Paul Goble
Staunton,
February 26 – Few stories from Russia in recent times (other than anything
connected with Vladimir Putin) have sparked a larger media firestorm than the report,
including a Youtube video, of a Russian choir singing in St. Petersburg’s St.
Isaac’s Cathedral a song celebrating the raining down of nuclear weapons on US
cities.
(For
the text, links to the video, and initial reaction in Russia and the West, see echo.msk.ru/blog/day_video/2378351-echo/, novayagazeta.ru/articles/2019/02/26/79693-navodi-na-gorod-vashington
and ahilla.ru/i-na-samoletike-sverhu-drug-moj-vovochka-ne-s-pustymi-lyukami-v-gosti-priletel/.)
Almost
lost in the media firestorm is the fact that the St. Petersburg bishopric of the
Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate issued, via its press
office, a statement strongly condemning as inappropriate and in bad taste the
song given where it was performed (interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=72100 and ahilla.ru/v-sankt-peterburgskoj-mitropolii-sozhaleyut-chto-pesnya-pro-podvodnuyu-lodochku-byla-ispolnena-v-isaakii/).
Choral music is performed regularly
in St. Isaac’s, Natalya Rodomanova, spokesperson for the bishopric said. But this
song as performed by a quite well-known collective, of course, is surprising,”
not only because of the venue but because of its timing on the Day of the
Defender f the Fatherland. All that makes this “clearly inappropriate.”
In the view of the church, she
continued, it appears that a sense of taste deserted those who performed this
song in this church “and we extremely regret that such an event took place in
Petersburg and even more in St. Isaac’s Cathedral.” That may not be the sweeping denunciation the
song deserves, but it is better than nothing.
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