Is it worth modernizing the Russian Orthodox Church?

In an article published on the website "Civil Club" (which relatively rarely refers to the topic of religion), Yuri Ammosov discusses the reasons for the relatively weak influence of the ROC in modern Russian society and suggests possible ways to modernize the Church. Aleksey Chadaev objects to this "Protestant" approach.

Yu. Ammosov notes that both in Russia and in Western countries the number of "practicing believers" is extremely small. This is due, in his opinion, primarily to the fact that "the parish is dying." “Urbanization, the development of high-speed mechanical transport and the specialization of labor led to the fact that people began to work and live in different places,” writes Yu. Ammosov. “The community held out for a long time, but fell in the 20th century. The community mentality is still alive in small towns and ethnic ghetto - but in the urban centers, where the life of modern civilization is concentrated, he almost died. Meanwhile, "the parish remained where it was - near the house. And it's also good when it's nearby - in Russia now it is not uncommon for districts and cities to have no churches at all. Moreover, the ROC, either due to lack of funds, or due to planning errors, instead in order to create a grid of temples where people live, mostly restoring old temples where they once were - mostly in the city center.

Therefore, Orthodox preaching does not affect the number of parishioners in any way. Even those who sympathize with her will be forced to break their way of life through the knee in order to lead the church life.

Yu. Ammosov believes that the way out for the Church may be to change the traditional form of its organization: "Now, as before, we must comply with the changes that have taken place in society. The church community must move from the place of residence to the place of work of believers. <...>

Communities should be formed around temples, but parishes should turn from registration parishes into club ones. That is, to unite people of similar interests and life experience - colleagues and friends.

However, this is not enough. According to Yu. Ammosov, "one cannot do without rethinking the concept of the church as a place for receiving religious services." He emphasizes that "this phrase, which immediately suggests commerce and sacrilege, actually describes the model by which our ancestors communicated with the church for thousands of years." On the one hand, "membership in a parish should involve regular contributions - and substantial ones. A modern person pays health insurance, pays fees to a fitness club, although it happens there and there from time to time. So why does he expect that you can come to priest, whose work is harder and more responsible than that of a fitness trainer?" On the other hand, in response, "the priest will then have to look at his parishioners as wards, and not strangers and random people, and distinguish between their personal situations, troubles and difficulties. The priest must be a demanding shepherd for the parishioners - but his own person, and not a stranger a mercenary who does not care about sheep, one to whom people do not hesitate to come with a load of sins and problems.This is "religious services" - from the word "serve" and not "serve".

“In fact,” writes Yu. Ammosov, “we are talking about the restoration of the old principles on which the Church has been built for thousands of years. The Church, following them, has always successfully fitted into a changing society and can fit into it again, if it wishes. It is rather of all, the task is not one decade. But it is feasible. "

In his opinion, "the first step of the Church towards her future flock could be a reform of the calendar," which is quite feasible, since "there is nothing particularly sacred in the calendar, and moreover, world Orthodoxy basically already uses the new calendar, which coincides with the Gregorian one."

Church publicist Aleksey Chadaev opposed the "Protestant" approach proposed by Yu. Ammosov. In his opinion, "it is too early to proclaim the death of the parish and turn it into a club of interests. The Church is not a divisive, but a unifying institution, and in this sense, the territorial principle implies only one thing: if you are far from home and your parish, you go to any temple from those to which you are closer to run.<...>

... People come to the Church not to change the Church, but to change themselves. It is precisely this, by and large, that makes it difficult to agree with Ammosov in his ideas, which are certainly not devoid of rationality. It is incomprehensible why we, the laity, suddenly demand from the Church some new and modern social forms - obviously on the basis that we know human nature better. It is not clear why the consumerist slogan "make me comfortable" should be extended to the Church. It is not clear, finally, what we want more from the Church: the mass character and effectiveness of preaching, or the preservation of the faith and its transmission through generations. <...>

Yes, the world is changing - it's stupid to deny it. But the Church is the most conservative social institution by nature, to change always at the very last turn, and to measure not seven, but seven times seven times. It is this immutability that gives it that credibility over the nature of which sociologists are accustomed to rack their brains. Even those people who are oriented towards progress, by and large, do not need a "quick response church" at all - on the contrary, it is precisely the restraining, limiting role of the Church that is in demand. By depriving themselves of this role, the Protestants thus deprived their society of the need for the church as an institution, becoming useless with their quotes from the Gospel.

On January 13, a commentary on these two speeches was published on the Religion and Mass Media portal . The author of this commentary believes that this discussion is an example of a "normal" discussion of the topic "The Church in our life": "Firstly ... the topic from uterine-intra-church (or aggressive-out-of-church) becomes general, that is, public. Secondly ... it is being de-ideologized. Thirdly... it is discussed by people who understand church specifics."

Particularly important to the author is the circumstance that both Yu. Ammosov and A. Chadaev consider the Church as a social phenomenon. Commenting on the idea of ​​A. Chadaev about the "restraining, limiting role of the Church," the author writes: "This apparently banal thought contains an important sociological truth. testifies, first of all, to the decline of what they want to preserve at all costs.The point is different: in the super-modern world - that is, in the world of media and multimedia culture, the dominance of the market for goods and services, social and technical dynamics, ethical and aesthetic pluralism and etc. - like shagreen leather, such spaces are shrinking and gradually disappearing that would correspond to a person's own dimension - his soul and body. There is a progressive fragmentation and depersonalization of human existence.<...>

And in these monstrous conditions, the Church, in the traditional forms of her life, turns out to be almost the only "place" where a person who comes to God returns to himself. <...> ... It's not about the conservatism of the church institution, but about the potential of traditional churchness to perform very significant socio-psychological functions in the current cultural situation."

But these potentialities, the author continues, will be able to be realized

only when pastors appear who are able to "perform a" media "(intermediary) role in the" multimedia "world. That is, on the one hand, to clearly understand modern social realities (without cursing them as such, which, unfortunately, often takes place ), and, on the other hand, really teaching a person of the so-called post-industrial, information society to stand before God and before other people face to face.

Sources

• Ammosov Y. The Orthodox Church in Bourgeois Russia: Reflections on the Eve of Western Christmas // GlobalRus.ru. 2003. December 25.
• Chadaev A. The Russian Church and the Spirit of Capitalism: Reflections on the Eve of Orthodox Christmas // There. 2004. January 6th.
• Church modernization. Christmas discussion on Globalrus.Ru // Religion and Mass Media. 2004. January 13th.