PESKOV
COMMENTS ON PUTIN'S STATEMENT ABOUT COMMUNISM'S SIMILARITY TO
CHRISTIANITY
Comparison
of the preservation of Vladimir Lenin's body in the mausoleum
with veneration of relics of saints by Christians is not new for
Russian President Vladimir Putin, and there is no sensation in
the corresponding statements, the press secretary of the Russian
leader, Dmitry Peskov, declared.
"President
Putin
is extremely consistent in his assessment of this question. He
has frequently made statements in this vein and therefore we do
not see here anything new," Peskov said to journalists.
He
noted that there is not any occasion "for a sensational
discussion" seen in the words of the president.
This
is how he responded to a request to evaluate the commentaries of
the Russian Orthodox Church and the Communist Party of the
Russian Federation made after the showing of the film "Valaam,"
in an interview for which Putin compared communist and Christian
ideologies and also the statement of the Communist Party that he
was repeating the words of the leader of the CPRF, Gennady
Ziuganov.
"Do
not forget that the president regularly maintains a dialogue
with the leaders of the parliamentary fractions, including with
Gennady Andreevich Ziuganov, and therefore, of course, they have
the opportunity to exchange opinions on the most diverse
matters," Peskov recalled.
In
an interview for the film "Valaam," Putin said that "communist
ideology is very much like Christianity." The Russian president
compared the attitude of communists toward Lenin with the
veneration of saints in Christianity. "Just look. Lenin was
placed in the mausoleum. How is this different from saints'
relics for Orthodox, or simply for Christians? When they tell me
that, no, there is not such a tradition in Christianity, well
that is not so; go to Athos and observe there. There are holy
relics just as we have holy relics here," Putin said. (tr. by
PDS, posted 15 January 2018)
PUTIN
COMPARES COMMUNISM WITH CHRISTIANITY AND LENIN WITH SAINTS
Russian
President
Vladimir Putin compared communism with Christianity and Vladimir
Lenin's mausoleum with the preservation of saints' relics,
RKB-Ukraine reports, referring to RIA Novosti.
Putin notes that faith has always accompanied the people, even in those years when soviet authorities fought against religion. "But at the same time they created a new religion. Communist ideology is very much like Christianity in fact: freedom, equality, brotherhood, justice—this is all laid out in Holy Scripture; it is all there. And the moral code of the builder of communism? This is sublimation; it is simply some primitive excerpt from the Bible. Nothing new was devised," the president of the aggressor country thinks.
Putin also compared the body of Lenin with saints' relics. "Just look. Lenin was placed in the mausoleum. How is this different from saints' relics for Orthodox, or simply for Christians? When they tell me that, no, there is not such a tradition in Christianity, well that is not so; go to Athos and observe there. There are holy relics just as we have holy relics here," he thinks. (tr. by PDS, posted 15 January 2018)
PUTIN
COMPARES LENIN'S BODY IN MAUSOLEUM WITH SAINTS' RELICS
Russian President Vladimir Putin compared communism with Christianity and Vladimir Lenin's mausoleum with veneration of saints' relics.
"Perhaps I will now say something that somebody may not like, but I will say what I think. First, faith always has accompanied us; it gave strength when our country and our people were especially bad off. There were such extremely harsh years of fighting God, when priests were killed and churches were destroyed. But at the same time a new religion was created. Communist ideology is very much like Christianity, in fact: freedom, equality, brotherhood, justice—this is all laid out in Holy Scripture; it is all there. And the moral code of the builder of communism? This is sublimation; it is simply some primitive excerpt from the Bible. Nothing new was devised," Putin said in an interview for the film "Valaam," an excerpt from which was shown on the program "News of the Week" on the Russia 1 television channel.
The Russian president compared
communists' attitude toward Lenin with veneration of saints in
Christianity. "Just look. Lenin was placed in the mausoleum. How
is this different from saints' relics for Orthodox, or simply
for Christians? When they tell me that, no, there is not such a
tradition in Christianity, well that is not so; go to Athos and
observe there. There are holy relics there just as we also have
holy relics here," Putin said.
"In essence, the government of the time devised nothing new. It simply appropriated under its ideology something that humanity had already invented long ago," the Russian leader added. (tr. by PDS, posted 15 January 2018)
CHURCH
NOTES PSEUDO-RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF ATTITUDE TOWARD LENIN'S BODY
IN U.S.S.R.
