There was no discussion

The head of the Synodal Department for Relations between the Church and Society, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, proposed to fill the “gap in legitimacy” of the Russian state system resulting from the October Revolution.

“The Bolsheviks, who seized power in 1917, made it impossible to hold the Constituent Assembly, which was supposed to choose a form of government for the country. This failure in legitimacy still calls into question the continuity of our statehood and agreement with the will of the people and the choice that was made without him,” Father Vsevolod said at a round table within the framework of the exhibition and forum “Orthodox Rus'” taking place in Moscow.

The discussion about the optimal state structure for Russia, he continued, did not receive sufficiently serious development in 1993, when the current Constitution was adopted.

“It is clear why this discussion was not detailed enough: society had not yet learned to live in freedom, and some of the discussions of that time led to an armed clash in the center of Moscow, and some led to chaos. Therefore, one can understand the authorities who did not discuss this discussion then welcomed and did not contribute to its development,” the priest noted.

The fact that such a discussion did not take place and “all available options for the political development of the country were not taken into account”, today, according to the representative of the Church, “impoverishes our prospects.”

“That’s why the discussion about the ideological foundations of our statehood, about how the people or different layers of the elite should participate in the construction of a common home, is not over, but is just beginning,” the priest said.

Speaking about how the Church could contribute to the discussion about the future ideological and political foundations of the system in Russia, Father Vsevolod proposed preparing annual reports assessing the current situation and outlining “pictures of the future.”

As a positive example of such developments, he cited the recently published report “The Third Rome. Sovereign Modernization,” which was prepared by Orthodox experts Kirill Frolov and Kirill Loginov. Father Vsevolod admitted that he is not ready to subscribe to every word of the report, but considers it “an intellectual breakthrough in the matter of Orthodox social thinking,” which is distinguished by wisdom and balance.

These documents could become “a serious part of the discussion” about the future of the country, he said.