The Peter and Paul Church in Saint Petersburg is not easy to find. The doorman of the Pedagogical Academy, in which the house of worship is located, refers with a mechanical nod to the second floor. A long corridor with fluorescent lighting and numerous side doors leads to a large, half-open wooden door, from which the calm voice of Georgi Mitrofanov can be heard.
The Russian Orthodox priest addresses several dozen parishioners from the altar, who crowd around him in a close circle, so as not to miss a word of what he is saying. The 64-year-old father Georgi is for them a beacon of peace in anxious times. Rather, the sermon is a confidential conversation with people he has known for a long time.
“Of course any normal priest in his church says that a war is a priori bad, that it must be stopped,” he says after the service. “But those are platitudes. The faithful determine their own point of view and very often do not expect a special opinion from the clergyman. In my opinion that is wrong, because the church must have an answer to all questions pertaining to good and evil. And of course the theme of war is about good and evil.’
The Russian Orthodox Church is experiencing stormy times. Criticisms of the close ties between the church and the Kremlin are heard everywhere. Earlier this month, Patriarch Kirill once again sparked surprise and outrage by saying in a sermon that Russia “has never attacked another country.” He has repeatedly defended Russia’s actions in Ukraine with gusto, including during his Zoom meeting with Pope Francis in March. The Pope recently told the newspaper: Corriere della Sera that Kirill spent much of the conversation, looking at a piece of paper, explaining in detail why Russia had no other choice. “A patriarch cannot lower himself to Putin’s altar boy,” the pope said.
Growing Criticism
The outrage over the position of the patriarch has led to division within the church worldwide. The Russian Orthodox Nicholas Parish in Amsterdam distanced itself from the Moscow Mother Church and transferred to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. In Russia, too, there is growing criticism in the church. A priest in Kostroma was removed from office after a critical note in a sermon, which was passed on to police by a parishioner. Nearly 300 Orthodox priests signed an open letter condemning the violence against Ukraine. “We mourn the ordeal that our brothers and sisters in Ukraine have undeservedly been subjected to,” they write. “Stop the war.”
There are also other sounds. Popular Moscow priest Artemi Vladimirov lashed out at the letter in a sermon. “Unfortunately, not everyone understands what is happening. Russia is now at war with the collective West.’ He speaks of ‘Russian people who were unwilling to sell their souls to fascism’ and allegedly persecuted, of girls raped by ‘Ukrainian fascists’, of ‘organs cut from living people to sell to Europe’. Russian “peacekeeping forces” are conducting a “special operation” “to start a Nuremberg trial against all of Europe,” he said. That ‘operation’ is ‘inevitable’, says father Artemi firmly. “It is the only way for Russia to break out of the slavery we have found ourselves in for many years after the illegitimate demise of our country.”
Patriarch Kirill moves somewhere between these extremes. That the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church expresses its support for the actions of the Russian army in Ukraine does not surprise priest Georgi Mitrofanov. “The government is fine with our church leadership not criticizing government policies, and if they even support them, so much the better. She does this to avoid conflicts with the state that could have a negative effect on the church.’
martyrdom
His Petersburg church is a large rectangular space, with tall windows overlooking a sun-drenched courtyard. Before the revolution of 1917, the house church of the then commercial school was located here, after which the prayer room was closed for more than seventy years, just like most churches in the communist era. The next worship service in the rededicated church took place in 2005.
Besides familiar icons, the effigies of the Petersburg metropolitans Veniamin (Kazansky) and Serafim (Chichagov), both murdered by the communists and recognized as holy martyrs by the Russian Orthodox Church, hang on the walls.
As an eminent church historian, Mitrofanov was closely involved in that decision-making process, and the two church leaders have special significance for him. As far as he is concerned, the Russian church and society have learned very little from the martyrdom of thousands of clergy and believers who were put to death in the communist era. The church itself was almost completely wiped out. ‘But the church has not emerged from that crisis stronger’, says Mitrofanov bitterly. “For the best that existed in the Church was destroyed. Both the country and the church came out of the Soviet period shattered.’
