Posted by by Andrei Zolotov Jr. on 1/22/2009, 12:13 am Link: click here to view the original article
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[The "election campaign" in the Moscow Patriarchate, summarized by a writer who
gets it right, Andrei Zolotov, whom I have admired for a long time:]
In English:
http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=Culture+%26+Living&articleid=a12325\
62524
In Russian: http://www.rian.ru/p_analitycs/20090120/159662045.html
January 21, 2009
Preconciliar Tension
Comment by Andrei Zolotov, Jr.
Russia Profile
Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad Is Seen as the Most Likely
Successor to Alexy II
The Council of Bishops and the Local Council – the two top bodies of the Russian
Orthodox Church -- will convene in less than a week. The Councils will elect the
new Patriarch of Moscow, and the pre-council tension has reached the apogee.
This will be the first time for the Russian Church to elect its new primate in
an informational society, and thus, whether the church acknowledges this or not,
in the circumstances of a public “election campaign.”
It is not yet clear how this campaign will affect the results of the election,
because the main electors are bishops, and it is doubtful that they will make
their decision based on Internet forums or newspaper articles. They are the ones
who will have to follow the results of the Bishops’ Council sessions on January
25-26 by proposing official candidates for the patriarch throne. And it is
doubtful that the elected representatives of the clergy and the laity, who are
to take part in the Local Council on January 27-29, will vote differently from
their bishop. The effect of this campaign is all the more hazy if you consider
the fact that according to the faith of the Church, the Holy Spirit participates
in the councils, and thus the role of the people who participate in them is very
limited.
Nevertheless, both the candidates to the patriarch throne that emerged during
the preconciliar period and the topics discussed in the church’s “informational
yard” signify important tendencies in the modern life of the church.
Certainly, the first, leading, and most probable patriarch candidate is the
current Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Kirill (Gundyayev) of Smolensk
and Kaliningrad. Metropolitan Kirill, who had headed the Department for External
Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate for 20 years, was always considered
the “second man” in the Church, and never really tried to conceal his desire to
become the next patriarch. His age is ideal for the job (62 years), and he is
the brightest modern Russian church teacher, a social thinker and a politician.
However, this is the aspect that might play against him, because his political
enthusiasm is beyond the scope of what’s customary for the Church, and the
combination of initiative and zeal might turn many bishops against him – they
will not want to lose their patrimonial independence and usual course of life.
What speaks in support of Kirill is the general awareness of the fact that the
issues of mission, education and enlightenment come to the foreground during
this stage of church building. He is also supported by the fact that he is seen
as an adequate partner in the dialogue with the state, capable of building a
normal relationship while maintaining the Church’s autonomy. Against him is the
fact that he is associated with the ecumenical movement, heterodoxy, and, in a
wider sense, with the outside world, in the conditions of a powerful
fundamentalist and thus isolationist current in the Church. Another thing that
is starting to play against him is the excessively zealous propaganda campaign
for him and against his rivals, which has been unleashed on the Internet by some
of his supporters (Deacon Andrey Kurayev, Kirill Frolov, and others).
In any case, Metropolitan Kirill would have been considered one of the leading
candidates for the patriarch throne, but by becoming also the locum tenens –
that is, the leader of the Church during the interregnum – he has taken control
of the preparations for the Council (and thus has the power to influence its
outcome) on the one hand, but on the other hand he has exposed himself to the
special fire of criticism by his ill-wishers. Although, it should be mentioned
to the credit of the Orthodox community that the ideological issues – the
correlation between missionary pathos and prayerfulness, the concept of the
boundaries of the Church – are given much more space in this discussion than the
notorious accusations that the metropolitan was involved in cigarette trade and
other corruption scandals of the 1990s. It is hard to say how many members of
the Council will vote for Metropolitan Kirill “by heart.” But many will probably
vote for him
“by reason.”
In the recent years the figure of Metropolitan Kirill was so powerful in the
Church that the election of the next patriarch was always seen as a choice
between him and someone else, and the place of this “someone else” had been
taken consecutively by a few different church hierarchs over the course of the
last decade.
The most recent of such “non-Kirills” is the Chancellor of the Moscow
Patriarchate, Metropolitan Kliment (Kapalin) of Kaluga and Borovsk. At this time
it should be mentioned that the office of the Chancellor – that is, the person
responsible, among other things, for the communication between the Patriarch and
the local bishops and for the coordination of their activity – is, by
definition, a “counterweight” to the Chairman of the Department for External
Church Relations, within the structure of the church machinery. This is the
office that was occupied by the deceased Patriarch Alexy for many years in the
past, as well as by his closest “runner-up” in the 1990 elections, the current
Metropolitan Vladimir (Sabodan) of Kiev and All Ukraine.
