Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church: “In Russia they respect human rights” (Público, Portugal)

“We prefer to work with the state - instead of simply criticizing it,” says the bishop and Orthodox leader in an interview with the newspaper Publico.

Público: Vladimir Putin's well-known closeness to the Orthodox Church, led by Patriarch Kirill, gives the president certain advantages, When are elections held in Russia??

Hilarion Alfeev: Absolutely, because when the majority of people are Orthodox Christians, so is the president Orthodox Christian, both sides benefit from this proximity. People like that the president shares the same faith with them, and President Putin, in turn, enjoys public support.

— The Church never supports a specific political party or candidate. According to our internal regulations, we cannot openly call for voting for a specific candidate. And church officials never do this. However, the church can comment on social positions political parties or politicians. She can support certain positions or criticize them. Cooperation between Church and state extends to many areas of life. But there are also those in which the voice of the church remains unheard.

- Which for example?

Context

The Church is an instrument of Russian influence abroad

Hilarion, Francis and “Christianity”

Metropolitan Hilarion about expensive watches and the threat to Orthodoxy

Metropolitan Hilarion demands “concrete steps” from Catholics

— Over the past 20 years, we have been calling for the introduction in schools religious education. All this time, we have addressed this question to our government authorities, our Minister of Education, and have still not received a clear answer, except for the words that the church in our country is separated from the state. The only thing we were able to achieve was introduction to school curriculum one 45-minute lesson on religion per week as part of a general cultural discipline, which is taught not by a priest, but simply by a teacher. And we have not yet been able to achieve any progress in the dialogue [with the government] on this issue.

— There is a separation between church and state. However, on some issues, such as the teaching of religion in schools, does the church need to ally with the state so that these and other issues become a legislative priority for the government?

— Yes, of course, on many issues we maintain a dialogue with the state, and sometimes we cooperate with government agencies to make some changes to legislation. It's possible. But we have no guarantee that whenever we want to make some changes, our wishes will be taken into account.

— The church needs the state, and the state needs the church ?

- And does this scheme work?

- Works. But we are often asked why we do not criticize the state. I always answer that we prefer to work with the state - instead of making it an object of criticism. We prefer to meet with people in leadership positions and explain our position to them. In many cases, our opinion is listened to, but not always. We can talk about in different ways cooperation between church and state, which in many cases brings results. But there are issues on which we disagree.

— For example, on the issue of respect or violation of human rights in Russia?

— This topic is not included in the range of issues on which we work with the state.

— For the church, which, as you said, should participate in ensuring public well-being, is the protection of human rights an important issue?

- Yes, it is important.

— Do you observe respect for human rights?

- From whose side?

- From the side of the state.

— I believe that human rights are respected in Russia.

InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.

Preface.

So by their fruits you will know them.

Not everyone who says to Me: “Lord, Lord!” will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in Heaven.

Many will say to Me on that day: Lord! God! Have we not prophesied in Your name? and was it not in Your name that they cast out demons? and did they not perform many miracles in Your name?

And then I will declare to them: I never knew you; Depart from me, you workers of iniquity.

Gospel of Matthew 7, 20-23

I bring to your attention a very interesting publication, which contains unique photographs of one extremely important document. Every Russian patriot must familiarize himself with this document.

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How the Russian Orthodox Church captures Tambov

Metropolitan of Tambov and Rasskazovsky Theodosius. Photo: Tambov diocese

Life is very hard for the Tambov diocese. It’s so hard that Metropolitan Theodosius of Tambov even decided to write to the governor Tambov region letter. Thank you for giving us two new monasteries, says the Metropolitan, but we still have a huge list of unresolved problems. But the insolent city authorities don’t want to help, they don’t take us seriously. And then a fascinating list of requests of 26 points. Enjoy ;)

Vice-Governor Natalya Astafieva responded to the Metropolitan’s requests as loyal member Orthodox flock.

