Moscow Patriarchate’s Foreign Minister Says Russia’s Real Tragedy Came in 1917, Not 1991

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 22 – Metropolitan Ilarion, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s foreign relations department and generally ranked behind only Patriarch Kirill in prestige and influence, says that the real tragedy of Russia in the 20^th century came not in 1991 as Vladimir Putin has argued but in 1917 when the Russian Empire disintegrated.

            “The Russian Empire,” Ilarion says, “was really the state where many peoples lived in peace and concord. It was at the peak of its economic development and was one of the most rapidly developing countries in the world. All this was wiped out when the Bolsheviks came to power” (credo.press/240290/).

            What followed the Bolshevik seizure of power is “well known,” the churchman continues. It included “the revolution, the Red Terror, the Great Terror, mass repressions, de-kulakization, de-Cossackization, persecution of the Church, and many other misfortunes which befell our people.”

            To be sure, he says, “the disintegration of the USSR was a catastrophe for 25 million people above, all Russians, who were left beyond the borders of their Fatherland.” But the Soviet system which arose after the events of 1917 committed more crimes that affected more people, in many cases because of its anti-religious policies.

            “I consider,” the metropolitan concludes, that this was “not simply a mistake of the Soviet powers: it was a crime against the Russian people.

            Ilarion’s words are a rare case of a senior churchman publicly expressing disagreement with anything Putin says and suggest that there are many near the top of the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church who today are anything but enamored of the current Kremlin leader and his policies.

            That doesn’t mean that the Patriarchate is about to become independent or become a center of dissent, but it certainly means that the ROC MP is not going to serve as the unquestioned cheerleader for everything Putin says or does. And that marks a sea change in church attitudes that is likely to entail serious problems for the regime.