How not to become "third force"

Both Patriarch Kirill and Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, of course, are right when they recall that the parishioners of the Russian Orthodox Church are among the participants in the protest movement and among those against whom this movement is directed. This is a fact, it can only be noted. However, the church leadership (let's call it in such a way as to separate from the Church as a more complex organism) this circumstance as an occasion a) to remain above the fight and b) position himself as a natural mediator - even if not offering his help as a “negotiator”.

There is crawling in this and revaluation of your own authority.

The scale of the December protests was explained by the fact that they were ethical, not political. The patriarch in the Christmas interview with the Rossiya channel, speaking of the protest movement, clearly uttered the word “lies”, but, practically without stopping on the lies of a specific one, switched to lies “in general”, lies present in all areas of life, and then, according to tradition, spoke about the threat of shocks. The leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church has repeatedly declared the intention to give only balanced comments, to prevent the politicization of their own public assessments of what was happening. If these intentions are sincere, then their implementation should be recognized as unsuccessful: any conversation about “swinging the boat”, any attempts to get away from specifics towards the general, abstract, theoretical leads to the fact that statements are not perceived as balanced and independent. They organically integrate into the discourse of the current government. The right to protest is recognized as integral, but the emphasis is on completely different - on what the exercise of this right can lead to.

People expressed on behalf of the Church position it (and, therefore, themselves) as a “third force”, to which both sides of the conflict can appeal. Such positioning is problematic for several reasons.

The “third force” should have authority for the conflicting parties, as it was, for example, in Georgia in November 2007, when Catholicos Elijah II acted as an intermediary in negotiations between the ruling party and the opposition. Such authority and such functions are possible if the authorities and the opposition unite the common basic values, and the intermediary structure embodies these values. It is difficult to evaluate to which Orthodoxy unites the Russian power and protest movement. Sociologists close to the Russian Orthodox Church and church officials themselves after year replicate the information that more than two -thirds of Russians consider themselves Orthodox, but there is not enough deep and critical analysis of these data (“They think, but what they understand? They think, what exactly do, what do they follow?”)

Russia can be called a conservative country, inert, paternalistic, but whether it can be called its Orthodox is a big question. Such a statement is suitable for political game and bargaining for privileges, but not for mediation, not to stimulate social dialogue.

The protest movement is heterogeneous, this facilitates the representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church by its segmentation and choice: with whom it is useful, and with whom it is useless and unpromising to bring bridges. Vsevolod Chaplin conducts confidential conversations with Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Thor, but at the same time subjected to mercilessly criticizing the “liberals” and those who already had access to power in the 90s. Such segmentation can be perceived as you like: as attempts by the Church, using relative freedom of maneuver, to play at once on several sites “for the future”, in their own interests or as the execution of the Kremlin’s foggy order. It cannot be perceived as a balance, an application for the functions of an intermediary or initiator of dialogue.

The church in early December had a chance to become a “third force”. Some of the believers were at the forefront of moral resistance: the priests went to polling stations as observers, intellectuals wrote smart journalism, their voice in a public discussion about what to do, sounded weighty, and cooled hot heads. It was a vivid example of civil, moral choice.

Religion, including Christianity, is not limited to ethics, but it is Tempora and Mores - the leitmotif of most public statements of the Orthodox clergy and the church “top”. In a situation where nothing happens, it is easier to talk about the need for moral renewal, but when such an update, albeit in a separate, political region, becomes an actual agenda of the day, the silence is contraindicated - and the hierarchs fell silent, as if they were waiting for the authorities to determine the framework of a possible reaction.

The readiness of the authorities to uncheck the grip led to that (and someone will say-coincided) that the pluralism of opinions in the church became more convex. This dispute of the Orthodox in many respects duplicated a broader public discussion in many respects. “Dissatisfied” spoke of lies and human dignity. Skeptics (for example, Archpriest Maxim Kozlov) pointed out that there are no democracies and honest elections anywhere, just in one case the protocols are falsified, and in the other the media are manipulated by the consciousness of voters. The “guards” reproduced the rhetoric of the authorities, including references to the “orange threat”. The Holy Principles presented this inner polyphony as an occasion to "remain above the fight." Polyphonia should be said to be always present in the church, but far from always the church leadership is refrained from not expressing on behalf of all believers.

The church could become the “third force” in the future, if it had accepted - at all levels, and not just at the level of individual conscious citizens - participation in the transformation of the political system. The Russian Orthodox Church and political players of the future (and the correctly corrected) would unite the experience of the struggle for common values. A convenient moment for this was missed. Now representatives of the church sometimes say the right words, but how do they differ from the words of representatives of the authorities? Now the correct words will no longer attract attention, and the dialogue of the two camps is gradually reduced to the technical coordination of procedures. For this, neither Chaplin, nor Patriarch, nor the Russian Orthodox Church as a structure - it has weight and status, or not.