“For each topic mentioned in the appeal, it is necessary to appoint responsible persons, develop the most optimal solution, develop a joint action plan. Systems approach taking into account budgetary resources, as well as attracting sponsorship funds, will allow, within the framework of church-state interaction... to make Tambov and its surroundings better and more beautiful, will allow us to restore the connection of times and generations.”

That is, some residents of Tambov can already slowly prepare for the fact that the houses in which they live and the schools in which their children study will be taken away from them by the church in the name of restoring the connection of times and generations.

https://varlamov.ru/2625330.html

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In fact, there were no attacks on the Russian Orthodox Church in that article: I simply presented the facts from which absolutely clear conclusions flowed. That's all. A if the facts look like attacks, then this is best characteristic those who are responsible for these facts.

The same applies to the facts presented in Varlamov’s publication (regardless of the attitude towards Varlamov himself). Facts are stubborn things. With such activities of the Russian Orthodox Church, there is no need for any attacks or discrediting.

How to treat such activities of the Tambov diocese? And does this only happen in Tambov? Alas, no, this happens not only in Tambov, it happens all over the country. Isaac, I believe, is on everyone's lips.

A short excursion into history.

Some may ask: how did the Russian Orthodox Church come to live like this? Is such activity the general policy of the Russian Orthodox Church or is it “local abuse”?

The answer to many things is given by the speech of Patriarch Kirill in 2013 on the 1025th anniversary of the baptism of Rus', in which he said that 25 years ago the spiritual revival of Russia began (those who are interested can read about it).

I think everyone knows what happened then (that is, 25 years ago from 2013) - Gorbachev’s “perestroika”. For the people it was a disaster; “perestroika” ended with the destruction of the USSR. Almost 300 million people lost their homeland - the USSR. The sharp impoverishment of the people, bloody conflicts and local wars, banditry and other horrors accompanied the collapse of the USSR.

But for some it’s war, for others it’s mother. For millions of people, “perestroika” and the collapse of the USSR - great tragedy and a disaster, but for the church - happiness and the beginning of the spiritual revival of Russia.

Having called the time of “perestroika” the beginning of the spiritual revival of Russia, Patriarch Kirill showed himself in all his glory. And since none of the supreme hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church objected to him, it turns out that the Russian Orthodox Church agrees that “perestroika” is the beginning of the spiritual revival of Russia.

As they say, in truth by their fruits you will know them . This is really very important to know.

The collapse of the USSR brought enormous suffering to the peoples. But on the wreckage formed on the site of the USSR Great Power Greedy people came to power. Property that was the property of the entire people became the property of a handful of rich people who robbed the people.

And whose side did the Church take? Robbers or robbed? Alas, robbers. It is a fact.

Moreover, the Russian Orthodox Church not only took the side of the robbers - the Church, together with the bloodsucking oligarchs, began to tear the tormented country into pieces, tearing out fatter pieces, taking advantage of the fact that weak, divided people cannot protect themselves and their property. The Church continues to rob and rob those who have already been robbed and robbed.

The “servants of God” from the Russian Orthodox Church turned out to be grabbers, completely devoid of conscience, empathy and compassion, like the worst of robbers. And the Russian Orthodox Church is hypocritically trying to justify its vile acts by “service to God,” “fulfillment of God’s will,” and “restoration of historical justice.”

What we see: the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church is basking in luxury, while millions of robbed people are below the poverty line, in poverty.

By the way, the price of each of these miters significantly exceeds 100 thousand rubles. Multiply, count. And these are just some hats...

If these “servants of God” really believed that Jesus Christ would come to judge the living and the dead, they would expect resurrection of the dead and the life of the next century, did they really begin to so boldly violate and trample not only the commandments of God, but also elementary human decency? Moreover, this applies to those who occupy high positions in the church hierarchy - after all, to whom more is given, more will be asked.

The fact that the ministers of the church do their vile deeds, hiding behind the name of God, speaks, and, moreover, speaks absolutely unambiguously about one thing: the ministers of the Russian Orthodox Church themselves do not believe in God, otherwise they would not have acted this way .

