Konstantin Mikhailov on the appeal of the laity to the patriarch

We asked religious scholar Konstantin Mikhailov to comment onthe letter of believers to Patriarch Kirill, published in mid-February on the Change .o rg website. Let us remind you that believers are in favor of changing church policy and removing Archpriest from office. Vsevolod Chaplin. The conversation was conducted by Ksenia Sergazina.

Konstantin, what, in your opinion, is the most important thing in the last letter of the “faithful children” to Patriarch Kirill?

Probably, the main thing should be looked for in the content of the letter, but it seems to me that the mood of its authors is much more important: this is a mood of hopelessness, an obviously meaningless call for change, which will not and, as the authors of the letter well know, cannot be heard by its addressee (“We We understand that our opinion may be ignored"). Everything else - the opposition of ordinary laymen and priests to the “state corporation for the provision of religious services”, accusations of excessive rapprochement with secular authorities, condemnation of the personnel policy of the clergy - all this is not new and is well known to everyone who is interested in the problems of modern Orthodoxy.

But so far there have not been many texts that were so clearly written not out of the hope of achieving results, but out of an internal psychological need to express one’s position.

And this lack of hope even among active parishioners - and the authors of the letter are clearly no strangers to church life - seems to me both the most important and the most symptomatic.

The authors of the letter oppose the modern course of the Russian Orthodox Church, which, as stated in the text, “is a complete identification with the internal politics of the state, including secular and pagan components.” What does it mean? Can you guess what secular and pagan components we are talking about?

It is quite difficult to accurately decipher this passage, since depending on the position of the author, a variety of events and phenomena can be included in the number of such “components”. It seems to me that in this case “pagan” should be understood not as a literal reference, but as a moral assessment: pagan in this case is, first of all, devoid of Christian morality. Since these actions are contrasted by the authors with the example of a Christian interceding “before the mighty of this world for all the offended, the oppressed, the sick, those sitting in prison and other sufferers,” it can be assumed that the reproach for the secular and pagan behavior of the state - and the church leadership associated with it - implies first of all, the lack of mercy, compassion, excessive servility to secular authorities, in a word, a mixture of cruelty and veneration, reminiscent of the behavior of the pagan Roman authorities who fought the early Christians. Reproaches to the church leadership for a lack of mercy began to spread even during the trial of Pussy Riot and have since become more active due to the reluctance of the patriarchate to stand up both for secular people persecuted for political reasons and for priests oppressed by the episcopate.

Do you know whether the letter was signed by priests or is this just a lay initiative?

From the text of the letter itself it is clear that this is an initiative of the laity: “not a single clergyman participated in the preparation of this petition, either by blessing, or by advice, or by action.”

The church intelligentsia - and the authors of the letter, judging by its style and content, belong precisely to this circle - are quite active and independent in their statements, so I think there is no need to look for hidden meanings here: if the authors of the letter say that there are no priests among them It was, most likely, the way it really is.

Why does the name of Archpriest appear in the letter? Vsevolod Chaplin? In your opinion, what is the reason for such selectivity of the authors of the text?

Although public statements by Rev. Vsevolod Chaplin is not so different in essence from the speeches of a number of other church speakers (say, Dmitry Smirnov), namely Fr. Vsevolod is increasingly seen by the dissatisfied as a symbol of the modern politics of the patriarchy. This is facilitated by both the provocative nature of his statements - among which one can find anti-intellectual, openly misogynistic, justifying acquisitiveness, and, of course, pro-state - and the nature of his position. Any statement by prot. Vsevolod Chaplin is covered in the media, and it is often presented as the official position of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is not always true, or, in any case, with the help of a reference to conciliarity, it can always be retrospectively presented as a mistake by journalists.

The combination of a conservative position, harshness of statements and closeness to both secular and ecclesiastical authorities creates Fr. Vsevolod has a controversial image among the Orthodox intelligentsia. In addition, memories of his early, much softer and modernist statements make many suspect him of insincerity, which for a priest is considered a greater vice than any, even the most fanatical conservatism. All this makes Vsevolod Chaplin a bright and negative symbol of the patriarchy’s policy in the eyes of believers. His resignation would have been perceived as a clear demonstration of the patriarch’s readiness to pay attention to the opinions of intelligent and opposition-minded parishioners.