Paris was left without a mass

On October 19, the opening of the spiritual and cultural center of Russia will be held "in the working mode"

The President of France "spoiled the holiday" by the Moscow Patriarchate and personally to Vladimir Putin. After many years of the struggle for the right to build the “spiritual and cultural center” of Russia at the embankment of Branly in the center of Paris, a very controversial object from an architectural point of view, crowned with five domes, will open on October 19 “in the working situation” without the participation of the presidents. They say that it was the unwillingness of Hollande to participate in the opening of the new stronghold of the “Russian world” that angered Putin so much that it was forced to abandon the visit to France at all.

In any case, the press secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Peskov hinted at this on October 11, saying that the visit was canceled due to "events that fell out of the program." Well-informed about the position of the French side of the Financial Times explains that it was precisely the joint discovery of the Presidents of the “Spiritual and Cultural Center” on the embankment of Branley that was “fell” from the program. President Hollande considered such celebrations inappropriate in those days when women and children die in Syrian Aleppo. Exclusively on Syria, he wanted to talk with Putin, and without any accompaniment of multi -pound Russian bells, under which residents of the VII district of Paris are now waking up.

Nevertheless, the opening of the “Spiritual and Cultural Center” will be held “in working mode” on October 19. For too long and difficult the Russian authorities went to this event, so I do not want to transfer it. The center has several confusing status: on the one hand, it is the Cathedral of the so-called Korsunskaya (actually Korsun is an ancient Chersonesos, Crimea) of the diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate with diocesan administration and other church infrastructure; On the other hand, it is an office of several public organizations personifying the Russian World in Paris; Finally, on the third party, this is part of the Russian diplomatic mission, which has extraterritoriality and diplomatic immunity.

The struggle for the site and construction itself lasted more than 7 years . The French authorities were afraid of the appearance next to the government quarter of a mysterious object with unlimited espionage capabilities, and the Parisian cultural community proved that the ugly cathedral in the “high-tech” style with golden domes would destroy the architectural appearance of the historical district of the city. Finally, the shareholders of the Yukos made a desperate attempt to arrest the site on which the construction was carried out, to repay the debt of the Russian authorities to them, recognized by European courts. However, shareholders were prevented by the diplomatic status of the site. Over the years of design and construction, the Russian budget spent about 100 million euros on the center. The funds for interior decoration, as the Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Prikhodko, will be assured by the overall construction, will be attracted from extrabudgetary funds.

Paris is a historical center of Russian emigration, in the 20-30s. Here, even its own school of Russian philosophical and God-word thought arose-Parisian. Here is the Center of the Russian Archbishopric of the Patriarchate of Constantinople - the famous Cathedral of Alexander Nevsky to Ryu Daria. But old Russian emigrants do not like what the Russian authorities started. The post -Soviet gigantomania, from their point of view, will only disgrace Russian identity. Following the mayor of Paris Bertrane Delainoe, who called the construction of the century “Wandering”, the representative of the famous Emigrant surname Daniil Struve admitted that he was shallow for the “steaming” of his compatriots.

The Russian authorities also admit that such a giant complex is not needed to satisfy the actual religious needs of Russians in Paris. His true task: to create a representation of the “Russian world” in a hostile Western environment, to demonstrate the greatness and intransigence of Russia. Sergei Prikhodko calls the construction a “symbolic act”, which is aimed at turning the course of history in favor of Russia. “This is especially true today,” he emphasizes.

In the era of the accommodating (from the point of view of Putin) President Nicolas Sarkozy, Moscow hoped in Paris to place the supporting point of its “civilizational expansion” in Western Europe. One of the most radical fighters of the Orthodox-patriotic front, a former State Duma deputy from the Rodina bloc Natalya Narochnitskaya, by personal order of Putin, was seconded to Paris in early 2008, where she headed the Institute of Democracy and Cooperation. The formal goal of the institute is to monitor human rights violations in Western Europe and the United States, but in reality its work is concentrated on the promotion of “traditional values” that confront the “decaying spirit of liberalism”, justification of the expansionist foreign policy of Russia and the gathering (using grants of unknown origin) around this policy of the National Front of Mar Pen. In parallel with the Narochnitskaya Institute in Paris, the spiritual seminary of the ROC MP, whose teachers and students of which Patriarch Kirill personally selects. This is the first seminary of the Moscow Patriarchate outside the former USSR! In its own ways, it is designed to solve the same tasks that are set to the Narochnitskaya Institute: to preach traditional Russian Orthodoxy, which saves Western Christianity from liberal decomposition, and carry the values ​​of the “Russian world” in French and other European languages.

The most vivid ideologist of the “Russian world” was Patriarch Kirill, and then this ideology became the basis for the war in the Donbass. There they still fight under a red banner with the face of Jesus Christ and charge shells in the guns with the words: "In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." Some priests of the Moscow Patriarchate went out to fight against Ukraine with weapons in their hands, and the preaching of love for enemies or peacekeeping causes sincere misunderstanding on their part. Over the past 25 years, the rapid rebirth of official Orthodoxy in Russia from the persecuted to a militant, and in the direct - to the polite - the meaning of the word. Hundreds of people died during the war between Orthodox Russia and Georgia, thousands during the war between Orthodox Russia and Ukraine, the score was lost to the victims of Syria bombing. And no peacekeeping efforts from the Russian Orthodox Church MP! On the contrary, the words about the “sacred war”, the cleansing “nuclear apocalypse”, the denunciation of the rotten “Western pacifism” ... Naturally, who has learned such “nuclear Orthodoxy” (the expression of one popular Orthodox publicist) Vladimir Putin does not understand why Francois Olland does not want to listen to the ringing of bells and drink Kagor with red hiccup Or people die Shirokino ... Here we can agree with Natalya Narochnitskaya and Patriarch Kirill: Russia and the West shares an “civilizational conflict” insurmountable in this life.

Meanwhile, ordinary French people seemed to learn to recognize the aromas of the “Russian world”. Le Parisien describes how on September 26 the passengers of the suburban train heading to Paris were detained and handed over to the police of a bearded man in a black robe - an Orthodox priest. His appearance was so dumbfounded by the French that at the Villenev-Sen-Jorge station, passengers were evacuated, and the traffic traffic was suspended. This partly comic episode shows that the French already have immunity to the action of a “triple purpose object”, which opens on the embankment of Branley.