Russia's Divided Church

On Dec. 4 the most recent Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church came to a majestic close with a special service in the Kremlin's Uspensky Cathedral and the canonization of three newly glorified Russian saints.


A Council of Bishops is a major event in the life of the Orthodox Church. It is one of the church's highest ecclesiastic bodies and, therefore, an examination of the decisions of the latest council is good way of gauging where the church intends to move in the immediate future.


The official theme of the council was "the mission of the Orthodox Church in the modern world" and the church fathers called on all believers "to embark on a new path of missionary service." This theme, and most of the council's decisions, point to anxiety within the church concerning its response to the enormous changes going on in the secular world. While the church is clearly an institution based on tradition, many understand that now is the time for change.


The council approved a number of decisions intended to modernize the church. It approved a plan to re-edit a number of church texts in order to make them more comprehensible to the average believer, inasmuch as the archaic language of the Orthodox liturgy is often an obstacle both for long-time believers and, especially, for those coming to the church for the first time.


The bishops also approved something of a "mission statement" for the church, emphasizing the need for it to make an active, deliberate contribution to contemporary culture, science, economics and ecology, as well as noting the necessity of using the church's peace-making capabilities to help resolve a number of political and social disputes.


The bishops believe that everyone must receive a religious education and that appropriate programs must be developed for all social classes and age groups. Following the timeless advice "to clean up one's own house first," the bishops focused particular attention on theological education. They passed a decision to work out a new basic plan for preparing priests and theologians which, among other things, would be based on the assumption that anyone undergoing such training will have already received a higher education.


Perhaps most importantly, the bishops stated explicitly that it is acceptable for there to be a variety of views within the church, although it was also emphasized that such differences must not be allowed to break the "bonds of love" within the church. Finally, the council affirmed the church's participation in the ecumenical movement.


These, then, are the major decisions of the Council of Bishops. However, beneath the seemingly rational and precise formulation of these ideas lies a sea of passionate dispute. The collapse of communism in Russia left the Orthodox Church in a state of freedom for the first time in its thousand-year history. Well, to be precise, the church did enjoy a few months of freedom in 1918, when another council was held and a patriarch was freely chosen. It is little wonder that the recent council emphasized so often its continuity with the council of 1918.


In reality, we can say that the church fell straight from the arms of the monarchy into the arms of the Communist regime. While the attitudes of the two regimes toward the church were obviously quite different, both embraced it despotically. In the 18th century, Peter the Great declared the Orthodox Church a state organ and put it firmly under the control of government bureaucrats; the church's fate was virtually identical after the Revolution. Now, though, it would seem that the church can at last determine its own destiny.


Like Russian society as a whole, the Orthodox Church is in the midst of a heated struggle between a number of factions. The basic ideas of these factions, though, boil down to a struggle between openness and reform on one hand and isolation and ultra-conservatism on the other.


Supporters of the latter view, naturally, have come to join forces with the country's political conservatives, paradoxically supporting both the extreme wing of Russian fascism and resurgent communism. The three movements share a common ideology -- the ideology of power -- and a common platform -- Orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality. They never use the word "Christianity," only "Orthodoxy" and in general they see Moslems as closer to themselves than Western Catholics and Protestants. This group maintains that Orthodox Russia is the epitome of spiritual truth, of which the decayed and hostile West has none.


Conservatives within the church made every effort to use the Council of Bishops for their own ends. They even began their attack at the International Conference of Orthodox Churches, which took place in the weeks immediately preceding the Council of Bishops. They focused their assault on two priests, Alexander Borisov and Georgy Kochetkov, who have become symbols of church reform. However, the conservative drive to get the international assembly to condemn these priests and to call for the Council of Bishops to take action against them was not approved. These unsuccessful attacks continued throughout the council sessions.


The decisions of the council outlined above must be seen within the context of this struggle. They form a surprisingly clear "yes" to the church's role in the new society and to ecumenicism, which the conservatives see as a potentially fatal threat to "pure" Orthodoxy. Of particular symbolic importance was the canonization of Alexander Khotovitsky, who participated in one of the world's first ecumenical conferences in 1913. Equally importantly, the council rejected a strong conservative bid to canonize Tsar Nicholas II and his family. Although the struggle goes on, the council is clear sign of hope that the Orthodox Church will not allow itself to be dragged down by reactionaries and that it will remain free of political domination.





Mikhail Gorelik is a freelance journalist. He contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.