I already wrote about this in my article “The whole truth about the canonization of Nicholas II.”

Well, the Bible gives a clear answer about the fate of such “servants of God.”

Then he will tell those who left side: Depart from Me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels:

For I was hungry, and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink;

I was a stranger, and they did not accept Me; I was naked, and they did not clothe Me; sick and in prison, and they did not visit Me.

Then they too will answer Him: Lord! when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not serve You?

Then he will answer them, “Truly I say to you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.”

And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life..

Gospel of Matthew (25, 41-46)

Let’s remember now what the Bolsheviks, cursed by the Russian Orthodox Church, did when they were in power. One can talk a lot about the benefits that the Bolsheviks gave to the people, about those benefits that the people Russian Empire I couldn't even dream of it.

I will give just a few of them.

It was truly a miracle: unemployment was eliminated in the USSR, poverty was eliminated, everyone could get free medical care, even apartments were given free of charge.

And the Bible also says about this:

Then the King will say to those who right side His: Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

For I was hungry, and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger and you accepted Me;

I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.

Then the righteous will answer Him: Lord! when did we see you hungry and feed you? or to the thirsty and gave them something to drink?

when did we see you as a stranger and accept you? or naked and clothed?

When did we see You sick, or in prison, and came to You?

And the King will answer them, “Truly I say to you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it to Me.”

Gospel of Matthew (25, 34-40)

And one more important fact. An illiterate, uneducated person is easier to deceive, easier to make a slave, easier to rob. That is why the bloodsucking exploiters in the Russian Empire strongly opposed public education.

What is happening to education now? Terrible degradation of the education sector and the increasing dominance of priests in schools. Predators in power and predators in the church work hand in hand, for mutual benefit.

How did the Soviet government act? The Soviet state needed educated, versatile developed people, free People-Creators. Therefore, education, science and culture soared to unattainable heights in Soviet times, which still causes black envy and hatred both among the current government and among the servants of the Russian Orthodox Church.

You can't do anything without Me!

There is something else extremely important. The Bible quotes the words of the Lord: « Without Me you cannot create anything!” (John 15:5)

And what do we see now? Complete destruction and degradation everywhere: both in industry and in agriculture, both in science and education. What is the demographic situation in Russia? The people are dying out.

What does this mean? Yes, about the fact that there is no God’s blessing on the current government and the current ministers of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is why everything is degrading so much and is in such a terrible decline. And no temples built with looted and squeezed-out goods, built at the cost of the blood, tears and grief of millions of people, will deserve the mercy of God.

What happened in the USSR? The country developed at an unprecedented pace, especially during the first Stalinist five-year plans. The entire history of the world has never known such rapid, explosive growth of industry.

And 12 years after the worst of wars, the USSR had already launched the world’s first artificial satellite into space.

So feel the difference: where there was God’s spark and God’s blessing, and where it is not and cannot be.

So the current authorities and church ministers are filled with black envy and are angry: they want to repeat successes in at least something, but they can’t, they want to show that God is with them, but the result is devastation and degradation, thorns and thistles.

And we know this too: the devil and his servants cannot create anything, they can only slander and slander what was done with the blessing of God. And when we see and hear yet another slander and mud-slinging of everything Soviet from the current government and church ministers, we must understand this. The devil is the father of lies, and it is in lies that the current authorities and their allies - the servants of the Russian Orthodox Church - succeed.

Question and answer.

How is it, author, that you write such things, because the Bolsheviks are materialists, they deny the existence of God, but here it turns out that they are the righteous, and not the servants of the Church, the servants of God? It turns out that the Bolsheviks who deny God are closer to Him than the servants of God who worship Him?

For those asking such questions, it is useful to imagine such a situation.

You see this situation over and over again. A cruel and unscrupulous gang of robbers kills, tortures, robs people, and commits various cruelties and obscenities. And at the same time the robbers say that all this is done for the glory of such and such .

And how do you feel about this? so and so will you relate? Think about it.

