Former Chukotka Bishop Diomid (Dzyuban), a well-known “fighter for pure Orthodoxy” in the recent past, died on November 20 in a crash in the Leningrad region. Diomid, 60, died along with two other women who were in the car.
The former Chukchi bishop was the founder of a schismatic movement in the Russian Church that gained followers in other countries in 2007-2008. After separating from the ROC, he ordained bishops for his “true Orthodox Church.”
His career in the Moscow Patriarchate began during the time of Moscow Patriarch Alexy. Appointed bishop of the newly formed Chukchi diocese in 2000, Ep. Diomid attracted large donations from the district’s governor, oligarch Roman Abramovich, who invested huge sums in Orthodox churches for two years.
In February 2007, Ep. Diomid came into conflict with the Moscow Patriarchate, publishing a denunciation letter against “ecumenism” and “tsarist struggle” and calling the Russian Church a “servant of the antichrist.”
He was dismissed in 2008 after anathemaing the ROC leadership. After his overthrow, signatures began to be collected in his support. He connected with the ultra-conservative monk Raphael (Berestov) on Mount Athos, who called him an “apostle of the last days.” Diomid created his own movement of followers known as the “Diomids” who fought against the new Russian passports, barcodes, and more. Over the years, they isolated themselves into a small sect and lost their previous popularity.
See also: Touches to the psychological portrait of the “fighters for the purity of Orthodoxy”
In the last ten years, the characteristic image of the “fighter for Orthodoxy” (hereinafter referred to as “fighter”) has been formed. The “fighters” are a very colorful group, they often have opposing views, which, if not diametrically opposed, are at least difficult to combine with each other. They do not agree with each other on all issues – they often criticize each other for their beliefs, they have no structural organization. On the contrary, fragmentation is their hallmark. In our country, the main contingent includes all sorts of groups of worshipers, Diomids, anti-ecumenists of all calibers, advocates of the canonization of Ivan the Terrible, separately of Stalin, the so-called zealots, above all monks. We must immediately note that the “fighter” we are considering is a phenomenon characteristic not only of religious circles. Let us remember the ardent Bolshevik revolutionaries, ready to die for the ideas they believed in.
The “fighters” are characterized by a general and constant alarmism – this is an anxious-anxious state, expressed in a permanent neurotic expectation of betrayal of Orthodoxy by the church hierarchy. This includes the panicked inconsolable anticipation of the coming of the antichrist and the end of the world. Let us emphasize that most pamphlets written by “fighters” are permeated by alarmism, although the authors can hardly be suspected of malice and insincerity. Unwavering, absolutely sincere conviction in one’s own right determines the main content of the term “fighter”. In Soviet mythology, fighters were called the infallible leaders of the Bolshevik Party, led by Ulyanov-Lenin, who, according to the myth-makers, never made a mistake. This infallibility is a hallmark of today’s “fighters”. For example, when thinking about the troubles of our church and state, the “fighters” are not talking about the causes, but about the culprits. It turns out that we, the people, have not sinned with anything, we are holy and blameless in everything. This seems to be their common principle of the exteriorization of evil, which is in direct contradiction with the gospel doctrine of repentance. There is nothing to regret – Masons, ecumenists and globalists are to blame for the situation.
The next feature of their way of thinking is the use of metalanguage, which they use not to address the intellect of the interlocutor, but the hidden layers of his subconscious, ie the psyche. Alarmism is precisely a phenomenon of a psychological nature. Precisely because of the turning of this metalanguage to the psyche, to the emotions, and not to the mind, all scientific and theological battles with the “fighters” become completely meaningless, as the conversation is conducted in different languages. Psychic sensations are not dissuasive, and no matter how skilled and erudite a polemicist tries to refute the panic alarmism of the “fighters” in the language of the intellect, he will not succeed. The conviction that traitors to Orthodoxy who dream of uniting with Roman Catholics and Protestants have taken root in the hierarchy is strong insofar as it is unreasonable. Because the ideas that ordinary discursive thinking deals with can be refuted by good argumentation and fact-finding. While in the realm of mental activity, neither arguments nor facts matter, because what I feel, perhaps no one will ever feel, and it is impossible to prove a feeling.
