Stalin is long dead, but the orders issued by the "great and powerful" men in history are words that reverberate for generations, haunting the imagination, requiring expiation, explanation, or rebuke many years, sometimes centuries afterwards. The Mark of Stalin...
By Sophia KishkovskyMoscow, 11 May (ENI)--Church debate in Russia continues to simmer over the role of dictator Josef Stalin, but Patriarch Kirill I of the Russian Orthodox Church has said in a Moscow sermon that the Second World War was redemptive for his country, while making no mention of the former Soviet ruler's name in his address.
"The church does not look at the war as historians or politicians do," said Kirill on 9 May at the Church of Christ the Saviour. "The church has a particular stance, a particular spiritual point of view." The Patriarch said he believed the war had redeemed Russia from its sins.
"We know what took place among our people after the bloody events of the beginning of the 20th century," said Kirill. "How many lies, how much evil and human suffering there was. But God washed away these lies and this evil with our blood, with the blood of our fathers, as has happened more than once in human history."
"And that is why we must come to a special understanding of the redemptive meaning of the Great Patriotic War," Kirill added.
"When some homegrown historians tell us that the evil here was no less than there, they are not seeing beyond their own noses, and fail to see the divine horizon beyond their extremely primitive and sinful analysis," said Kirill. "The Great Patriotic War [as Russians call the Second World War] revealed to us God's truth about ourselves. It punished us for our sins but revealed to us the great glory and strength of our people."
At the Moscow church service, Kirill led special prayers commemorating Russia's victory in the war. They were composed by him, and based on a prayer commemorating Russia's victory over Napoleon in 1812. The prayers will now be read each year in Russian Orthodox churches on 9 May.
The Moscow Patriarchate has been embroiled in a row over a popular writer's claims that the strong stance taken by the Russian Orthodox Church and especially Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk against Stalin is dividing Russian society.
On 6 May, a long letter was posted on the Web site of the Patriarchate's external relations department, which Hilarion heads. The letter, by Hieromonk Filipp Ryabykh, deputy chairperson of the department, was in response to a letter sent to Hilarion in December 2009 by Aleksandr Prokhanov, an author of novels that glorify Stalin and the editor of Zavtra, a Stalinist newspaper. Prokhanov is also a popular television and radio personality.
In his letter, Prokhanov asked Hilarion why he and other church officials have attacked Stalin's role in Russian history and the Second World War. The same question also appeared in the first 2010 edition of Zavtra.
Prokhanov wrote that Hilarion's statement in 2009 that Stalin was a "spiritual monster", and similar anti-Stalinist statements by other church officials and clergymen were fraught with danger.
"Is sensitivity to the opinion of the people deserting these leaders of the church?" Prokhanov wrote. "Are they not placing themselves against the people at the moment when the people are appealing to the church, and seeking from it protection against the monstrous satanic elements that have burst into Russian life?"
According to Prokhanov, church officials who criticise Stalin fail to credit him for his role in reviving the Russian empire. He also points out that the Russian Orthodox Church prayed for Stalin, and asserts, "Stalin went along the path of Emperor Constantine, who first persecuted and tormented Christians but then became a saint and creator of a Christian empire."
Ryabykh's reponse, on behalf of Hilarion, was prefaced with an explanation timed to coincide with the celebration of the 65th anniversary of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany, celebrated on 9 May. The anniversary has been accompanied by impassioned debates about Stalin.
Ryabykh wrote that the victory did not belong to Stalin, and reiterated Hilarion's condemnation of the dictator. "An inhuman system was created under Stalin, and nothing can justify it: neither industrialisation, nor the atomic bomb, nor the preservation of state borders, nor even victory in the Great Patriotic War, for all of this was attained not by Stalin but by our multinational people. The regime created by Stalin was based on terror, violence and repression, by lies and denunciations."
Stalin, Ryabykh continued, created a "time bomb" by dividing the country's territory along ethnic lines, and this led to, "extremism, nationalism and xenophobia" and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Ryabykh added that praying for the authorities and meeting with them did not mean approving of their policies. [Copyright Ecumenical news International, reprinted by permission]