Russian Orthodoxy Resurgent by Garrard John; Garrard Carol;

Author:Garrard, John; Garrard, Carol;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2014-03-08T16:00:00+00:00

SIX

The Babylonian Legacy: Exiles, Martyrs, and Collaborators

Oh Mother of God, help us to reconcile ourselves to one another, to the truth, and to God.

—Patriarch Aleksy’s address to the nation, 1:30 A.M., August 21, 1991

IN 2006 ALEKSY COULD LOOK BACK upon a series of major accomplishments since becoming patriarch of Moscow and All Russia. He had restored the Russian Orthodox Church within the new Russian Federation, defending it against Western evangelists and domestic anti-Semites. But other obstacles loomed both within and beyond the borders of the Russian Federation. Some of the schisms date back centuries, to the time of Ivan the Terrible, who bequeathed the enduring conflict over the Uniates. Some, however, were the burden of the Soviet past. The ROC suffered seventy years of death and destruction at the hands of its government. Thousands of “new martyrs” testified to this. To survive and not be driven into the catacombs, the church cooperated with the Soviet authorities. Cooperation ranged from passive acquiescence in party decisions, to serving as a mouthpiece for KGB propaganda (vide the “peace” campaign), up to and including active collaboration by “false brothers” (Aleksy’s description) who denounced their own flock. The end of Soviet power meant that some of this collusion would inevitably become public. Cleansing the church of its collaborators was the most painful of all the challenges the Moscow Patriarchate faced.

The patriarch knew how deeply the church had been penetrated—he had been a recruited agent himself for more than thirty years. Keston News Service evaluated his culpability after an extensive review of all the documents its researchers could unearth:

All senior clerical appointments in the Soviet era were made by the KGB and mediated through the government’s Council for Religious Affairs (the public face of the 4th department of the KGB Fifth Directorate)—and many junior appointments besides. Aleksy’s collaboration was nothing exceptional. Almost all senior leaders of all officially recognized religious faiths—including the Catholics, Baptists, Adventists, Muslims and Buddhists—were recruited KGB agents.1

No one could get clearances, move up in rank, receive visas, speak to foreigners, or manage church bank accounts unless the KGB had vetted and approved him. Aleksey Ridiger had used the proprietary knowledge he had gained from KGB tutelage to outmaneuver his former masters. But exposure could tarnish the ROC with a very broad brush indeed.

Within days of the putsch’s failure, Aleksy decided to speak to this delicate subject. On August 30, 1991, he faxed an “Address [Obrashchenie] of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church” to “Archpastors, Pastors and All Its Faithful Children.” The connotations of its title communicate its gravitas. Obrashchenie is the same word used to head his August 21, 1991, address issued at 1:30 A.M. at the crisis of the coup. The ROC’s August 30 message identifies its key concern, which it calls the “bitter legacy left by former rulers”:

History is now pronouncing its judgment [sud]. And each of us might present his own claim to the former ruling party and state circles for those unexampled sufferings, which have fallen to our lot or to the lots of our neighbors for the last 73 years [i.

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