Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 6 – Moscow
Patriarch Kirill has given Russian Christians on this holy day a clear
indication of his intentions for the future: he has appointed Aleksandr
Shchipkov, a lay expert who has equated liberalism with Nazism to be the first
deputy chairman of the synod’s department for relations of the church with
society and the media.
Two weeks ago, Kirill dismissed his
longtime protégé Vsevolod Chaplin as head of the synod’s department for
relations with society and announced that that department was being folded into
another one headed by Vladimir Legoida, sparking concerns among some that the
Patriarchate was going to become less active in this area.
But the latest move (patriarchia.ru/db/text/4325481.html)
suggests that Kirill may have used the excuse of bureaucratic reorganization to
oust Chaplin and that in fact he intends to be even more active in this public
space than before, given that the new appointee will occupy the first deputy’s
position in Legoida’s fiefdom.
This move is being welcomed by
Russian Orthodox nationalists like the editors of Russkaya narodnaya liniya,
who in a statement today indicate that their concerns about the consequences of
Chaplin’s firing were overstated and that Shchipkov can be counted on to pursue
the same line (ruskline.ru/news_rl/2016/13/06/vazhnoe_naznachenie/).
They say that Kirill’s decision to
name Shchipkov thus constitutes “an important appointment” and that they are
entirely happy with it. But if that wing
of the Russian Orthodox Church is pleased, others are likely to be less so
given the nationalist, traditionalist, and anti-liberal views Shchipkov has
repeated advanced in the last several years.
Shchipkov, 58, is the director of
the Moscow Center for Social Research, a longtime advisor to the Moscow
Patriarchate, a sociologist of religion and a specialist on church-state
relations. Among his recent publications,
all in Russian, are the following:
Russia’s Bronze
Age
(2015; text at iknigi.net/avtor-aleksandr-schipkov/101695-bronzovyy-vek-rossii-vzglyad-iz-tarusy-aleksandr-schipkov.html).
Traditionalism,
Liberalism and Neo-Nazism in Current Politics (2015; text at
The Turning Point (about the
Justice of Tradition)” (2013; text at fictionbook.ru/static/trials/12/13/56/12135668.a4.pdf).
The Place of
Executions
(2015; text at fictionbook.ru/static/trials/12/13/56/12135633.a4.pdf).
In all these
places, he advances a commitment to radical traditionalism and to a future path
for Russia that many would call at best obscurantist. But Shchipkov’s views are
perhaps most clearly expressed in two recent interviews in the Moscow media.
In April 2015, he told “Izvestiya”
that liberalism is the same as fascism (izvestia.ru/news/585045);
and a little earlier, he remarked to “Literaturnaya gazeta” that “the liberal
establishment has crossed a red line and that if you consider yourself an
intelligent, you cannot be a liberal” (lgz.ru/article/-50-6491-17-12-2014/intelligent-ne-mozhet-byt-liberalom/).
Such attitudes and the appointment
to a senior Patriarchate position of someone who holds them do not bode well
for either the Russian Church or Russia more generally.
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