The patriarch becomes a laureate

On these holidays, let us recall the merits of Patriarch Kirill, for which Putin awarded him the presidential prize, and the SBU - a summons for interrogation

The National Unity Day of 2023 turned out to be bright and memorable for Patriarch Kirill (Gundyaev). The most “charismatic” event of the day is the presentation of the “original” of the miraculous Kazan icon of the Mother of God of the 16th century found by the Patriarch in his own suburban residence of the “original”, the celebration of which coincides with the Day of National Unity. In addition, it became known about the signing of Putin’s decree on the awarding of Cyril by the Presidential Prize of 2023, and on the day of the holiday, the president (or a person similar to him) honored the Patriarch of a personal audience on Red Square. Isn't that a miracle?

The magnificent picture of the holiday is completed by the initiation of criminal proceedings by law enforcement agencies of Ukraine against V. M. Gundyaev (the worldly name of the Patriarch) under the three articles of the Criminal Code - the denial of the territorial integrity of Ukraine, the justification of armed aggression and inciting aggressive war. From the subpoenus published in the government newspaper Urorvy Kur`, it is known that the suspect V. Gundyaev was summoned for interrogation on November 8 “To the senior investigator in particularly important cases of the 2nd department of the pre-trial investigation of the Main Investigation Department of Ukraine, Konstantin Valentinovich, at the address: Kiev, ul. Vladimir, 33 ".

Icon for Putin

In the euphoria of the holiday, the Patriarch very vaguely said about the attribution of the image he had found, and Russian propaganda first presented a sensation as if Cyril found the “very” genuine shrine that disappeared in Kazan back in 1904 and is officially considered burned. Later they clarified: the patriarch “found” one of the first lists (copies) of the miraculous icon, with which the Minin and Pozharsky militia entered the Kremlin in 1612, freeing Moscow from Western interventionists. The list until 1918 was stored in the Kazan Cathedral on Red Square, but then also disappeared, and his fate was unknown. A deacon-validarub Andrei Kuraev, erupted by the Russian Orthodox Church, through a simple analysis, showed that the image presented by the Patriarch could not be only the original, but even this list. But on November 4, Cyril was so excited that he would hardly have to listen to such criticism and answer uncomfortable questions.

The list of unknown origin is placed by the patriarch in a special kiote in the Kazan Cathedral, where, as he expects, a mass pilgrimage from around the world will now begin with the aim of "warming special prayers ... for our people, for the authorities, for the army." The meaning of the “miracle” revealed by the Patriarch explained the texts of the prayers that, according to his disposal, was led by the Patriarchal Archidacon in the cathedral: “On the president of our Russian country, Vladimir Vladimirovich, about the heaven from heaven, the power and wisdom of ourselves to control our country, and the same way into this one of the trials, disabled at our time. Divide and destroy the yuh ... about the hedgehogs and mercy of ghill to the army and all the defenders of our Fatherland, in the year the tests of their souls for their neighbors who are pronouncing. ” In this regard, the narrative of Cyril remains unchanged: the more the shrines will receive the Russian Orthodox Church, the faster the “president of our country” will win in “Svo”.

But what exactly did Cyril deserve not only a “wonderful phenomenon”, but also a whole presidential award?

Merit No. 1 - sacralization "sucker"

Judging by the presidential award, the Kremlin believes in the effectiveness of Cyril and the religious and ideological corporation headed by him. The prize, as the Decree of Putin, was awarded to the Patriarch “for the contribution to the strengthening of the unity of the Russian nation” , and his position is indicated - the head of the World Russian People’s Cathedral (VRNS). It was this organization with hybrid status and without a fixed membership (in theory it unites all those who consider themselves Russians) a year ago that Putin and the Russian leadership, a demoralized collapse of “Svo” and that had lost its original meaning, already foggy. The cathedral proposed to decipher the ominous abbreviation as a “sacred military operation” , and the basis of Russian identity to put the desire of the Russian man to sacrifice “for faith, tsar and fatherland” on the front line - regardless of where and why it passes. (Russian women in this design, as you know, have their own mission - strictly in the “spiritual sea” circuit: also to eat for sacrifices.) As the main philosopher of the era of late Putinism, Alexander Dugin, said at the Council, “WHO WITH THE SILUTION ABOUT THE SILL AGAINST AND HAW”.

The Putin's sannate laureate is the main preacher of the special “theology of the war” , which boils down to two postulates: the right of the ruler of a strong country to subjugate more weak if she does not want to obey voluntarily, and guaranteed to go into paradise of all those who died for this subordination.

Merit No. 2 - "Russian World"

Such a radical position of Cyril, which does not allow any “pacifist weaknesses”, of course, shocked the Christian world. But she did not become such a big surprise for those who have long been following his ideological evolution. Even before the election of Patriarch Kirill, who acted in the early 90s, as a church liberal and ecumenist, began to gradually promote a new-xenophobic and isolationist-doctrine, correctly caught the spirit of the formed Putin regime.

The main element of this doctrine was the “Russian world” , which, according to Cyril, unites, under the control of the ROC-GB “Triune people” of the Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus, as well as all Orthodox and generally conservative Christians, which are guided by Russian culture, language and piety, Moscow as an alternative to the West. The tougher the Putin regime became, the more straightforwardly the patriarchal sermon sounded. On the eve of the beginning of “Svo”, on February 23, 2022, when the whole world, including most Russians, also believed that a large bloody war could be avoided, Cyril already knew everything. “There is no war without sacrifices,” he warned the soldiers after laying wreaths to the grave of an unknown soldier.

