Translated material
Holy basis
The Church is promoting its national project
While statesmen are discussing the pros and cons of the ideas of sovereign democracy, the hierarchs of the largest Russian denomination - the Russian Orthodox Church - are beginning an active presentation of their own model of the country's future. “A project for the modernization of Russia based on spiritual and moral values and conservative ideology” is how the developers of the “Russian Doctrine” concept characterize their brainchild.On Monday, the “Doctrine” was discussed in the Moscow St. Daniel Monastery, the residence of Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Rus'. Here, under the patronage of the head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Kirill, the Council Readings were held - one of the open meetings within the framework of the World Russian People's Council (perhaps the main public project of the Russian Orthodox Church). “The Council first held hearings on the “Russian Doctrine” on January 1, 2005 at the Union of Writers of Russia,” Metropolitan Kirill reminded those present. The mention of the literary association was not out of place - on the right hand of the Bishop sat the guest of honor, the head of the Writers' Union Valery Ganichev.
However, it makes sense to talk seriously about the prospects of the project only now - as Metropolitan Kirill noted, in two and a half years, “significant changes have been made to the text of the doctrine, and it has acquired, in our opinion, greater integrity.” “I would like to hope that joint work on the project will develop into a broad public discussion of the basic values of Russia, the preservation of which, in turn, would become the main priority of each of the political parties,” Bishop Kirill expressed his wish. Creatively rethinking Marxist terminology, the Metropolitan added: “Politics is just a superstructure, and basic values cannot be the subject of political compromise.”
As the DECR head noted, the task of preserving the national and spiritual traditions of the Russian people cannot be solved without modernizing the country. “It is obvious that serious creative efforts are required in the social and economic sphere,” Bishop Kirill emphasized and began a conversation on a topic that seemed far from church issues. “The increasing instability of the global financial system requires Russia to develop its own logic of monetary relations so that serious changes in the global financial market do not turn into a deep crisis in the domestic economy,” the Metropolitan noted. According to him, there is a great deal of truth in the position of the developers of the “Russian Doctrine” when they say that in order to achieve this goal, the state must control the use of the country’s natural resources and its energy capacities. Finance, foreign trade and the military-industrial complex must be under control. This must be done by wisely combining the advantages of the market and government regulation of market processes in the interests of the entire society. “Returning to the state its legitimate sources of income, and to the people - social justice, should become the main task of the truly national Russian elite,” summed up Metropolitan Kirill, again recalling that the “Russian Doctrine” is a non-party project, or rather, a supra-party one.
But so far only one party has officially taken it as a basis - the unregistered “Great Russia”. Its leader, a member of the Duma faction of A Just Russia, Andrei Savelyev, sat in a place of honor, not far from Bishop Kirill and his deputy, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin.
Deputy General Director of the Center for Political Technologies Alexei Makarkin, commenting on Metropolitan Kirill’s speech to Vremya Novostey, noted that the bishop’s interest in the camp of “professional patriots” is not accidental. “At one time he was considered a Westerner in the church. Kirill is a student of Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad and Novgorod, who died in 1978, during an audience with the Pope. The Nicodemusites were considered, relatively speaking, Westerners; conservative church groups did not treat them very well. Now it is important for Bishop Kirill to show that he is not a Westerner, that he is a patriot and no less a Slavophile than the most consistent Slavophiles,” says Mr. Makarkin.
According to the political scientist, the “Doctrine” cannot be considered an expression of the opinion of the entire Russian Orthodox Church. “There are many different centers of influence in the Russian Orthodox Church - both under the current patriarch and under his predecessors. Projects related to the Russian People's Council (including the ideology of the “Russian Doctrine”) are specifically associated with the name of Bishop Kirill,” believes Mr. Makarkin.
Participants in the Council Readings were able to verify the seriousness of the intentions of the developers of the “Russian Doctrine” - for greater clarity, a very weighty book of the same name was distributed to everyone. The authors of the 800-page work seem to have decided to cover all aspects of Russian reality. Among other things, it contains sections “Cleansing the State”, “Transformations of the Legal System”, “Economics of the “Russian Miracle”, “Creation of a Migration “Membrane”, and, finally, “Russian Doctrine and Its Opponents”. The opponents, according to one of the developers of the Doctrine, philosopher Vitaly Averyanov , included not only ultra-liberals, but also the ultra-right. “Radical nationalism is not a Russian phenomenon,” Mr. Averyanov disowned supporters of extremist ideas. Sitting at the same table with him, the official leader of the “Great Russians,” Andrei Savelyev, who at one time signed the famous “letter of the five hundred,” which many considered openly anti-Semitic, did not comment on this.