The last landing of the Archpriest

Death about. Mikhail Vasiliev in the Kherson region - a symbolically significant loss for the Patriarchate

The death in Ukraine of the rector of the Temple of the Russian Orthodox Church at the headquarters of the strategic missile forces (Strategic Missile Forces) in Vlasikha near Moscow is a very sensitive and symbolic loss for the Moscow Patriarchate. The image and track record of the on the morning of November 6 in the zone of a special military operation (or rather, in the Kherson region), Archpriest Mikhail Vasiliev ideally illustrates the idea of ​​“revival of the military clergy” in Russia. And if we take into account that in the above -mentioned “zone” the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church is almost not represented, then about. Mikhail would have every chance of becoming a church-patriotic hero of the opposing “world evil” of Russia, a kind of first-martyr.

But something interferes with both the appearance of the martyrologist in the Russian Orthodox Church and the veneration of the murdered archpriest. This “something” has both earthly, political, and spiritual, mystical dimensions.

Holy Barbara - patroness of the Strategic Missile Forces

For all publicity about. Michael is not known about him. His life was cut off in the 51st year, five children were left, his mother (wife) was a parishioner of Fr. Dimitry Smirnova , who at one time headed the "military" department of the Patriarchate. The family lives well, in a donated house, and now collects funds for the maintenance of orphaned children.

Archpriest Vasiliev received a versatile secular education: Moscow State University (however, the specific faculty is not specified in any of the biographies), graduate school (though he did not defend the dissertation), courses at the Academy of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces. At the courses, the Archpriest studied, already in charge of the sector of the Airborne Forces of the Synodal Department of the Moscow Patriarchate in interaction with the armed forces and law enforcement agencies.

He had to leave the department as a result of some conflict, the details of which were not disclosed, and now this stage of service in the official biography of the Archpriest is not mentioned .

The priest was ordained Alexy II in 1998 without any spiritual education, and Vasiliev did not receive him later, even in absentee form. Even under Alexia II, the ordination of such proteges was a rarity, and Patriarch Kirill even prohibited the sang of people who did not graduate from at least a seminary.

Responsible for the interaction of the Patriarchate from the Airborne Forces, about. Mikhail revived the temple of the Annunciation on the Sailor Silence Street - at the Central Headquarters of the paratroopers. After leaving (exile?) He left Moscow and concentrated in the service in the Church of the Holy Great Martyr Barbara and the Monk Elijah Muromets in the Moscow Region Vlasikh, where the central governing bodies of the Strategic Missile Forces are located. The Russian Orthodox Church Directively appointed Saint Barbara, who suffered for Christ in the 4th century and had no idea about strategic missiles, the heavenly patroness of troops capable of turning the world into a radioactive ash, only because on the Great Martyr Day, December 17, Strategic Military District was created in the godless USSR. As they say on the official website of the temple,

It was built by the "zeal of rackets by contracting organizations of military builders." It is noteworthy that the temple’s website still does not say anything about the death of his abbot.

Archpriest gained his fame in the church environment at the expense of “business trips” into all conceivable “hot spots” of the last quarter century. He “nurtured” the Russian military both as part of legitimate peacekeeping forces in Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kyrgyzstan, and during the “special operations” in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Syria during controversial and legal point of view. If the ordinary clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church, who is also entrusted to the “burden” for the parish service, is also entrusted with visiting military units, tries in every possible way to evade dangerous and troublesome business trips, then about. Michael went to them willingly, with some hobby, repeating that

“They go not to kill for war, but to die,” so the priest is needed more there than the machine gun.

