The Veliky Luki Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church will test the actions of the rector of the church in honor of the icon of the Mother of God All Tsaritsa within the village of Rusanovo, Fr. Antoniy (Tatarintsev), who on August 15 took half within the opening of an eight-meter monument to Joseph Stalin on the territory of the native manufacturing facility “Mikron”, introduced the press service of the diocese.
“Clergy took part in this event without blessing and agreement with the diocesan leadership. It should be noted that their actions and statements are not an expression of the position of the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church and reflect their personal views and convictions,” the diocese stated.
During the opening ceremony earlier this week, the Orthodox priest consecrated the monument and likewise stated that in Stalin’s rule “the church suffered” however “thanks to that now there are many new martyrs and confessors”.
The priest’s phrases have been condemned by Ep. Savva (Tutunov), deputy administrator of the affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate, who referred to as them “outrageous” and “blasphemous”. “Yes, the Lord turned evil into good, revealing in the days of persecution the steadfastness in faith of many Christians who now serve as an example to us. But that doesn’t make the atrocities any less evil, and we shouldn’t feel gratitude towards the persecuted and the persecutors,” he stated.
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation got here out in protection of the priest.
Alexander Yushchenko, spokesman for the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), stated in a commentary for V-Okay Podem that Stalin was an “emblematic figure” for the Russian Orthodox Church. “Stalin restored the patriarchal institution in 1943. It was Stalin who restored the relationship between the state and the church that had been severed. That is why, in particular, it is to Stalin’s credit that today the patriarch of Moscow and all Russia serves,” stated the spokesman of the Russian Communists.
On August 15, an eight-meter monument to Stalin was erected close to the doorway corridor of the Mikron plant in Veliki Luki, Pskov area. Originally, the monument, created in 2019, was supposed to be put in in Volgograd, however the native authorities refused. After that, the initiative group thought of choices for putting in the monument within the Moscow area or Voronezh, however didn’t obtain the consent of the authorities.
In latest years, monuments to Joseph Stalin have been erected an increasing number of usually in Russia. The first monument to Stalin within the historical past of recent Russia was erected in 2015 on the territory of the Zvenigovsky meat processing complicated within the village of Shelanger, Mari Republic. It is positioned subsequent to the Lenin monument.
Despite the response of the church administration on this explicit case, the blurring of the boundaries between as we speak’s Russian Church and the communist operatives of Soviet Russia is a really highly effective course of. Recently, a gaggle of clergymen scandalized Christians not solely in Russia with a photograph across the bust of the Soviet communist Felix Dzerzhinsky, founding father of the sinister Bolshevik secret police, the Cheka (Chresvychnaya kommission), whose title has turn out to be a byword for the strategies of the Red Terror. The restoration of the Soviet Union, with the identical repressive home strategies and bellicose international coverage, is the guiding political ultimate of the Putin regime, which is propagated in any respect ranges. Unlike the instances of the Bolshevik regime, as we speak the Russian Orthodox Church is assigned the function of an official ideological ally. This coverage makes inevitable the “blurring of borders” within the minds of many Orthodox clergy who strive to mix the “greatness of the Soviet Union” with its bloody anti-Church repressions. This course of is just not solely attribute of Russia, but in addition of different post-communist nations.