The same goes for the church. Don’t think that there was peace, quiet, and God’s grace, and then the evil Bolsheviks came and turned off faith in God, like a light bulb in a room. Nothing like this.

The people simply saw what the ministers of the church were doing, hiding behind the name of God, and drew the natural conclusion in such a situation. That's all.

Then, somewhere from the mid-50s, the memory of generations, unfortunately, began to be lost. And people stopped understanding why the Bolsheviks were so angry with the kind and meek “servants of God.”

Well, the lesson of history, alas, was not learned. And everything happened again. And we saw the “servants of God” in all their glory.

Came from Afar93

If you open the website of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2018 and look at the members of the Holy Synod, of which there are more than 400, you will notice that only black monks are at the helm of the church. It is not easy to meet a parish priest in the Synod, because they only carry out the decisions made by the monks.

A more careful analysis leads to another discovery: less than a quarter of the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2018 have a higher secular education. On the contrary, approximately half in their youth were promoted from the positions of subdeacons under the bishops then in office. But the fact that the majority of the Synod members have roots in Bessarabia and the south-east of Ukraine, in Donetsk and Lugansk, is almost impossible to calculate. Although this is the holy truth and the root of all modern troubles of Russian Orthodoxy, the author of the Lenta.ru investigation argued in 2018.

It is in southeastern Ukraine and eastern Moldova that the Russian Orthodox Church has traditionally maintained its most patriarchal views. It was here that hundreds of Orthodox Christians committed suicide back in tsarist times. This is where the hatred of TIN and any passport comes from. It was here that cheerful fellow villagers most often disappeared. It was here that the “Black Hundred” was born. This is where Father Peter Kucher and many other princes of the Russian Orthodox Church come from.

Metropolises and dioceses

As of July 2018, the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church includes 79 metropolises and 356 dioceses, including:

Influence groups

Assets

Parishes

As of July 2018, almost 40 thousand elders, more than 5 thousand deacons and almost 400 bishops serve in the church.

In 1991, when the USSR collapsed and the religious revival began, the Russian Orthodox Church had about 6.5 thousand parishes, two-thirds of them in Ukraine. As of August 2018, there are more than 36 thousand parishes in the Russian Orthodox Church, of which about 25 thousand are in Russia. The number of monasteries has exceeded a thousand - there was never such a number before the revolution. Three new parishes open every day.

In mid-2017, the thousandth monastery opened in Russia, and as of January 1, 2018, there were 1010 of them. For comparison: before the Khrushchev persecutions there were only 14 monasteries in the USSR (the majority were in the Ukrainian SSR), in the 1980s there were four ( Trinity-Sergius and Pskov-Pechersk Lavra, Riga Hermitage (nunnery) and the Assumption Monastery in Pyukhtitsa, Estonia).

Religious building of the Russian Orthodox Church, (2014)

commercial activity

• "Artistic and production enterprise (HPP) "Sofrino"
• Hotel "Danilovskaya"
• management of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, owned by the Moscow Government
• OJSC "Ritual Orthodox Service" (as of 2016)

State support

Funding from the budget

According to RBC estimates, in 2012–2015, the Russian Orthodox Church and related structures received at least 14 billion rubles from the budget and from government organizations. Moreover, the 2016 budget version alone provides for 2.6 billion rubles.

In particular, in 2014–2015, over 1.8 billion rubles were allocated to Russian Orthodox Church organizations. for the creation and development of Russian spiritual and educational centers for federal program"Strengthening the unity of the Russian nation and the ethnocultural development of the peoples of Russia."

Another program supporting the church is “Culture of Russia”: since 2012, almost 10.8 billion rubles have been allocated for the preservation of religious objects within the program. In addition, 0.5 billion rubles. in 2012–2015 it was allocated for the restoration of objects of religious significance, said a representative of the department cultural heritage Moscow.

