Russian, the Patriarch openly declares the intervention of the church in state affairs and in the state structure. They sailed. The time is not far off when the army will not go into battle without the priest's parting words. In the meantime, with God's permission, only good weather for the harvest.

I think enough, I take my leave.