The first most honest hierarch of the Orthodox world - the Ecumenical (Constantinople) Patriarch Bartholomew - recognized in December last year the doctrine of the "Russian world" heresy. In order for this recognition to be heard everywhere, it took months of missile shelling of Ukrainian cities and the death of tens of thousands of peaceful people. Black teaching brought abundant bloody fruits. A distorted (heretical) belief, designed by Cyril in his own (and Putinsko-Kherkist) image and likeness, became the “basis of the ideology of the Putin regime,” the leader of world Orthodoxy noted. It is clear that all this plunged the Russian Orthodox Church in the international interfaith isolation, which again quite resonates with the Kremlin course and the same isolation of the Russian Federation.

Merit No. 3 - separation of the Russian Orthodox Church from Christianity and rapprochement with Islam

Having wasolated from foreign Christians, the Russian Orthodox Church and Cyril gained new friends and like -minded people in the person ... Muslims , primarily Iranian. With the help of his flexibly changing confessional identity, Cyril again and again demonstrates fidelity to Putin. “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, ”Cyril once admitted . “ Both Islam and Orthodoxy belong to the same eastern group.” But cultural and political identity is more important than the personality of Jesus Christ and faith in the Trinity, isn't it?

This method is very reminiscent of the “theology” of the spiritual father of the current Patriarch - the Leningrad Metropolitan Nicodemus (Rotov) (1929–1978), who also criticized Western Christianity. True, then the trend was in the trend, therefore nicodemus taught that it was he who was close to the Russian Orthodox Church: “Communist atheism is a certain system of beliefs, which includes moral principles that do not contradict Christian norms” (Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. - 1963, No. 1, p. 42).

Merit No. 4 - legitimation of autocracy and stripping the opposition

Patriarch Kirill has the right to consider himself not only the central figure in the host of the ideological service of Putin and his geopolitical adventure. He is also one of the sources of Putin's legitimacy after 2012, when Nationalist decided to go to a more than dubious third term, not provided for by the Constitution of the Russian Federation. At the key moment of that election campaign, when “white -open” protests had not yet subsided, Cyril accepted Putin in the Danilov monastery and spoke a phrase that the Orthodox took as a “blessing for the presidency” , albeit contrary to the law:

• “You personally played a huge role in correcting this curvature of our history, Vladimir Vladimirovich. I would like to thank you. You once said that you work like a slave on galleys, with the only difference that the slave did not have such a return, and you have a very high return. ”

The reaction to this “blessing” was, in particular, the unforgettable “punk-graben” in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior-“Theotokos, Putin Drive,” for which some performers from Pussy Riot paid imprisonment.

With a special bitterness, Cyril himself achieved the punishment, about whom the girls sang that he believes not in God, but in Putin. Cyril’s cruelty, the lack of the Christian spirit of humility and forgiveness became obvious to Russian society and turned into the first grandiose PR catastrophe of the Russian Orthodox Church, from which the intelligentsia and the temples of which began to noticeably empty.

The head of the Moscow Patriarchate provides the Putin regime with a lot of exclusive services, starting from pumping billions through numerous trusteeship advice on the restoration of monasteries that exist for decades, ending with a branched network of church foreign countries, under the roof of which Russian intelligence is most comfortably feeling . Now the agent service of Cyril himself in Geneva himself was ceased to be a secret as an agent of the KGB “Mikhailov” under the guise of the position of “representative of the Russian Orthodox Church under the World Council of Churches”.

Finally, in the Kremlin and in Lubyanka, the Patriarch promptly and uncompromisingly suppresses any sprouts of civil free -thinking and opposition sentiments in the Russian Orthodox Church, expelling clergy from the church, who tried in different methods to convey to the people the revealing word of the gospel (to the best of their understanding, of course, but still). Over the past couple of years alone, such vivid and different exposures were forbidden in the service or deprived of San as the Moscow Protodiacon Andrei Kuraev, Ural Schihihumen Sergius (Romanov), Madrid Archpriest Andrei Kordochkin, Kostroma priest John Burdin, father and son of Golovina priest from Tatarstan and dozens of others. In the modern Russian Orthodox Church, priests are subjected to repressions only because they replace the word “victory” with the word “world” in a special patriarchal prayer about “Svo”, which is imperative to read in all temples for every liturgy.

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Patriarch Kirill put a lot to stay with Putin to the end and share his fate. He sacrificed thousands of parishes abroad (primarily in Ukraine), who refused to obey him and remember his name, ties with Western religious leaders who seemed to be established, the ability to be in developed countries and, for example, visit his favorite chalet in Switzerland. He sacrificed the international reputation and legal status - the foreign assets of Gundyaev were arrested, and he personally was subjected to sanctions of Great Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic, Australia, New Zealand, Ukraine, Lithuania and Estonia. Despite his assurances that “the Church has never been as free” as under Putin, any Christian certificate is completely drowned out in Russia, which at least a millimeter does not coincide with the official position of the Kremlin. “Svo” turned into a grand catastrophe of Christianity in a country where Vera, it would seem, survived during the years of severe persecution and only began to revive. And this is perhaps the main merit of the winner of the presidential award of 2023.