Translated material
R. Lunkin - about the appeal of the clergy of the Izhevsk diocese: “The clergy cease to be indifferent”
On April 13, 2011, senior researcher at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Roman Lunkin, in an interview with Portal-Credo.ru, commented on the appeal of the clergy of the Izhevsk diocese, who refused to commemorate the patriarch at the liturgy.
In his opinion, the action of the priests does not indicate the weakness of the Russian Orthodox Church. On the contrary, “the appearance not of fringes and church “freaks” - anti-Semites and creators of conspiracy ideas about the union of the Russian Orthodox Church MP with the Vatican, but of serious priests who speak at this level about the problems of modern Orthodoxy, is the most important indicator of the revival of church life within the Russian Orthodox Church MP.”
Until now, the expert believes, “none of the clergy were so interested in the theological and social problems of the Church as to speak and act about them,” since the Church was “a closed monolithic complex that interacts only with the state.”
The speech of the Udmurt priests is “a consequence of the greater openness of the Church, the desire to begin a discussion of problems, a consequence of the personal example of the Patriarch’s social activity.”
“The difficult establishment of dialogue with society through conflicts will create both a church environment that will become a support for Patriarch Kirill, and a circle of conservative freethinkers who criticize the patriarchy. For the first time, probably since the beginning of the twentieth century, the Church can be congratulated - the clergy are no longer indifferent,” he believes R. Lunkin. Sources