Faces of Russian Orthodoxy

The Pussy Riot case has put a lot of things into perspective.
One of the revelations is the close-up of “churched” witnesses and accusers.
Until now, the Russian Orthodox Church appeared to an outside observer in the form of the glamorous Gundyaev, with his limousines, watches and palaces. Well, also Kuraev and all sorts of other Chaplin-Legoids.
That is, leadership and officialdom.
And it was assumed that somewhere else there were millions of wonderful people for whom all this pathos was happening.
And so we saw them - altar boys, candle holders, key holders, security guards, pathetic-believing prosecutors and judges.
What can I say? As is the pop, so is the arrival.
And vice versa.
They all stand there for each other, from the patriarch to the very last candle-holder and the most senseless security guard, from Chaplin to the pig-faced bureaucrats and security forces, crowding around the priests and demonstrating to everyone their Orthodoxy and church-going: evil, aggressive, cruel, limited, pathetic.

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