Salon

Mikhail Bulgakov's novel "The Master and Margarita," beloved by several generations of the Russian intelligentsia, has had its enemies over time. Soviet officials, who were suspicious of its scenes illustrating the last earthly days of Christ, initially banned the book, releasing a censored version after Bulgakov's death. Now, the novel has a new enemy -- Deacon Andrei Kurayev, who has accused the author of heresy.

Kurayev has long been active in the Russian media. A graduate of Moscow State University's department of "scientific atheism," he entered an Orthodox seminary in the 1980s. He is now a highly visible journalist, writer and TV personality. Most recently, he was applauded or criticized -- depending on one's point of view -- for three wildly different acts.

The first was his speech to a convention of Orthodox priests at a Russian missile base. As reported by Valery Panyushkin in Kommersant, he said that Jewish ghettos were designed to save Jews from World War II, but, since Jewish plutocrats failed to stop the United States from joining the war, the Nazis took revenge by sending the Jews to death camps. Allegedly, Kurayev said that most of the victims in Auschwitz and elsewhere were Christian converts, selected for death by Jews themselves in the self-governing ghettos. In many countries, such Holocaust-denying speeches would have landed the speaker in jail.

On a totally different note, Kurayev appeared in a television duel between the anti-Semitic general Albert Makashov and cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov. Surprisingly, Kurayev condemned the recent petition by a group of Duma deputies calling for a ban on Jewish organizations.

Kurayev's most recent book is titled "'The Master and Margarita': For or Against Christ?" (Master i Margarita: za Khrista ili protiv?). In it, he examines Bulgakov's variation on the story of the Crucifixion. Bulgakov focuses on Pontius Pilate, portraying him sympathetically. Kurayev argues that Bulgakov's position verges on Satanism, because Satan, under the name of Woland, is an important and vivid character in "Master." He accuses Bulgakov of drifting from the Christian views of his early drafts to a final position that is unacceptable for an Orthodox Christian.

In his previous works, Kurayev has characterized Islam as the religion of terrorism and explored whether it is all right for Orthodox children to read about the exploits of Harry Potter.

Kurayev is a keen follower of the latest media trends. With Orthodox dignitaries growing in media visibility and even suggesting a state-sponsored Church TV channel, Kurayev might be a harbinger of a new era that will put an end to Russia's claim of being a modern secular state.