Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 13 – Many have
noted that the current Moscow patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church is more
a politician than a religious figure, but such comments are often dismissed as
simply carping. But now a Belarusian
priest has come up with numbers that make the case conclusively.
Father Aleksandr Shramko on his
Facebook page yesterday presented the results of his investigation of Patriarch
Kirill’s speech at the World Russian Popular Assembly this week. In that
speech, the nominal religious leader spoke a lot about Russians and the state
but never once referred to God (risu.org.ua/ru/index/all_news/community/religion_and_policy/58177/).
Kirill’s speech has attracted
widespread attention for its political messages. (See, among others, sova-center.ru/religion/discussions/society/2014/11/d30637/, ruskline.ru/news_rl/2014/11/12/russkoe_nacionalnoe_samosoznanie_vystupaet_glavnym_garantom_edinstva_strany/, interfax-religion.ru/?act=print&div=17957, ruskline.ru/news_rl/2014/11/12/schitaem_poleznym_normativnoe_zakreplenie_statusa_russkogo_naroda_kak_gosudarstvoobrazuyuwego/, and interfax-religion.ru/?act=documents&div=1249).
But none of these has pointed out
just how absent religion was. Now Father Shramko has filled in that blank. In
his speech, the priest says, Kirill referred to nation, national and
international 28 times. He mentioned Russia or Russianness 47 times, unity 15
times and the state eight times.
Kirill did mention the church twice
and Christianity and holiness once each. But he did not make a single reference
to God, to Christ, to the Saviour or salvation, sin, repentance, or justice.
In so doing, he overfulfilled the
plan of his Soviet-era predecessors who at least would refer to the divine when
they spoke on behalf of a godless regime, a pattern that highlights both the
degeneration of the patriarchate as a religious institution and the nature of
that body in Putin’s Russia of today, a state that builds churches but doesn’t
encourage faith.
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