Let us illustrate this observation with a life example. A woman turns to a well-known priest and asks him how it happened that a miter was elected patriarchal vicar. Cyril. The father inquired what exactly she did not agree with him, and she replied that there was generally something in him that was “not quite so.” The metalanguage of “fighters” is characterized, as in many totalitarian sects, by the presence of key concepts-signs, which, when verbalized, provoke in them a series of psychological reactions such as anger, resentment or vice versa – respect and solidarity. Suffice it to say words like “ecumenism,” “Vatican,” “globalization,” on the one hand, and “king,” “elders,” and “Third Rome” on the other. The key concepts can cause “five minutes of anger”, and in other cases cause the fighter a good mood.
It is by virtue of the predominant emotional and mental activity over the rational, in this type of people there are other features that cause other types of problems. Many of the “fighters” often find themselves incapable of creative and generally successful professional activity, of starting a family, of obedience. They show imbalance, rapid change of mood, lack of discipline. After a brief overview of the marginal blogs and forums dedicated to the upcoming local council, you are convinced that the most uncompromising opponents of ecumenism and contacts with heretics are on the Internet around the clock. When do they have time to work, take care of their families, etc.?
The underdeveloped intellectual activity of the brain, compensated by various mental phenomena, often grows into phobias, obsessive states, obsession with persecution, which make such people practically incapable of dialogue. They simply do not feel the need for it, being a priori convinced of the ultimate right of their psychic experiences, which are usually expressed in long monologues. Hence the shocking incompetence of a number of fighters who easily dare to reflect on theological, canonical and ecclesiastical historical topics. Ignoring the obvious absurdity and absurdity of the ecclesiastical and canonical constructions of the former Bishop of Chukchi Diomid (Dzyuban), his writings found their few but sufficiently vocal supporters, because they were attracted not by clearly argued knowledge, but by the aura of knowledge itself. fighter “- such as they are.
In the course of the theological conversation, such people can easily justify their position with political and historical arguments, without feeling the slightest awkwardness about the inadequacy of such formulations in the framework of the theological dispute. By speaking of the exploits or teachings of the saints, they can take some thoughts and events out of context, while remaining completely indifferent to others, capable of making their arguments vulnerable. It turns out that their goal, as with the early Jesuits, justifies the means. For example, in several Moscow temples you can buy the disc “Discourses on the True and False Language” by Tatiana Mironova, where the author without much detour states that the original language of the New Testament was Church Slavonic, and the Russian Synodal edition of the Bible is , imagine, prepared on the basis of the Masonic (sic!) translations of St. Scripture. Mironova claims that the app. Paul, in his epistle to the Romans (13: 1), calls for obedience only to the Orthodox authority, because it alone is from God and no one else. The author cannot help but know that the apostle was subject to Roman pagan authority at a time when there was no question of Orthodox authority. Dare to misinterpret St. Scripture, the author commits a mortal sin, but this is not scary for Mironova has suggested to herself that she has a prophetic overriding task, to which, apparently, the category of sin does not extend.
In this sense, the important thing is that the “fighters” proclaim ideas in which they believe, which distinguishes them from ordinary opinions. Thus ideas become beliefs, which by their nature they should not be, if we remember the famous book of Ortega y Gasset.
Any theological dispute with the “fighters” inevitably acquires a political discourse and it turns out that against the background of their apparent indifference to theology, they suddenly show genuine interest and some knowledge in this area, by the way, far from sound. It is no wonder, then, that in the temples one can often hear even sermons and conversations about the uselessness of education, about the harm of arrogant knowledge. What is all this for, when the main thing is to be a “fighter”, to fight for the “right cause”, to be a bolt and a screw in the unified machine of struggle. Thus, the political aspect gradually spills over into militant and even militant. Curses of one or another church or state person can often be heard from these people. By misinterpreting the Orthodox’s duty to be a warrior of Christ, the “fighters” mistakenly or maliciously interpolate the principle of militancy in all areas of life.
