Support for Declaring Ivan the Terrible a Saint Again on the Rise in Russia

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 4 – In the 1990s, some Russians called for Ivan the Terrible to be canonized as a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church. That movement was not encouraged by either the religious or secular authorities of their country. But now there are signs that the cult of the notorious medieval Russian ruler is reemerging and growing in strength.

            The erection of a statue of Ivan in Vologda has been the occasion for discussions of this, even though most have suggested that this move was simply yet another of the outrageous actions of that federal subject’s governor, Georgy Filimonov, wo has gained notoriety by his dry law, prohibition of abortions and formation of groups of new oprichniki.

            But the cult of Ivan the Terrible is far larger and deeper than that, commentator Ivan Zheyanov argues in a new article on the PointMedia portal, and very well may succeed this time around in having the notorious Russian ruler named a saint by the Moscow Patriarchate (pointmedia.io/story/690a1597e657f59b666dce48).

            The late Patriarch Aleksii and the current one Kirill both declared that it was unthinkable that the church could declare Ivan the Terrible a saint, with the current head of the Russian Orthodox Church even declaring that he considered the case “closed” for all time (ria.ru/20240716/kirill-1960059761.html).

            But despite that, groups like the Russian Community and Forty Forty and the so-called Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev, all increasingly close allies of the Patriarchate, have stepped up their efforts to promote a cult of Ivan the Terrible; and Patriarch Kirill has said that Ivan’s reputation has been besmirched by Western propaganda (patriarchia.ru/article/105296).

            The major reason that all these groups and individuals want to boost Ivan is not that he demonstrated any commitment to Christianity – that would be impossible to do – but rather that he recognized and promoted a view of the tsar as the primary defender of the Russian state by his harsh policies and thus provides the true model his successors should follow.

            Given that focus and given that the ROC MP has often canonized Russian rulers for their secular actions, it is thus not unthinkable that the church may do so in the case of Ivan the Terrible, something that will please those Russians who appear to believe that even Stalin wasn’t harsh enough