Dalue

The discussion around the program of the Isaac's Cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church is a matter of the confrontation of two ver, and it is not clear which one is closer to genuine Orthodoxy

The formulation of the “event X blown up the Internet”, in the case of the history around the Isaac's Cathedral and its alleged transfer of the Russian Orthodox Church, has become incomplete: the statement by Governor Poltavchenko (“The issue is resolved!”) Blind not only the Internet, but also the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, and the cultural community, and in general, something important in the usual outlines of the world.

They are fiercely arguing about Isaac, and the dispute goes in categories, regarding which to agree, unfortunately, is impossible.

Is it necessary to return the churches taken from her with a revolution of the structure? Yes, and there is a special law. Is it necessary to protect museums and not allow erosion and spraying of museum collections? Yes, and there is a special law. What to do if the laws in this case contradict each other? What to do, if, formally speaking, the cathedral before the revolution did not belong to the church? The answer suggests itself by itself, but we will not rush.

The faith that is behind the demand to return the Isaac, ignores hundreds of dilapidated churches in small cities, and the fate of the small cities themselves is not very interesting

We are going on. Is it right to turn an extremely profitable cultural institution into a deliberately unprofitable property and hang it on the maintenance of the city budget? Is it good that excursion groups and just tourists of other countries and religions will not continue to feel quite comfortable in the cathedral? Why transfer the cathedral of the Church if there are two worships a day there (we will not even resort to the argument that an average of 30 people comes to the services, and the Tourists through Isaac passes 2.5 million a year, this is a blow below the belt). Based on any rational arguments, it is not good, not necessary and not there, but as the Casta group sang, there are an order of magnitude higher: and because of them, rational considerations are fading into the background. So what are these things?

This is probably a question of faith. I would even say - the question of two verbalized in this matter. But to say that on one side of the dispute there is literally an Orthodox faith is also somehow not very good. The faith that is worth the requirement to return the Isaac, ignores hundreds of dilapidated churches in small cities, and she is not very interesting to the fate of the small cities themselves. It is far from compassion to weak or the protection of the oppressed, these are issues “too small”, they should “be resolved in the field”. I would say that this is a faith in power and property - and from this point of view it is quite logical that the most solemn and majestic temple of the Northern capital, which was built as a symbol of imperial power, should belong to the church, which is perceived as a division of this power. And tourists, money, museum collection - in comparison with this faith implied with meanings, this is all road dust.

But on the other side of the barricades is also faith. This is a weak, not the most modern, intelligent faith - faith in culture. Faith in the beautiful objects that we got from the past, in which a long -gone life froze. Belief in beauty, which is able to do something with a human soul, regardless of religious rituals. The belief that the objects of this past beauty in themselves are the value, perhaps the highest value that exists in the current civilization.

Let’s quite honestly: those people who talk today about the historical roots of sacredness and dispose of the transfer of property to the property of the Church, they came to Orthodoxy, as a rule, not so long ago. But this intellectual belief in culture - for so many there is a real faith in the ancestors, it has real, and not invented roots and traditions, it was she who helped to survive all the hardships of Soviet civilization and gave it the meaning - the very meaning that the people at the TV are now unconscious. And in comparison with this weak and unmarried, but very rooted in history, the property, power and decisions of one or another of its units, too, in essence, mean nothing.

So, let's call a spade a spade: the transfer of Isaacia of the Russian Orthodox Church is not a question of restoring historical justice or the return of an illegally taken and scolded temple, this is not what society is waiting for (or at least some significant part of society) from the governor and from the church. This is a matter of approving power and property, on the one hand, and the destruction of the brightest, almost religious, in fact, feelings - on the other. On this foundation, you can build a castle, a fortress, an Egyptian pyramid or a Babylonian tower - but a temple, a real temple, in the true sense of the word, cannot be built on this.