Among the major recipients of contracts on the government procurement website is the Orthodox Encyclopedia church-scientific center (founded by the Patriarchate), which publishes a tome of the same name in 40 volumes edited by Patriarch Kirill. Since 2012, public schools and universities have spent about 250 million rubles on purchasing this book. And the subsidiary organization of the Orthodox Encyclopedia - the Orthodox Encyclopedia Foundation - received 56 million rubles in 2013. from the Ministry of Culture - for the filming of the films “Sergius of Radonezh” and “Snake Bite”.

In 2015, the Ministry of Education allocated about 112 million rubles from the budget. Orthodox St. Tikhon's Humanitarian University.

Central clinical Hospital St. Alexis under the Moscow Patriarchate received 198 million rubles from the Ministry of Health in 2015, and the new budget for the hospital provides about another 178 million rubles.

The budget for 2016 includes about 1 billion rubles. " Charitable Foundation for the restoration of the Resurrection New Jerusalem stauropegial monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church” - the founder of the fund is the monastery itself.

In addition, from 2013 to 2015, Orthodox organizations received 256 million rubles. within the framework of presidential grants. The Russian Orthodox Church has no direct relationship with the recipients of the grants, they simply “were created by Orthodox people,” explains Archpriest Chaplin. Although the church does not directly participate in the creation of such organizations, random people there is no such thing, Sergei Chapnin, former editor of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, is sure.

According to the same principle, he says, money is distributed in the only Orthodox grant program, “Orthodox Initiative” (the funds were allocated by Rosatom, two sources familiar with the program told RBC; the corporation’s press service did not answer RBC’s question).

The “Orthodox Initiative” has been held since 2005, the total amount of funding over the years of the competition is almost 568 million rubles.

Tax benefits

As of August 2018, the Russian Orthodox Church, like any officially registered religious organization in Russia, has benefits, but every single one of them is key. She is completely exempt from paying:

That is, in fact, the Russian Orthodox Church does not pay anything to the budget at all.

The Tax Code of the Russian Federation clearly stipulates: exemption comes only from religious activities, and all commercial activities, even those carried out by the Russian Orthodox Church, are subject to mandatory taxation. Therefore, according to reports, the church commercial activities doesn't lead at all. And there is no point in arguing with this. However, according to a high-ranking Russian official, in reality they simply do not want to get involved with the church.

As paradoxical as it may sound, but governmental support makes the entire economy of the Russian Orthodox Church black. Or gray - after all, not a single parish is accountable to anyone. No one checks them except the Church itself.

Transfer of real estate

An equally strange story happened to a woman who worked for many years as an agent for an employee of the apartment fraud department and uncovered the schemes of several gangs of “black realtors.” She was infiltrated into a group suspected of legalizing the apartments of old women who allegedly sold their homes and went to a monastery. She suddenly cut off all contact with the officer supervising her and shut down the operation on her own, and then sent her daughter to a church school, changed her clothing style and began attending church regularly.

Experienced criminals know that they will always find shelter in the monastery - the Russian Orthodox Church categorically refuses to give law enforcement agencies any information about those who have found refuge behind the church wall. In the summer of 2017, a certificate from the Ministry of Internal Affairs was even leaked to the press with a complaint about the abbots of churches obstructing the investigation. The answer to it from Archpriest Sergius was also made publicly available. He reports that the church sees no reason to provide passport data of persons in the dioceses.

Father Sergius himself, in the world Sergei Privalov, a native of Bryansk, served in the armed forces of the USSR and the Russian Federation until 2001. Having retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel, he changed his green field uniform to a black church uniform, and over the next 11 years made a dizzying career: he became an archpriest, a cleric of the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos in Petrovsky Park, a candidate of theology, a member of the Supreme Synodal Council, and also the chairman of the synodal commission for interaction with armed forces and law enforcement agencies. In other words, he is the highest executive ROC, whose decision practically cannot be reversed.

So it is not surprising that it is Archpriest Sergius who regularly refuses to allow law enforcement officers to take fingerprints from monastery employees and seize genetic material from them.

