Jehovah’s Witnesses Must Have Right to Practice Their Faith Even if It is Untrue, Russian Orthodox Priest Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 2 – The Russian Orthodox priest who took the almost unprecedented step of collecting the signatures of 181 other priests on an open letter calling for fair treatment of those arrested in the Moscow case says that even though he doesn’t accept the teachings of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, he is furious with idea that they should be banned and repressed.

            Archpriest Andrey Kordochkin tells Novaya Gazeta that he is “ready to defend the freedom of other people who think differently and believe differently because I consider that in defending the freedom of others, we are defending our own freedom and our own dignity” (novayagazeta.ru/articles/2019/12/02/82962-esli-im-pozvolit-oni-snova-zaymutsya-lyubimym-delom).

                The priest says that he didn’t expect to garner as many signatures as he did but at the same time, he doesn’t consider that the letter was “a political act” as “we did not take the side of any political party or express sympathy to any political leader.”  We simply expressed our views as Christians about the nature of justice.

            He adds that he sees what he and his fellow religious have done now as being in the tradition of the 1965 open letter signed by Fathers Nikolay Eshliman and Gleb Yakunin in which they spoke about the oppression of the Church during Khrushchev’s times.  The fact that more signed now reflects both social change and technical possibilities.

            But Kordochkin conceded that many of those who did sign were subjected to pressure by the religious and civil authorities although few priests backed away given that the letter called only for “a just court, the rejection of false witnesses, and the rejection of unjustified force. “These are Biblical norms.”

            A year ago, months before he was involved with the open letter, the archpriest wrote a pamphlet entitled Rendering Unto Caesar? Must a Christian be a Patriot. In it, he sharply criticized “the combining of Orthodoxy and state patriotism” especially when that presupposes “a struggle with enemies.”

            “Absolute submission to any power or any law never was part of Christian teaching,” Kordochkin says. It is important to talk about what the limits are and to remember and remind that “silence isn’t neutrality; silence is a mark of agreement.”

            To those who ask what the open letter has achieved, the archpriest says, he answers that “one of those who was named in it is already free and the case of a second, I hope, will be reviewed.  In addition, this letter had an enormous missionary effect: both church people and unbelievers saw that the church could speak the truth bravely and without glancing at anyone.”

            But the most important impact may have been on the signatories, he continues. It became “an enormous event in their own lives because it is important for a human being not only to hear another but to hear himself.” And “therefore it seems to be that was act was not in vain and wasn’t useless even if it did not have instant and immediately visible results.”