TWO WORLDS—TWO VLADIMIRS
by Pavel Skrylnikov
Nezavisimaia Gazeta, 30 July 2018
The significant performance of celebrations on the occasion of the 1030th anniversary of the baptism of Rus, which was marked in Kiev and in Moscow on 27 and 28 July, represented in both capitals more a demonstration to one another of force and national unity and a game of "spiritual muscles." Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the Christian choice by Equal-to-the-Apostles Prince Vladimir a European one. The procession of the cross by the Moscow patriarchate in Kiev gathered, according to reports of the organizers, 250 thousand persons. The Moscow procession of the cross on the Day of the Baptism of Rus was led by Patriarch Kirill and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom the primate of the church congratulated on his name-day and urged believers to pray for him. "Besides this great holiday commemorating the great Prince Vladimir, we are remembering at the same time and praying for our president, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, who bears the name of that prince," he said after the prayer service at the monument to Prince Vladimir in the center of the capital.
At the same time, the celebrations in Moscow did without representatives of the Constantinople patriarchate. They visited Kiev, but they did not drop by the Kiev caves lavra, which belongs to the Moscow patriarchate, and the head of the delegation, Metropolitan of Gaul Immanuel, addressed believers. At the same time, a letter from Patriarch Bartholomew to the Ukrainian president contains, according to the report on president.gov.ua, the following text: "Recognizing the high responsibility of the Primary See of the Constantinople Church, which has never quit and reconciled itself to the illegal and uncanonical situations that have shaken the natural functions of the Orthodox church, in these crucial times it has taken upon itself the initiative for restoring the unity of Orthodox believers of Ukraine, with the final goal of granting autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church."
The ecclesiastical atmosphere in recent months has been overheated both by geopolitical intrigues and by bellicose declarations of conservatives. Clergymen are not restraining their nerves. The minutes of the session of the synod of the Kiev patriarch, published on 27 July, contain the report that on 25 May of this year, Bishop Sevastian, who was retired at his own request, attempted to assassinate the patriarch of Kiev, having intruded with his son into Fialret's residence. On the same day it was learned about a brutal murder outside Moscow. The rector of the annex of the Nikolo-Ugresh monastery, Dionisius Gorov, having learned that his wife, Anna, wanted to divorce him, took her into the woods and killed her with several knife wounds. The press secretary of Patriarch Kirill, Priest Alexander Volkov, reported that the abbot of the monastery had received from parishioners, in the past six months, complaints about Gorov's improper behavior.
On the significant date, there also emerged serious reshufflings in the economic structures of the Russian Orthodox Church. The general director of the "Sofrino" artistic production enterprise, Evgeny Parkhaev, was dismissed from all duties entrusted to him within the structures of the RPTs. We recall that Sofrino effectively monopolizes the production of churchware, clerical garb, and church furniture for the RPTs, and it is Parkhaev, who became its director 31 years ago, who made Sofrino a monopoly. He had been appointed to this position by order of Patriarch Pimen. At the same time, since 2013 he was in charge of the St. Daniel's church hotel and he supervised the patriarch's residence. (tr. by PDS, posted 30 July 2018)
Editorial disclaimer: RRN does
not intend to certify the accuracy of information
presented in articles. RRN simply intends to certify the
accuracy of the English translation of the contents of the
articles as they appeared in news media of countries of
the former USSR.
If material is quoted, please give credit to the
publication from which it came. It is not necessary to credit
this Web page. If material is transmitted electronically, please
include reference to the URL,
http://www.stetson.edu/~psteeves/relnews/.