Pursuit of fugitives from monasteries

As you know, one of the most terrible church sins is escaping from the monastery. According to the rules, you can’t just leave the monastery - you have to break your vow, that is, become undressed. And this is a slow procedure, so it’s easier to escape - the secular authorities still don’t consider this an offense. As of July 2018 in Russian Federation Between 300 and 400 men and women are believed to have escaped from the monasteries. The police do not formally accept such statements - escaping from a monastery is not considered a criminal offense, but such people need to be looked for and punished so that others are discouraged. This is done by the security service of the Russian Orthodox Church. True, such an organization does not officially exist. In the structure of the Church there was only one private security company, Sofrino, but in June 2017 it stopped working and handed over all weapons to the licensing system of the Russian Guard.

Previously, the Russian Orthodox Church was among the founders of the Peresvet bank. It is there that, as of 2018, one of the most serious security services in Russia operates. In October 2017, it was headed by Oleg Feoktistov, a former FSB general, the author of an operational combination that resulted in a prison sentence for the minister economic development Alexey Ulyukaev. Peresvet security officers were seen at at least two crime scenes associated with the Russian Orthodox Church, and at one of them, as a police operative would later write in an explanatory note, they were engaged in “fixing trace objects using forensic equipment.” That explanatory report was never put into action, and the crime itself remained unsolved. We are talking about the murder of a priest on the threshold of the St. Nicholas Monastery in Pereslavl-Zalessky. The same monastery, the rector of which is Archimandrite Dimitri, the confessor of Mother Lyudmila from the ill-fated village of Moseytsevo.

The Security Service of the Russian Orthodox Church actively conducts operational search work - that is, it secretly collects information about people, including using technical means. For example, it identifies the phone numbers from which girls from Moseytsevo accessed the Internet. After all, few people can see a profile on VKontakte and quickly find out from which phone number the person was online and calculate his location. Someone from the environment of the Moseytsev mothers did this in a matter of seconds. And a certain Matrona Yaroslavskaya, within a few minutes after discovering the girls’ profiles, knew not only their mobile numbers, but also the address of the newly created Email. The identity of Matrona herself could not be established.

The same fate befell several journalists who wrote on church-related topics: they suddenly learned that the contents of their personal letters were becoming known to the highest church hierarchs. In other words, the security service of the Russian Orthodox Church does not formally exist, but in reality it is actively working. In any case, in December 2017, after the sentencing of the mothers from Moseytsevo, someone wanted to find out the fate of their adopted children. By that time, absolutely all their documents had been changed, but the registry office of the Yaroslavl region tried to obtain a list of issued birth certificates, and the directorate of the orphanage received a request, allegedly from a legal bureau, demanding to provide the girls’ personal files. And someone else was looking for and opening their electronic mailboxes, and did it very professionally.

One can argue for a long time whether there is a special unit of hacker monks within the Russian Orthodox Church, but dozens of priests with whom the author of the Lenta.ru investigation spoke in 2018 said one thing: the metropolitans knew verbatim the contents of their emails and correspondence in closed social network groups. And, despite the motto “the Internet is sinful,” followers of the church actively use the World Wide Web. Especially when you need to find someone.

There were many rumors that the princes of the Russian Orthodox Church had titles of the KGB of the USSR and party cards. This cannot be asserted - many priests in the 1980s were very oppositional and even opportunistic. But this cannot be considered an absolute lie either. In any case, in 2015, special religious departments operated within the structures of the territorial departments of the FSB, which essentially acted as arbitrators, especially at a time when conflicts gained resonance. In Moseytsevo, for example, it was the FSB officers who assured the criminal investigation operatives that no one would interfere with their investigation of the criminal case, but there was no need to dig to the side. In Bogolyubovo, officers from specialized FSB units also smoothed out rough edges. At the same time, it is the FSB in Moscow that is preventing the adoption of changes to laws that would make the budget religious organizations transparent.

