Translated material
"Russian World" - Ayatolla
The Russian Orthodox Church claim that Orthodoxy is closer to Islam than to Western Christianity. This is a new word in the history of religion and a distinct political trend
At the action with the authorities, the Ambassador of Turkey in Stockholm on January 21, the Swedish radical of Danish origin, Rasmus Paludan burned the Koran. Two days later, the leader of the anti -Islamic group in Holland "Pegida" Edwin Vagensweld publicly broke the Qur'an in the Hague. The next abuse of the shrine of Islam caused a storm of emotions in the Muslim world. And in Russia.
The press secretary of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church and the head of the Synodal Department for the relationship between the Church with the Society and the Media of the Moscow Patriarchate, Vladimir Legoyd, called the incident “unacceptable vandalism”. “You can’t do not care about what is sacred to another person. It is impossible in the political struggle <...> to insult religious shrines, ”the speaker of the Patriarchate instructs.
And these are not protocol formulas. Recently, the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church has activated rapprochement with the Islamic world and increasingly emphasizes its “eastern identity”, which contrasts “Muslims with Muslims” “Antichrist to the West, calling itself Christian” ...
Why Iran?
As a humble novice of the supreme power, Patriarch Kirill does not question her statement on worldview topics. “Once our President Vladimir Putin <...> to the question of journalists about the attitude of Orthodoxy towards Catholicism and Islam replied:“ We are closer to Islam. ” I also think so, ”the head of the Russian Orthodox Church admitted several years ago during a visit to Kazan.
“Both Islam and Orthodoxy,” the Patriarch explained, “belong to the same eastern group. It so happened that the East turned out to be less susceptible to innovations. ”
“Eastern identity” sounds in the speeches of the Patriarch more and more often, replacing the doctrines of the “Russian world” and “Slavic fraternity”. The term “Russian world” has now passed into the category of aggressive stimuli and has become a household name, and the “Slavic fraternity” is more likely to be formed today around Ukraine, which is comprehensively helped by Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia and even Serbia, while the Belarusian regime remains the only ally of Moscow, which was almost overthrown by its own people in 2020.
At a meeting with the Secretary General of the World Islamic League, Muhammad Abdelcarim al-Issoy Kirill again emphasized: "Orthodox and Muslims belong to a single oriental culture." The Patriarch impresses in Islam that he "is firmly on the dogmas - the basis of morality - and with fear looks at the religious life of the West." In the modern global confrontation of Christian and Islamic cultures, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church blames, of course, the first - after all, Western Christianity “degrades”:
“When pious Muslims see what is happening, they cannot understand this. [In the West] there is not even basic morality. ”
Against the background of his Russian-Iranian cooperation, it was filled with new content, Iran has become an important priority for the foreign policy of Moscow. The priority of the ROC dialogue with the world of Islam is also Iran - in the structure of the Patriarchate, the Commission “Islam - Orthodoxy” is jointly with the leaders of the Islamic Revolution. According to the patriarch, she formulates a general position on the confrontation between the “secularization of the modern world” and the “protection of moral values”. The general enemy of the Russian Orthodox Church and Iran is “Race for material benefits and carnal pleasures”.
Iran is a special country both with religious (its population professes Shiism, while more than 80% of Muslims in the world - Sunnis), and with geopolitical (it is under tough international sanctions by decision of the UN Security Council) point of view. With the Sunni mainstream, the Roman Catholic Church, now criticized by the Russian Orthodox Church, interacts more actively and successfully.
On the initiative and with the participation of Pope John Paul II in 1986, the first joint prayer of Christian, Muslim and other religious leaders took place in Italian Assisi. She laid the foundation for a whole movement in Western Christianity, united by the "spirit of Assisi." At the initial stage, the Russian Orthodox Church also participated in this movement. Today, the Vatican leads a meaningful theological dialogue with the main intellectual center of Sunni Islam-Cairo University Al-Azhar. The Moscow Patriarchate also sent its representatives to this university, but its sudden “canonical invasion” to the African continent and a sharp cooling in relations with Catholics knocked out the ground from under this dialogue. Only Iran remains.
Here's how Archpriest Andrei Kordochkin says this rector of the ROC in Madrid:
- The ideal Russia, built on "traditional values", is Orthodox Iran. In this paradigm, the head of state is not just a manager, but Ayatollah, who independently interprets spiritual matters, the church acts as its retranstlator. That is why he said that Orthodoxy is closer to Islam than to Catholicism. That is why he proclaimed the Shahid principle: "We, as martyrs, will go to heaven, and they will simply die."
