The Prophet left - in a way

Coronavirus continues to bleed the Moscow Patriarchate: on October 21, in the 70th year of his life, Archpriest Dimitri Smirnov died

He left a bright mark in the latest church history. It seemed that the last few years of life about. Demetrius literally competed in the shocking of statements with his younger colleague - about. Vsevolod Chaplin. Both Moscow archpriests, periodically exploding public opinion, left in one year. True, the ominous feature of the coronavirus laid between their deaths: Fr. Vsevolod died back in January, to the epidemic, and about. Demetrius could not recover from the heavily transferred in May of Covid.

This year, the “New” already compiled the compensation of Smirnov’s most scandalous statements (mainly on the topics of the marriage and fate of Russia). Following the Christian tradition, we will try to find in this powerful image of positive.

The future archpriest was born in Moscow on March 7, 1951. He received a rather contradictory, but versatile education: a physical school, the art and graphic faculty of the pedagogical institute, theological seminary and the Academy. It was almost impossible for a person with a higher education (and even from Moscow) to the Seminary to enter the Seminary.

He received a spiritual education (including the Academy) - in three and a half years. Then Smirnov belonged to the mug of young metropolitan Orthodox intellectuals, rallying around a simple, but spiritual rural priest, who served in the Yaroslavl region, about. Paul (Gruzdeva). In addition to Smirnov, several more famous Moscow priests of the last pre -pivotal generation - Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov, Alexander Saltykov, Sergius Tsvetkov came out of this circle. They read about. Pavel by the holy old man is trying to continue his tradition.

This mug was characterized by a very restrained, cautious anti -Sovietism, the belief in the quick “revival of Russia” and “enlightened conservatism”.

Here, one should look for the origins of the “protest” not quite understandable at first glance, which Smirnov expressed in the last years of his life.

Priest about. Demetrius became August 2, 1979, and a year later he received his appointment to Moscow - to the Cross -Western Church in Altufiev. Then it was possible only with good relations with the Council for Religious Affairs, which was totally patronized by the KGB.

Some very high patrons remained with the Archpriest until the end of his life-not a single criminal or at least administrative case regarding his shocking calls (about the pogrom of “sectarians”, disruption of concerts, restriction of women's rights, etc.) was brought to trial ...

From January 1, 1991, a fundamentally new stage in the life of Fr. Demetrius - He becomes Archpriest, rector of the temple of St. Mitrofan Voronezh on Khutorskaya Street, one of the founders of the fraternity of the All-Military Savior and the Holy Tikhonovsky Orthodox University, leading the program on the fundamentalist radio Radonezh.

Soon, the leadership of the initiative archpriest is entrusted with another temple - the Annunciation in the Petrovsky Park. And by the end of his active ministry, that is, by May of this year, Smirnov abused immediately in eight metropolitan and near Moscow churches, controlling the numerous state of the clergy and employees and large financial flows by church standards.

Another round of career is the purpose of Fr. Demetrius I.O. Chairman of the Department of the Moscow Patriarchate for Interaction with the Armed Forces and Law enforcement agencies in July 2001 (by Victory Day in 2003 was approved as the chairman).

On this, it would seem, the most responsible section of the “symphony of the Church and the state” about. Demetrius behaved quite restrained. Yes, a non-Orthodox-patriotic ideology into power structures, punched the implementation of the Institute of Military Capellanes, consecrated temples at military units.

But the school he received in his youth made itself felt - the full militarization of the church was not to her liking.

By the way, he never expressed enthusiasm for the giant Cathedral of Khaki in Kubinka near Moscow, where porchs are cast from guns, and sleeves hang on the candlesticks.

Deep down about. Demetrius distinguished and even contrasted the service of Christ and ministry to Mars (or, in the Russian version, the Gromovets Perun). Feeling a request from the authorities to strengthen the “power component” of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill replaced Smirnov’s head of the “military department” of Smirnov in the military department of the Air Defense of Stefan (Privalov) in 2013. It is he who now leads the military-religious ceremonies in the Patriot Park.

For the same reason, it is impossible to imagine in the lips of Smirnov calls to the nuclear war, the occupation of Ukraine, mass mortal executions, etc., which poured a poisonous river from the mouth of Fr. Vsevolod Chaplin. Against this background, preaching about physical methods in raising children (“beat on the face”), likening civilian wives to prostitutes or recognizing the “complete degeneration” of Russian men already almost like a slight trolling.

The spirit of depressed youth protest against the godless Soviet power was transformed by Fr. Demetrius in old age in a kind of radical performance. He did not dare to directly convict power, but this subtext was well read when he spoke about the genocide of the people of Russia, about the success of Islamic and Chinese civilizations, which in the future of the next decades of stone on stone would not be left from the Russian Federation. With bitter irony, he admitted that there is almost no Christianity in Russia, they baptize everyone in a row without any faith, and all the “missionary imperatives” of Patriarch Kirill fly into the void.

The fact that the listeners often took for foolishness or old grumbling was actually a bitter result, which failed Fr. Dimitri, under the collapse of his youthful hopes for the Orthodox revival of Russia, which was reborn into the ugly Chekist-criminal-intricate hybrid. He described this phenomenon in other words, but the essence of this does not change.

Maybe that's why about. Demetrius was not afraid of death. Ten days before meeting her, when appropriate rumors appeared in the telegram channels, he only joked, recalling, however, that Christianity is a school of preparation for death, for the sake of eternal life.

Although Koronavirus did not become the immediate cause of death about. Dimitry Smirnov, he replenished the already endlessly long list of victims of the epidemic among the episcopate, clergy and asset of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The current wave of the epidemic of the Russian Orthodox Church is even harder than Easter when the temples were closed for parishioners by order of the authorities.

Now there is no such order, which creates the prerequisites for the more rapid distribution of “destructive poet”.

Why is the epidemic so painfully hits precisely along the Russian Orthodox Church? There is a completely medical answer to this question. But, it seems, for a believing consciousness it is no longer enough - after all, the scale of what is happening is truly biblical ...