It is the extreme politicization, the striving for demonstrative political actions, the social activity, the rally style of the events that most clearly distinguish the fighters, regardless of their ideological coloration. They have different ideologies, but a common typology of the manifestations of the spirit. However, they are united by the ultimate degree of ideologisation, or, if you like, indoctrination, expressed in a willingness to fight for their cause by all possible means. And without a shadow of a doubt in their own right, because they sincerely believe what they say. But this is not the belief in the true God, but in the idol of their own ideas and soul intuitions, which have grown into beliefs.
Another thing that catches the eye of the attentive observer is not only the fact that the search for the “fighters” is extremely secular, but also their factual indifference to the spiritual. In fact, they are not interested in the spiritual experience of the hermit fathers, they are not distinguished by the pursuit of spiritual work and growth in Christ – because these things do not give a platform and a microphone, namely they are needed by “fighters” who do not they want to reside in the “unknown” – they want allies and glory. Read any of Diomid’s opuses and you will be filled with the painful feeling that you have become acquainted with the election campaign of another opposition party. These and many other examples can easily convince us of the ecclesiastical nature of the “fighters'” activities. The church theme of their reflections is not a reason, but an occasion for another manifestation of dissatisfaction. Eliminate ecumenism – there will be other claims and so on indefinitely. By denouncing democracy as an ungodly form of government, the “fighters” demanded the consistent introduction of this same democratic principle into the life of the Church, justifying it by its conciliar nature, deliberately forgetting that episcopal conciliarity is Catholicism and not an opportunity for councils to become a farce.
Now let us consider the meaning and purpose of the politicized and ideologized component in the psychology of the “fighters”, recalling their indifference to the truly spiritual. In my opinion, the “fighters” unconsciously strive for power (and some of them – to submit to this power), they want to become part of it, to influence the course of world history, but only in their own way. And they will never limit themselves to trying to influence the election of the next patriarch, the Church in general. They need a revolution on the scale of all of Russia, if not the whole world. In their insatiability, they go even further – Diomid has already called today’s government in Russia “God-fighting.” For those who listen to it, this epithet of metalanguage is perceived as a call to action and this gives tone to the dormant subconscious, stimulating its further excitement in search of the necessary and logically inevitable action.
What happens in the circles we have mentioned can be qualified in different ways: mass hysteria, group psychosis. These phenomena, fortunately, have not accumulated a critical mass in our church and society, unlike the period 17-18 century in Russian history, when whole families, saving the “old faith” fled to the Siberian forests, waiting for retribution for the Nikon king – Antichrist and the living were set on fire together with their children. Several dozen people drowned underground in the Penza village – that’s not much, of course. But they left behind a certain false messianic impulse and pseudo-prophetic pathos of the eschatological socio-religious protest, which will inevitably manifest itself in the future, and has long been active in the “fighters”. The non-churching of the broad masses of the population is an aggravating factor – the easier they can be bribed by the calls of the next generation of “fighters”, in whatever color they are and under whatever flags they go. The danger is that one day the “fighters” will become broad masses.
The author of these lines is far from thinking that all “fighters” are mentally ill or disabled. What is striking is that for the most part they are sincere and healthy, but infected to varying degrees by the fluids of various spiritual pathologies that have arisen as a result of ideas taking the place of the object of faith. Which is even more unfortunate, and an even wiser pastoral approach is needed to heal them.
People have the right to have different opinions and beliefs, including when they are in the Church. No one calls for the unification of thinking and does not impose its models on others. There has always been room in the Church for sound criticism and discussion, as long as they are not unsubstantiated and logical. In the Church as the Body of Christ, however, there can be no room for slander, lies and hysteria, because this is not and cannot be in Christ. I will emphasize once again that trying to dissuade the “fighter” who believes in his election with logical methods is meaningless and impossible. That is why I address my humble thoughts not to them, but to all those who pray for the unity of the Church, for her present and future, who love all her children, whatever their views may be.
