WHO’S GODLESS NOW? RUSSIA SAYS IT’S U.S.

WHO’S GODLESS NOW? RUSSIA SAYS IT’S U.S.

            At the height of the Cold War, it was common for American conservatives to label the officially atheist Soviet Union a “godless nation.”  More than two decades on, history has come full circle, as the Kremlin and its allies in the Russian Orthodox Church hurl the same allegation at the West.  “Many Euro-Atlantic countries have moved away from their roots, including Christian values” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a recent keynote speech.  “Policies are being pursued that place on the same level a multi-child family and a same-sex partnership, a faith in God and a belief in Satan. This is the path to degradation.”  In his state of the nation address in mid-December, Mr. Putin also portrayed Russia as a staunch defender of “traditional values” against what he depicted as the morally bankrupt West.  Social and religious conservatism, the former KGB officer insisted, is the only way to prevent the world from slipping into “chaotic darkness.”

            As part of this defense of “Christian values,” Russia has adopted a law banning homosexual propaganda and another that makes it a criminal offense to insult the religious sensibilities of believers.  The law on religious sensibilities was adopted in the wake of a protest in Moscow’s largest cathedral by a female punk rock group against the Orthodox Church’s support of Mr. Putin.  Kremlin-run television said the group’s demonic protest was funded by some Americans. 

            Mr. Putin’s views of the West were echoed this month by Patriarch Kirill l of Moscow, the leader of the Orthodox Church in Russia who accused Western countries of engaging in the spiritual disarmament of their people.  In particular, Patriarch Kirill criticized laws in several European countries that prevent believers from displaying religious symbols, including crosses on necklaces, at work. The general political direction of the Western political elite bears, without doubt, an anti-Christian and anti-religious character, the Patriarch said in comments aired on state-controlled television.  “We have been through an epoch of atheism, and we know what it is to live without God,” Patriarch Kirill said. “We want to shout to the whole world, Stop!”

            Other figures within the Orthodox Church have gone further in criticizing the West. Archpriest Vselvolod Chaplin, a Church spokesman, suggested that the modern-day west is no better for a Christian believer than the Soviet Union was.  Soviet authorities executed some 200,000 clergy and believers from 1917 to 1937, according to a 1995 presidential committee report.  Thousands of Churches were destroyed, and those that survived were turned into warehouses, garages or museums of atheism.  “The separation of the secular and the religious is a fatal mistake by the West”, Father Chaplin said. “It is a monstrous phenomenon that has occurred only in Western civilization and will kill the West, both politically and morally.” 

            The Kremlin’s encouragement of traditional values has sparked a rise in Orthodox vigilantism.  Fringe groups such as the Union of Orthodox Banner Bearers, an ultraconservative movement whose slogan is “Orthodoxy or Death,” are gaining prominence.  Patriarch Kirill has honored the group’s leader, an openly anti-Semitic monarchist Leonid Simonovich, for his services to the Orthodox Church.  The Banner Bearers, who dress in black paramilitary uniforms festooned with skulls, regularly confront gay and liberal activists on the streets of Moscow.  Although Mr. Putin has never made a secret of what he says is his deep Christian faith, his first decade in power was largely free of overtly religious rhetoric. Little or no attempt was made to impose a set of values on Russians or lecture to the West on morals. (My note: A man has a right to find his spiritual roots before the end of his life).  However, since his inauguration for a third presidential term in May 2012, the increasingly authoritarian leader has sought to reach out to Russia’s conservative, xenophobic heartland for support. It has proved a rich hunting ground. 

            “Western values, from liberalism to the recognition of the rights of sexual minorities, from Catholicism and Protestantism to comfortable jails for murderers, provoke in us suspicion, astonishment and alienation,” Yevgeny Bashanov, rector of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s diplomatic academy, wrote in a recent essay.  Analysts suggest that Mr. Putin’s shift to ultraconservatism and anti-West rhetoric was triggered by mass protests against his rule that rocked Russia in 2011 and 2012.  The unprecedented show of dissent was led mainly by educated, urban Muscovites—many with undisguised pro-Western sympathies.

This is my take on this report.  Of course I am biased and a very pro-Orthodox Christian. I believe that once again the liberal American press in Washington, DC painted a very negative picture of the religious and political leadership of Russia.  Putin is a human being like all of us.  He has every right to seek his salvation like all of us do before we are called home to eternity. I have been following very carefully Putin’s turn to the Orthodox Church since his divorce. I feel that his turn to the Ancient Christian traditions of Holy Orthodoxy is a sincere and genuine change of heart. How many Americans know that Putin has traveled to Mount Athos numerous times since his divorce? What was the purpose of his pilgrimages to that Holy Mountain? Did he rediscover his Orthodox spiritual roots there?  Did he go to sacramental confession to one of the Elders there?  These are questions that westerners know nothing about.

But in addition to what I have stated above and throughout the Christian era and especially since the Great Schism between the Greek East and the Latin West there has been a very distinct bias against the Christians of the East by those of the West.  Even though we are in the 21^st century I do not believe that this has changed anything between East and West.  A good contemporary example of that is what is happening in the Ukraine today.  The religious fault line between East and West goes right through the middle of the Ukraine and it tells us much of what really is happening there. It is not simply a political issue. It is a spiritual issue that has roots in the schism.  The people in the West should not throw stones at the Russian Orthodox people until they have understood the soul of Russia.  The only way a person can understand the soul of a country is to go and live amongst the people of that country.  Russia is an Orthodox Christian country with a long history of spiritual struggle.  Russia has the fullness of the faith of Jesus Christ and the pages of its history are filled with the miraculous intervention of Jesus Christ. Before we complain about Russia we should take a good hard look at the American soul.  There is much corruption within it and it threatens to destroy that which the founding fathers codified in the Constitution of the United States.

+Fr. Constantine J. Simones, Waterford, CT, February 13, 2014, cjsimones300@gmail.com, 860-460-9089.