Part of the way the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church behaves today can be traced back to the church’s bloody history in the 20th century, he says. “In our church, the mood among the clergy is above all inert and apolitical. After the events of the 20th century, most clerics steer clear of politics and public discussion. Our bishops grew up with the conviction that the position of the church, after the survival of the totalitarian Soviet state, depends entirely on its relationship with the state. That is why stable relations with the government are seen as indispensable and church leaders and many bishops either keep silent or prefer to make statements that are in line with those of the state.’
According to Mitrofanov, this is not only due to the experience of the Soviet period, but certainly also to that of earlier centuries, in Byzantium and other regions where the Orthodox faith was the state religion.
Immediately after the collapse of communism, the church leadership behaved completely servile to state power and was very much imbued with the Soviet spirit, scientist Sergei Filatov agrees. ‘The church is gradually becoming more independent. There is a difference of night and day between how the clergy behaved then and how they do now, although there is still a long way to go. But the first steps in the right direction have been taken.’
Crimea
The 71-year-old historian and sociologist has been publishing on religious developments in Russia for over thirty years and has an extensive network of contacts throughout the country within the Orthodox Church. “The crisis in Ukraine is a clear example of a situation where people expect much more from the church,” Filatov said in his Moscow apartment. “But how do Church leaders behave? Very carefully. They live in this country, so they can’t direct a direct confrontation. But still, in 2014, when the documents were signed on the connection of Crimea, the Patriarch was not among them. He never recognized that affiliation, Crimea is still under the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, not directly under the Moscow Church.’
Filatov has certainly seen the Russian Orthodox Church change in three decades. ‘The church has grown qualitatively.’ As a result, more attention has been paid to social assistance. According to Filatov, pluralism has increased and critical clerics need to fear reprisals less than in the past, but the vast majority are also keeping a low profile when it comes to Ukraine. “The Ukrainian leaders invariably call the patriarch the bloody ideologue of Putinism, of course, but that’s really not true. He is constantly balancing. Thirty years ago that was completely impossible, especially in foreign policy, when the Church was always a loyal soldier of the party. The church has really changed, but many want it to go even faster.”
So far there is nothing to indicate that. According to Mitrofanov, critics at both ends of the spectrum are in the minority within the Russian Church and there is no prospect of this changing any time soon. ‘There are supporters and opponents of state politics, but the majority traditionally remains passive and silent.’
The influence of the church should not be overestimated, he believes. “For our government, the authority of the church does not exist, no matter how much it publicly supports the church. Practicing Christians in Russia make up only 2 to 3 percent of the population and among them there are very few socially or politically active people, who also often hold conflicting views. Here the inertia of the church offers the opportunity to maintain unity. That’s not good, that’s bad, but it is the result of the centuries-long historical development of the Orthodox Church and the repression that it endured for seventy years in the 20th century.’
rupture
Mitrofanov is saddened by the rift that is now emerging within the Orthodox Church in Ukraine. He expects that more and more priests and bishops will make the switch from the Moscow-affiliated church to the Ukrainian church, which is separate from the patriarch. ‘It is easy to explain that there are now predominantly anti-Russian sentiments. I’m not saying that’s good, it can be explained. Our church should not keep insisting that it is a Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, but simply an Orthodox Church that exists in Russia and has parishes elsewhere in the world. Not in the ‘Russian world’, but simply, in the world. Unfortunately, that idea of the “Russian world” is very popular with us, it is talked about all the time. But it has now become an odious term, a synonym for expansion.’
Can the Russian Church break free of that centuries-old squeezing bond with the state? “Just because she couldn’t break free for centuries doesn’t mean it can’t happen in due course. But the church is in a very deep crisis. The credit to trust that the church enjoyed with the people has expired. That is why I am pessimistic, I see no way out of that crisis. The most important thing now is that after all these events as many people as possible stay alive, both in Russia and Ukraine. Where there are living people, there are Christians, however few, and there is the Church of Christ.’