The attitude towards Islam has become a new line of watershed between the “soils” and “Westerners” in the Russian Orthodox Church. Honored Professor of Theology, Alexei Osipov, so formulates an unpretentious doctrine, which practically became official in his church: “The West, Europe has long lost Christianity ... There was no antagonism [with Islam], it is lying propaganda!”
The efforts of the pope of the Roman Francis to terminate hostilities in Ukraine Orthodox activists, after Ramzan Kadyrov, are regarded as a performance on the side of the “Fourth LGBT Raikh” against Christians and Muslims of Russia.
The secret of Christ and "Shirk"
Actually, the theological view of Islam Patriarch Kirill formulated on Easter 2017 in the Moscow Children's Hospital: “Here are Christians and Muslims; everyone turns to the same creator God; And in response to this, we each get the real help of God. ” This is such a level of reduction of religiosity in which the personality of the God -man Jesus Christ is becoming unimportant - the basis of Christianity. The New Testament is expressed on this subject: “Every spirit that does not profess Jesus Christ, who has come in the flesh, is not from God, but this is the spirit of the Antichrist” (1 John 4: 2); “Everyone who rejects his son does not have a father; And the confessor of his son has a father ”(1 John 2:23).
The Orthodox patristic tradition pays a lot of attention to the differences between Christianity and Islam. According to St. Gregory Palamas, the Koran knows the gospel revelation of Christ, but deliberately rejects him, considering it a distortion of truth. The saint notes that the priority of the Islamic world is external expansion and worldly success.
The Constantinople Cathedral of 1180 proclaimed the anathema of Islamic doctrine due to the denial of the deity of Jesus Christ, and the rank of renunciation of Mohammedanism entered the worship of the Orthodox Church. It is committed over Muslims baptized in childhood, but brought up in the Islamic faith and wished to return to Christianity.
Under the blows of the Islamic world - first of the Arab caliphate, and then the Ottoman Empire - the “Keeper of Orthodoxy” of Byzantium fell, who considered herself the last Christian empire on earth.
The ideology of Putin's Russia offers a mix of two main “monotheistic competitors”-the Eurasian Orthodox-Muslim empire, and in the conditions of postmodern,
When the real historical continuity of religious tradition is lost and it has to be reconstructed.
The fundamental difference between the Christian idea of God and Muslim emphasizes the Koran: “Worship Allah and do not give it a companion” (4:36); “Allah will not forgive the fact that you give him other deities in his associates, but will forgive other sins to whom he will wish from his slaves. Anyone who is inventing other deities in Allah, performs a great sin and will never receive the forgiveness of Allah ”(4:48). The Islamic tradition calls this sin “shirk” and attributes to it the Christian veneration of the Trinity God.
On the reproach for “reverence of the three gods” the Russian medieval St. Maxim Greek replied: “If anyone professes the three gods, may he be cursed over the age of centuries, Amen! We know the One God, the Creator and the Creator of everything, who has a word and spirit, equivalent and identical in the deity, collapsible and entertaining, for God has never been without a word and spirit <...>. The only god in the Trinity, not three gods, will not be this! As a mind, word and spirit, all three are called one soul, and not three souls; Also, the circle of sunny, light and beam, all three make up one sun, not three suns: such is the sacrament of the Holy Trinity. ”
In trend
In the scientific language, there is a theological revisionism for the sake of political conjuncture. Since it is necessary to motivate the Orthodox to the “sacred war” with the West, including Ukraine, which means that they are now closer to Islam than “wrong” Christianity. It is not without reason that the preamble to the Russian law on freedom of conscience calls Orthodoxy and Christianity to various religions!
Western Catholicism has achieved noticeably great success in the dialogue with Islam, since it is less dependent on the momentary practical tasks and can afford to focus on the “theory of the issue”.
The Russian Orthodox Church against this background looks, expressed by the language of Patriarch Kirill, more secular, more involved in the actual political process than allegedly “degrading” Catholicism. It is no coincidence that Iranian Shiism, which plays the role of the state of the Islamic Republic, is closer to the Russian Orthodox Church, which is widely spilled in the geopolitical space, interacting with the Vatican.
Inside Russia, Islam develops more passionarly than Orthodoxy deprived of its voice. And in this context, the ostentatious loyalty of the Patriarchate of Islam can be perceived as a kind of “hit for the future”, when we have to live in a completely different political reality ...