Reterned to praise, the official representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, Protodiacon Andrei Kuraev, admiring Fr. Mikhail, his former student at Moscow State University, calls Archpriest "an honest, intelligent, sincere man ... saints of our days." And at the same time, he finds a reason to criticize the Patriarchate and personally Cyril: “The patriarch has enough cynicism at the funeral of the priest, from whom he took away the temple he restored [Annunciations at the sailor's silence], this is beyond doubt. The fact that the funeral service will not be in the temple where Fr. Mikhail, and in the temple of the Patriarch [the Cathedral of Christ the Savior], means his posthumous privatization of the Patriarchate for his military-patriotic manipulations. ”

The state authority awarded Archpriest by the Order of Courage and the medal of the Order “For Merit to the Fatherland”, and the church - the Order of St. Sergius of Radonezh III degree and liturgical awards. In his condolences, Patriarch Kirill called Fr. Michael “landing priest” (Archpriest's Archpriest was a parachute more than once, even damaging himself a spine) and noted that he “carried priestly ministry in the most difficult and sometimes dangerous combat conditions”.

Alas, the idyllic epitaph will have to be interrupted. Shortly before the end of his earthly life, at the end of October, about. Mikhail spoke on the Orthodox television channel Savior with an appeal to Russian mothers not to be afraid to give his sons to a special operation, which shocked even many well -intentioned children of the Russian Orthodox Church. The logic of the Archpriest came down to the fact that few children can happen in those families where sin is performed: pregnancy is interrupted or contraceptives are used. He likened to the worships of the mothers who had an abortion.

Most award, according to about. Michael, provides that the mother "is not so painful and scary, respectively, to part with him [with his son]."

It turns out, according to Vasiliev, that mothers suffering from the loss of the only son bear a well-deserved punishment for not having given birth as much as they were supposed to be by nature and the creator. The deputy chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for the relationship of the Church with society and the media, Vakhtang Kipshidze, was forced to refute the such inhuman position of the “landing father” who went too far: “Of course that the life, health and well -being of each child, there are many of them in the family or one, are equally valuable for the parent.”

Other non-martyrs

During the first half of the year, the appearance of Russian priests in the war zone was not reported. Only on September 9 it became known about the death of the priest Anatoly Grigoryev, who arrived in the location of the Tatarstan battalion "Alga". The 45-year-old priest and many children was the rector of the Temple of the Russian Orthodox Church in the village of Isakovo of the Zelenodolsky district of Tatarstan.

Already during the period of mobilization, many children Archpriest Evfimiy Kozlovtsev also died, who called himself "the camp priest of the Cossack Cossack Brigade" Don "named after the Archangel Michael." He was a clergyman of the Kurgan diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, fed local Cossack squads and even received the title of Podesaul in one of them. True, the hobby of the Cossacks prevented his clergy, and in 2016 the diocese deduced Fr. Evfimia for the state.

The abbot of the Moscow Church of St. Nicholas on Bersenevka Igumen Kirill (Sakharov) admits that the priests of the Russian Orthodox Church went to a special operation because “the Ministry of Defense does not guarantee social assistance. Without these guarantees, only five priests left for the front line. ”

It seems that the problem is not in the same guarantees - the specificity of its own. It is very difficult to find motivation from a Christian point of view, and those constructs that Kremlin propaganda offers are not very convincing for people, at least fluently reading the Gospel. When Patriarch Kirill Standing addressed on November 4 to the sitting Vladimir Putin, resentment sounded in his words.

“Who were the patriarchs? He asked, as if doubting in his dignity. - They always sat next to the king. Tsar and Patriarch! "

It should be especially disappointing this ideologist of the “Symphony of the authorities”, that in the current tragic conditions, the Kremlin itself began to formulate the religious motivation for the actions of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, without the involvement of the Patriarch.

Today, not only political or social, but also purely religious discourse completely monopolized power. And the dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church, bypassing their church authorities in Moscow, begin to make “military” changes to the worship - as precisely the secular authorities prescribe. But only the patriarch, several bishops and media priests act with incendiary speeches in support, while the bulk of the episcopate and clergy is significantly silent. In the conditions of such a “crisis of meanings”, the martyrologist of the new martyrs will certainly not appear ...