The Western press often says that money for bribes to officials and payment for intelligence information, especially political, comes to various countries through church channels. But in our country, this data, even in translated articles, does not appear. And not because someone formally prohibits it, there is internal censorship. In rare cases - the authority of the editor. It is no secret that it is Orthodox parishes that often provide assistance to compatriots.

Lack of labor legislation

In 2017, the educational commission of the Moscow Patriarchate came to conduct an inspection at the Vladimir Theological Seminary, and almost by chance found out: out of a dozen reputable professors, only two were formally employed - the rector and the first vice-rector. And the rest worked for many years without registration, work books and contributions to the Pension Fund. They received their salaries in envelopes and thought that was how it was supposed to be. Having learned the truth, we went to bow to the Patriarchate. And there they said: the pension will be paid by those whom you have now trained. In fact, the matter was put on hold. People quit their jobs, but no one will make up for the years they missed - neither in length of service, nor in mandatory deductions. And these teachers have nowhere to go - the Russian Orthodox Church has a monopoly on spiritual education.

Russians will be very surprised when they find out: priests have absolutely no rights. Yes, work books They were still forced to register for them, but not everyone still has them - in every church, in every monastery they were registered for the required minimum of clergy. And here employment contracts no one has. Even standard form have not been developed.

Priests' salaries

As of 2018, the salary of a Russian priest ranges from 20 to 40 thousand rubles per month. Some say that personal income tax is withheld from them, some say that they are completely exempt from taxes. The abbot receives much more.

Moreover, in the conditions of the hierarchy, issues of prestige manifest themselves especially clearly. Therefore, an ordinary priest will never buy a car more prestigious than that of a rector; the rector will not appear in public wearing a watch more expensive than the bishop's; and the bishop will not have a rarity that the patriarch does not have. Therefore, the desire to stand out manifests itself differently.

In June 2018, one of the recruitment agencies was looking for a personal chef for the abbess of the holy monastery. The salary was promised at 90 thousand rubles. According to agency employees, the abbess was going to pay her personal money.

Workers' and Peasants' Army

In the early 1990s, after the collapse of the USSR, arose fundamental problem ROC: there was essentially no one to revive religion and its institutions. After all, all the churchmen were exterminated as a class.

At the end of the period of stagnation, the profile of the average district-level chief looked like this: eight years of education, technical school, service in the ranks of the armed forces of the USSR, proletarian (or collective farm) specialty, University Marxism-Leninism and election to the position of secretary of the district executive committee. Today, the official profile of a spiritual pastor looks similar: eight or nine years of school, military service, work as an electrician, miner or combine operator, ordination and service as a deacon, seminary (or academy - depending on the status of the bishop) and rank in the parish. However, in both cases there were exceptions, also very similar: many years of service in the armed forces and immediately a leadership position one step higher, but not under a cap, but under a hood. Both of them have very low educational qualifications, which means they lack real academic knowledge, including systemic ones.

Serf prisoners

In 2018, a defrocked pop singer living in the Baikal region easily explained the everyday tricks of the lower echelon of Russian Orthodoxy.

Behind Ural mountains Even officials and leadership are openly talking about serfdom in the monasteries and hermitages of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2018 security forces. This is a problem that needs to be solved, but no one knows how to solve it. Although there are many advisers. Already in December 2017, one Siberian journalist, having learned the story about Moseytsevo, looked into the narrator’s eyes for a long time and uncomprehendingly, and then said: “You don’t know life there at all in Europe.” We don’t make a fuss about such nonsense. The law is the taiga. Look for fistulas.

According to him, dozens of people, mostly released prisoners, are missing. They end up in distant villages, where they work for free for the benefit of the church.

He clarified that these so-called Orthodox monasteries are often protected by law enforcement officers. But they protect - the word is not very accurate: they do not take money for concealment. Another thing is more curious: since the 1990s, those released from prison began to actively settle in monasteries in Central Russia, and later in the Russian south. There is even a term for them - “winter monks,” that is, those who take monastic vows for the winter in order to sit out the harsh times in warmth and satiety. In fact, according to law enforcement officials, a unique symbiosis has arisen: the bearers of criminal culture ensure order in monasteries using Zonov methods, which guarantees an influx of material wealth, and the church gives them protection from law enforcement agencies and the flock.