Many
rituals of soviet ideology, including the attitude toward the
body of Lenin, were intended to replace the Christian veneration
of saints, and for believers such a substitution of concepts is
obvious, Vladimir Legoida, the chairman of the synodal
Department for Relations of Church with Society and News Media
of the Moscow patriarch, told RIA Novosti.
Earlier,
Russian President Vladimir Putin compared communism with
Christianity and the placing of Vladimir Lenin in the mausoleum
with the veneration of saints' relics. He said the soviet
government appropriated to its ideology "what humanity already
had invented long ago."
"The instructions for the ritualistic, even quasi-religious character of soviet ideology were far from new. As far as I understand, there wasn't any attempt to present this as an unexpected and new opinion. Soviet ideology was ritualistic; its rituals were supposed to replace the Christian veneration of saints, among other things. Many academic studies and publicistic texts have been issued on this topic, beginning from the search for religiosity or quasi-religiosity in the works of Karl Marx and ending with the ritualistic character of the soviet system as a whole," Legoida said.
In his opinion, any "national myth" is always constructed with the use of certain rituals. The representative of the Russian Orthodox Church (RPTs) cited the example of the U.S.A. on whose national currency there is the inscription 'In God we trust' and where there is intense veneration of national heroes like Abraham Lincoln.
"The pseudo-religious character of the mausoleum and of the body (Lenin's) maintained there is obvious for any student of culture. At the same time it is clear that for a Christian these 'relics' are false relics and the most important thing here is the question not of external similarity but the truth, which in Christianity is Christ," the head of the synodal department emphasized.
He also recalled the words of Patriarch Tikhon, the first primate of the Russian church after the restoration of the patriarchate who was subsequently canonized as a saint. "Oil about the relics," he said, when during the construction of the first mausoleum of Lenin the sewer system was damaged and fetid liquid flooded everything around. These words of the patriarch were recalled by a member of the "funeral commission," the leading bolshevik Bonch-Bruevich. With the spring thaw, a disgusting smell pervaded the mausoleum, because of which it was decided to demolish the structure and build a new one in its place. (tr. by PDS, posted 15 January 2018)
PRESIDENT'S
WORDS
ABOUT TIES OF COMMUNISM WITH CHRISTIANITY SMOOTH OUT SHARP
CORNERS AROUND
LENIN'S MAUSOLEUM—C.P.R.F.
Interfax-Religiia,
15
January 2018
The
C.P.R.F.
gives a positive evaluation to the statements of Russian
President Vladimir
Putin to the effect that communist ideology is inter-related to
Christianity
and they consider that this smoothes out sharp corners around
the topic of
Lenin's mausoleum.
"I
think
these words of the president are very useful and they reasonably
smooth out
sharp corners around the topic of the mausoleum. In this regard
the assessment
of these theses may be only positive," Ivan Melnikov, the first
deputy
chairman of the Central Committee of the C.P.R.F. and first
vice-speaker of the
State Duma, told journalists.
He
noted that
the leader of the C.P.R.F., Gennady Ziuganov, "has for long and
thoroughly
also developed the thesis about the links of the values of
Christianity and
communism."
"It
is
another question that for communists the Moral Code of the
Builder of Communism
cannot be 'a primitive excerpt from the Bible.' In any case,
this code is aimed
at the construction of a just society here and now," the first
deputy
chairman of the C.C. of C.P.R.F. said.
In
addition, I.
Melnikov added, "It is clear to communists and all left-wing
patriotic
forces that communism is close to Christianity just as much as
the form of
capitalism that today is occurring in our country and in our
economy is distant
from Christianity."
Previously
Russian
President Vladimir Putin expressed the opinion that communists
did not invent
their ideology but merely appropriated Orthodox faith for it.
"Lenin
was placed
in the mausoleum. How is this different from saints' relics for
Orthodox, or
simply for Christians? They tell me that, no, there is not such
a tradition in
Christianity, well that is not so; go to Athos and observe
there. There are
holy relics there just as we have holy relics of Sergius and
German here. That
is, in essence, the authorities of the time did not devise
anything new. They
simply appropriated into their ideology what humanity had
already invented long
ago," V. Putin said in a documentary film, "Valaam," an excerpt
of which was posted on the website of the Russia 1 television
channel.
He
noted that the
communist ideology is similar to Christianity, since the
concepts of freedom,
brotherhood, equality, and justice are laid down in Sacred
Scripture.
"And the Code of the Builder of Communism? This is a sublimation. It is a primitive extract from the Bible and nothing new was devised there," the president said. (tr. by PDS, posted 15 January 2018)
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