Paul
Goble
Staunton, June 13 – It is a rare
trend indeed in which there are not exceptions, when some individuals and
institutions suffer while most are benefitting or when others benefit at a time
when the overwhelming majority are suffering. Such is the case of the Russian
Orthodox Church whose income has risen 27 percent at a time when most Russians
are seeing their incomes fall.
Its income has risen because the
faithful are paying more for services and goods the Church supplies such as
weddings and funerals or religious literature even though they have cut back
slightly – about three percent -- on their contributions to its work (0s.nruwmzjooj2q.nblz.ru/t/%D1%80%D0%BF%D1%86/416896/finansovaia_rieka_viery_dokhody_tsierkvi_vyrosli_na_27).
According to Russia’s Federal Tax
Service, the Russian Church saw its income from services and rites and the sale
of religious literature and other goods rise last year by 27 percent to 1.79
billion rubles (30 million US dollars) while contributions to it fell to 4.03
billion rubles (130 million US dollars).
These statistics suffer from one
problem: they include all religious groups in Russia; but because most of the
other larger faiths and Islam in particular do not charge for services, almost
all of these changes are accounted for by the Russian Orthodox, according to
Roman Silantyev, who heads the council of advisors on religious affairs to the
justice ministry.
Some of the rise in the Russian
Orthodox Church’s income last year came from its “daughter” companies such as
the Sofrino enterprise which produces books, candles, vestments and icons, the
Danilovsky Hotel, and the publishing house of the Moscow Patriarchate itself,
the figures show.
Vitaly Milonov, a deputy of St.
Petersburg’s legislative assembly and a sexton in the church, says that he
believes these figures reflect reality, one in which more people are going to
church to pray because of difficult economic times and offering to pay for
services for themselves and their loved ones who are in difficulty.
The Moscow Patriarchate, however,
has not commented on the new figures. In the past, it has insisted that it
doesn’t have any of them itself as every congregation and bishopric is a
separate legal person and keeps track of its income. (That is somewhat disingenuous as local
churches and bishoprics are required to send money up the chain of the church
command.)
But one of the reasons that the
Patriarchate takes that view at least in public is that it insists its income
is not earnings which should be taxed. That was the subject of a 2012 court
case in Moscow, and at that time, the Russian Orthodox Church successfully
defended its position on its income.
There are at least three reasons why
these new figures on the earnings of the Russian Orthodox Church are important.
First, they will reinforce the view of many Russians that the church is corrupt
in some fundamental ways, enriching itself at a time when ordinary Russians are
being impoverished.
Second, the fact that other
denominations and Islam in particular don’t behave as the Russian Orthodox
Church does may make them more attractive to people who have been sitting on
the fence. At the very least, this pattern will further restrict the willingness
of Muslims to convert to Orthodoxy.
And third, this pattern helps to
explain why the Moscow Patriarchate continues to link its fate with the Russian
state. It is not just a question of the church’s caesaro-papist traditions; it
is a question of money – and that is a currency that both Vladimir Putin and
Patriarch Kirill clearly understand and calculate in.
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