External Relations

2016: The Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church met with the Pope for the first time

In February 2016, the first meeting of their primates in the history of the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches took place in Havana. Its result was a joint document designed to draw the attention of the world community to the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and the decline of moral values ​​in the world.

The meeting of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' and the Pope of Rome was prepared for almost twenty years. It was first planned to be held back in 1997 in Austria. During the preliminary negotiations, a draft joint statement was then prepared, which, in particular, contained a rejection of Uniatism as a means of reunifying churches and of Catholic proselytism in Russia and other CIS countries. But at the very last moment, the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church decided to exclude these points from the joint document, and the meeting had to be cancelled. In 2002, there was a new round of aggravation in relations between the churches, when Pope John Paul II raised the status of the administrative structures of the Roman Catholic Church in Russia to the level of dioceses without prior consultation with the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church. As a result, the possibility of a meeting between the two first hierarchs was reduced to zero for a long time.

Only after the accession of Pope Benedict XVI to the Holy See, who managed to relieve the tension that existed during the previous pontificate, Orthodox-Catholic relations took on a positive and progressive character. Most likely, if Pope Benedict XVI had not retired in 2013, his meeting with Patriarch Kirill would have taken place. Pope Francis continued his predecessor's policy of normalizing relations between the Vatican and the Moscow Patriarchate, which ultimately allowed the historic meeting to take place.

The first meeting of Orthodox and Catholics "on top level"after the division of the Christian Church into Eastern and Western in 1054 (not counting the Council of Florence in 1439) took place almost 53 years ago: on January 5, 1964, Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople and Pope Paul VI met in Jerusalem. As a result, mutual anathemas were canceled in 1965 The meeting was made possible by the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), which “opened” the Catholic Church to dialogue with other religions: “Truth is to be sought through exchange and dialogue.”

It was decided to hold the first meeting of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' with the Pope in Cuba at the José Martí International Airport. This was due to the fact that Patriarch Kirill from the very beginning did not want it to take place in Europe, since it was there that the centuries-old difficult history of divisions and conflicts between Christians unfolded.

The main topic of the negotiations in Cuba was the discussion of pressing social, political and moral problems of our time. The final document, which was signed by the patriarch and the pope, spoke, in particular, about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. The hierarchs called on the international community "to take immediate action to prevent further displacement of Christians from the Middle East." In addition, they made a call to resolve the conflict in Ukraine. One of the fundamental points of the document is the recognition by the Pope that union is not a means of restoring church unity. The document also spoke about the protection of family values ​​and the rapprochement of Orthodox and Catholic positions on the issue of proselytism: the parties called for abandoning it, since it “has practical significance for peaceful coexistence.” At the same time, both churches emphasize that neither theological nor canonical issues were discussed at the meeting. This suggests that it was organized not to resolve dogmatic differences, but to attract the attention of the world community to existing problems- in particular, to armed conflicts, persecution of Christians and the decline of moral values ​​in the world. The Patriarch and the Pope demonstrated to the world that, despite dogmatic differences, Christians are ready to jointly defend common Christian values ​​in an increasingly secular world.

1980s: 4 thousand out of 6.5 thousand parishes in Ukraine

At the end of the 1980s, when the church revival, officially called the “return to faith,” began in the USSR, there were 6.5 thousand parishes in the Russian Orthodox Church. Of these, almost 4 thousand are in Ukraine, with the majority in its southeastern part. There are about 500 more in Moldova - more precisely, in that part of it that was traditionally called the Bessarabia province, or Bessarabia. At that time there were three seminaries in the USSR - Zagorsk, Leningrad and Odessa, and two Theological Academies - Moscow and Leningrad. Public policy was such that most of their applicants already had incomplete higher secular education.