Translated material
Will rebranding help the Russian Orthodox Church?
I somehow have a hard time imagining what the Russian Orthodox Church and the authorities expected from the meaningless story with PussyRiot. Increased authority? Capital? General horror! Wasn’t it smart enough to realize that, as always, it would turn out the other way around? They would sit quietly, sell healing prayers and slowly fool irresponsible citizens with visions of eternal life. Like, you keep quiet in this life, but in the afterlife we will provide you with Kremlin rations and medicine from the fourth directorate. Amen!
But no, they staged a public auto-da-fé for the whole world, set citizens against each other, and as a result, of course, the financial and other abysses of the Russian Orthodox Church were revealed, stronger than the seven circles of Dante’s hell. People say figuratively: shit went through the pipes. Who would have paid attention to the patriarch's watch or the lively trader in the KhHS? No one.
But what is this! I didn’t know, but it turns out that back in 2009, the writer Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, a man born in 1828, Russian, married, place of registration: Yasnaya Polyana, Tula region, was recognized by the court as an extremist. The examination established that the statement of the mentioned Tolstoy L.N. : “I am convinced that the teaching of the [Russian Orthodox] Church is theoretically an insidious and harmful lie, but practically a collection of the grossest superstitions and witchcraft, hiding the entire meaning of Christian teaching” is of an extremist nature and incites religious enmity and/or hatred on the grounds of Article 282 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. So it would be good to burn the harmful books of the said count, and caulk him up in prison for about seven years. And where did our judges learn to love God so much? Really still in the CPSU?!
I’m not going to exclaim here - oh, how is it possible, this is the sun of Russian prose and all that! It is absolutely clear that today's militant obscurantism is an attempt to intimidate our not very freedom-loving people and retain elusive power. For the sake of which they will sacrifice the sun of Russian poetry and, perhaps, just the sun too.
Tomorrow the whole world will take to the streets in defense of young girls who have been kept in prison for six months, just to prove to everyone their supposed coolness. But in reality - obstinacy. And tomorrow it will become clear to everyone whether the government is still sane or the process is already irreversible. But no matter the outcome, they have already shown themselves in all their glory, and if anyone still had illusions, then they are gone. Young girls are always someone's daughters, and in the civilized world, deliberate mockery of children in the name of vague, mossy dogmas does not work. Even if by washing and rolling we force all our so-called the creative intelligentsia angrily condemn the “blasphemers” on all nonsensical TV channels.
By the way, all the shame that is happening to our cultural figures today vividly reminds me of 1996, when TV crews of the Yeltsin spill ran through the corridors of Ostankino with their eyes bulging from lies and called prominent people to sing election hosannas to Boris Nikolayevich. Such people, of course, were found and sang, then many were ashamed to death. It is clear that there were such people in our damned days. Today, for some reason, Strugatsky leaned against PussyRiot’s detractors, calling their act vile. And what's bad about it? Did Boris Natanovich really fall into senile Orthodoxy in his declining years? Miracles! But once there was a respected writer.
And if it’s about spirituality, then the Russian Orthodox Church should not persecute girls, but urgently engage in rebranding. Repent and atone for sins, and not puff out your fat cheeks. But, I’m afraid, rebranding will no longer help, even if they hire such prominent cultural figures as Vaenga, Valeria and Gazmanov for this. That's it, the train has left.
As for the supposedly natural religiosity of the people, this can be treated with very simple economic methods. When all these gilded domes, rich clothes and representative foreign cars of the servants of the Lord will be bought not with the budget tithe, that is, with our money, but exclusively with the obligatory donations of parishioners (and considerable ones, judging by the appetites of our church leaders), then we’ll see, How many true believers do we have?