The Orthodox community of Samara is outraged by the image of the Orthodox bishop in the film “Lephiathan”

Representatives of the Samara public are asking the regional Ministry of Culture to take action against their fellow countryman, chief director of the Samara Academic Drama Theater Valery Grishko, who played the bishop in the film Leviathan. The image he created, the signatories believe, “is a cynical and dirty parody of the Russian Orthodox episcopate.”

On January 18, 2015, an appeal was published representatives of the Samara public to the Minister of Culture of the region Olga Rybakova. The authors of the letter are outraged by Andrey Zvyagintsev's film "Leviathan", which, in their opinion, is " "a low-grade slanderous opus that portrays our state and the Orthodox Church exclusively in a black light .

The greatest indignation of the signatories was caused by the fact that the role of the Orthodox bishop in the film was played by their countryman, the chief director of the Samara Academic Drama Theater Valery Grishko: “The image created by this figure is a cynical and dirty parody of the Russian Orthodox episcopate, offends all believers and, according in fact, there is nothing more than a buffoonish mockery of the Russian authorities and the main confession of our country - holy Orthodoxy .

The authors of the document would be ready to accept if this role was played by "an artist of some opposition art group, financed, as is often the case, from various foreign funds" , but not an employee of the state theater.

“We do not understand such duplicity: how can one live off budget funds, receive all the preferences from the authorities and at the same time participate in a sophisticated defamation of the Russian authorities and the Orthodox Church?” , the appeal says.

The authors ask the regional Ministry of Culture to resolve "this strange and unhealthy situation" .

Among the signatories of the appeal are writers, artists, representatives of Orthodox public organizations and the clergy.

Even before the publication of this appeal, the Ministry of Culture of the Samara Region asked the theater for information about the salary of V. Grishko.

Sources

• “I would like our Ministry of Culture to resolve this strange and unhealthy situation” // Samara.ru. 2015. January 18.
• Samara authorities are interested in the salary of the Leviathan actor // Meduza. 2015. January 19.