The MVD and the Russian Orthodox church are preparing a joint repulse of "satanism." Nikita Mikhalkov called policemen not to take the laws seriously. Vladimir Zhirinovsky told them to fire to their last bullet.

Segodnia, 22 January 1997

The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) of the Russian Federation, apparently despairing of halting the criminal on the physical and technological front, has seriously turned to "a spiritual and moral approach to the struggle with crime." It was to this burning issue that yesterday's meeting of Rozhdestvensky readings titled "Fatherland--Spirituality--Legality" was devoted, which assembled under the aegis of the academy of MVD the law enforcement agency, hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox church, and representatives of the patriotic wing of the intelligentsia and political activists.

Colonel-general of the police Vladimir Kolesnikov (who until yesterday was acting head of the MVD) declared in his opening speech that it is necessary "to intensify cooperative activity of the agencies of law and order and the Russian Orthodox church in the struggle against the attack of satanism and lack of spirituality."

The officers of today's MVD and personnel of the interior armed forces have a special need for the Word of God, "who for objective reasons endure the destructive effects of the criminal world that include spiritual and moral matters." Citing the centuries-old humane tradition of the Russian police, Kolesnikov appealed to the fact that "moral education must be founded upon the traditions of Orthodoxy which is the pivotal point of the Russian state." This is why last August a special agreement on cooperation was drawn up between the MVD and the Moscow patriarchate. Among concrete steps for increasing the Orthodox spirituality of personnel the general suggested such measures as pastoral blessings in ceremonies on the Day of the Police and Interior Forces, the consecrating of police battle flags, displaying portraits of Saint Sergius of Radonezh where once there had been portraits of Lenin in precinct classrooms, and the inclusion of Orthodox faculty members in educational institutions of the MVD. Besides this, the church was promised that specific crimes against parishes of the chruch and its monasteries will be considered by the police as "cynical desecration of spiritual-moral shrines" and will be specially investigated by agents of internal affairs.

By all signs, the leadership of the Orthodox church was favorably inclined to accept the offers by the MVD of attempts at close relations: the statement of Patriarch Alexis II to "the servants of order," which was read by Bishop Savva of Krasnogorsk, declared that "without reference to genuine Orthodoxy it is impossible to heal the wounds which society has endured." The representative of the Russian Orthodox church generally agreed with the police evaluation of the criminalization of contemporary Russia--"vice has captured the minds and spirits of our fellowcitizens"--and promised "to adopt adequate forms of joint service to state and society." In addition to the patriarch, participants at the conference sent greetings--with appropriate brevity and political phrasing--to the president of the state duma Gennady Seleznev and Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov. But national security secretary Ivan Rybkin--a man who is extremely adept at political games--chose to distance himself from the proceedings. Neither he himself nor his deputies in the MVD academy were there. Obviously the experience of his predecessor, who suffered a bitter defeat in his dispute with the Mormons, forced Rybkin to approach matters of religious security with a certain caution.

Moreover many of the ideas expressed within the walls of the academy of the MVD were of rather doubtful quality. The president of the academic committee of the Holy Synod, Bishop Evgeny of Vereisk, insisted on the neccessity of "introducing censorship and strict supervision" inasmuch as the destructive effects upon the consciousness of Russian by the mass media cannot be counteracted effectively by purely administrative and legal means. The leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, readily developed this theme, declaring television to be the chief enemy "both of police and priests and the LDPR" and summoning police "to pull the trigger and not let up until the bullets run out" and priests "to toughen their position" and "in this spirit to reproduce the texts of the old theology books." The famous film director Nikita Mikhalkov urged those who gathered in the hall of servants of the law that "the Russian man traditionally has not accepted any laws" and the only law recognized in Rus "always was God." And a member of the Committee on Affairs of Social and Religious Organizations of the Political Consultation Staff of the Presidency of the Russian Federation, Alexander Burkin, delivered the suggestion to conduct in the countryside illegal supplicatory prayers in order to exorcise the "evil spirits."

Segodnia 22 January 1997