Elections and skeletons

The number of skeletons extracted from the cabinets during the current campaign for the election of the Patriarch is unprecedented for the Russian Orthodox Church. The bets are extremely great - the future archpastor can control the church for decades, which makes his peers extremely doubtful to the patriarchate. In the election struggle, the corporate nature, traditionally characteristic of the church, is thrown back, for it protects it from discrediting in the eyes of society.

It all started with the fact that the Favorite was determined - Metropolitan Kirill, chosen by the Patriarchal Locumber. One of the most charismatic hierarchs of the church, over the past month, to the maximum used the advantages of his official situation, speaking with significant statements in public space. In the Sretensky Monastery - one of the centers of the Moscow Orthodox conservatism, controlled by the influential archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov) - he took the oath of allegiance to traditional church principles, expressing solidarity with the teachings of the new martyr Archbishop Ilarion (Troitsky). “When liberal ideas began to penetrate into theology, when after some theologians they began to say that there was no difference between faiths, that it was a branch on a single tree,” said Vladyka Cyril, “Saint Hilarion in his remarkable work“ There is no Christianity ”, on the basis of holy fathers and all the tradition, which is only one church - the Holy Apostolic, which currently It is in the Orthodox Church. " Saint Hilarion in his work goes even further: having brought his thought to a logical limit, he claims that Catholics and Protestants are not Christians. However, Metropolitan Cyril elegantly circumvented this issue, thereby killing two birds with one stone: the conservatives were trained, and tried not to spoil relations with Catholics and Protestants with whom he still has to cooperate.

During the Christmas service in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, he in his sermon, uttered in the presence of President Dmitry Medvedev, spoke vividly on the current social topic - the need to combat the crisis.

However, according to the laws of the electoral struggle, other applicants are usually mobilized against the favorite. Moreover, in this case, none of them should specifically organize a revealing campaign. In the near -church circles there are many ultra -right figures who not only do not have reverence for Metropolitan Kirill, but for many years they publicly accuse him of heresy, ecumenism, sympathy for Catholicism, etc. (A sermon in the Sretensky monastery was supposed to refute these accusations). The dynamism of the Lord, his social activity evoke a harsh rejection in them, turning into such an non -Christian feeling as hatred. At the same time, there are supporters of radical church reforms, for whom these accusations are not compromising at all, but for them, Vladyka Kirill is a symbol of not only opportunism, but also selfishness, the attractiveness of the Church in the dubious from the point of view of Christian morality tobacco-alcoholic operations of the 90s. And those and others do not need to specifically set the favorite - they are already ready at every opportunity to say everything that they think about him. And Kirill’s opponents can, if necessary, write off the campaign against him on the machinations of marginal, many of which have long been outside the church fence.

In this regard, the “Kirillovites” in this regard - the possible competitors of the locomotor did not attract such attention to society as Metropolitan Cyril. Accordingly, the “compromise” has been prepared for them less, and those who are ready to voice it is more difficult to find it. Therefore, the supporters of Vladyka Cyril have to not only “promote” his candidate, but also publicly explain how bad his opponents are. As a result, the audience who interested in pre -collection found out that if the Patriarch elected the current administrations of the Church of Metropolitan Clement, then the Metropolitan’s brother, the Tobolsk archbishop of Demetrius, who, it turns out, established a casemate regime in a subordinate seminary. In general, he is “a real despot capable of destroying anyone - a student, a teacher, and a parish priest,” and in God, he may not believe (such passages are contained in an open letter from certain graduates of the Tobolsk seminary, published by Diacon Andrei Kuraev, one of the most energetic adherents of Metropolitan Kirill). And Vladyka Clement himself, about which such stories do not seem to tell, it turns out that he is personally guilty of in the failure of the project to include the “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture” in the school curriculum.

The same audience received information about what will happen to the church if it is led by Kiev Metropolitan Vladimir (Sabodan), whose candidacy is supported by the Ukrainian episcopate. It turned out that in this case the church would really be controlled by the young Bishop Alexander (Drabinko), a student and closest comrade -in -arms, only recently ordained a bishop. There was a rumor that Vladyka Vladimir would not run for health reasons, and Ukrainians put forward the candidacy of the Chernivtsi Metropolitan Onufry (Berezovsky). And then from the “Kirillovsky” camp, it follows a “leak” that this bishop on the bishop's Cathedral this year was benevolently reacted to the former Chukotsk bishop Diomid (Dziuban), who was bored with most of the archpastians with their overs -worshiping statements.

Although there is-albeit insignificant-the probability of nomination of an unexpected candidate of a provincial bishop-militannik, which can be supported by the Soborians (on the Internet, in this regard, the candidacy of the Tomsk archbishop Rostislav is discussed). And anticipating the discussion of this topic-and therefore recognizing its certain relevance-Deacon Andrei Kuraev shares the pious bishops, “touching people with their“ city-Kitezh ”species into three groups. Two of them are simply disgusting-these are the actors of the lyceums and “post-bacon-kannibals” (the latter differ from the first in that they are personally ascetic, although they are distinguished by “wild ruthlessness to the priests subordinate to them”). The third group is more presentable-sincere monks lagging behind life-but its representatives are also not suitable for patriarchs because of their impractical.

Once upon a time, militant atheists were engaged in “compromise” on church people, mixing the real flaws of shepherds, rumors of varying degrees of reliability and outright slander. It seemed that now these methods would remain the property of the “yellow press”, for which there are no moral limiters. Now, the election struggle has reached such a scale that some of its participants rejected the previously observed etiquette and retracted into the "war of compromises", which can lead to sad consequences for the church.

Author-Vice President of the Center for Political Technology