There is no doubt that Metropolitan Kliment enjoyed the special confidence of
Patriarch Alexy, although he never proved himself to be an outstanding church
figure. He has his own support group among the bishops. It is quite likely that
some of Metropolitan Kirill’s opponents among the traditionalists will place
their stakes on him. However, there are some things that have objectively worked
against Metropolitan Kliment. On the one hand, it is his lack of success in
promoting the course on “The Foundations of Orthodox Culture” in public schools;
this was his main public project. And during the pre-council period, it was the
evidence, made widely and publicly known by his opponents, that the assembly of
heads of ecclesiastical seminaries was manipulated by his brother, Archbishop
Dimitry (Kapalin) of Tobolsk and Tyumen and by his ally, Archbishop of Stavropol
and Vladikavkaz Feofan (Ashurkov). Actually, the “monster threat” – the fact
that if
Metropolitan Kliment is elected, the church will be ruled by the two Kapalin
brothers, one of whom has a rather poor reputation in the church circles – is
one of the main propaganda weapons against Metropolitan Kliment.
The second possible alternative to Metropolitan Kirill is a candidate from
Ukraine. Ukraine will be represented by 192 members of the Council, with the
total number being 720 – that is, by more than one quarter. It is also capable
of mobilizing the ethnic Ukrainians among Russia’s bishops. Metropolitan
Vladimir (Sabodan) of Kiev and All Ukraine, whom a council of Ukrainian bishops
asked to run for the patriarch office, has already refused the honor. During a
meeting of the Ukrainian council delegation in Kiev, he declared that he wishes
to “come before God as the 121st Metropolitan of Kiev,” not as the 16th
Patriarch of Moscow.
With not much time left before the Council, the church circles also discussed
the candidacy of Metropolitan Onufry (Berezovsky) of Chernovtsy and Bukovina – a
man who has spiritual influence and authority not only in Ukraine, but also in
Russia and in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR). He holds a
centrist position on the issue of the status of the Ukrainian Church, adhering
to a moderate pro-Moscow orientation, and is basically considered as one of the
leading candidates to the Kiev see in the future. Another fact that stands
objectively in his favor is that he has not participated in the Russian public
life, and thus has not had a chance to make enemies here. However, it is
unlikely that the Russian council members will want to see a Ukrainian as their
leader.
Nevertheless, we should acknowledge the fact that the Ukrainian delegation will
hold if not a “controlling,” then certainly a “blocking” packet of votes during
the Council, and its strategy and line of behavior will in many ways
predetermine the future status of the Ukrainian Church – whether it will remain
a part of the Moscow Patriarchate or turn into an autocephalous church.
Despite the fact that the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of
Russia, and primarily the Metropolitan Hilarion (Kapral) of New York and East
America and Archbishop Mark (Arndt) of Berlin, Germany and Great Britain have a
lot of influence in Russia today and represent a successful combination of
traditionalism and popular anti-ecumenism with the ability of establishing
relations with “outsiders,” if only by virtue of their foreign experience, it is
doubtful that they will nominate themselves for this election. They are fully
aware of their lack of experience in managing the Russian reality.
If Patriarch Alexy had lived for at least another five years, it is quite
possible that a candidate from among the “forty-year-old” hierarchs would have
been nominated. These are the bishops that were ordained during the post-Soviet
era, and they make up the overwhelming majority of bishops today. However, right
now this would be premature.
Thus, today there are two candidates that are the most realistic alternative to
Metropolitan Kirill. Curiously enough, they are his senior Synod colleagues and
disciples, just like he is, of Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad (died
in 1978) – Metropolitan Yuvenaly (Poyarkov) of Krutitskoe and Kolomna and
Metropolitan Filaret (Vakhromeyev) of Minsk and Slutsk, the Exarch of All
Belarus. Both are 73 years of age, which is a factor against them if we are
talking about a long-term choice, but it can be in their favor if it suddenly
comes to electing a compromise figure. Along with their age, their Soviet
experience is a plus for some people and a minus for others. Both are subtle
church politicians and good public speakers; they are viewed as “lesser
modernists” than Metropolitan Kirill, although their theological, social and
ethical views are rather more liberal than his. This is a question of style,
though, rather than that of essence.
Such an election, naturally, will not please the radical fundamentalists; they
will dislike all the real candidates, although Metropolitan Kirill is the worst
of them. They use the pre-council discussion to repeat their monarchist,
anti-globalist and anti-hierarchal slogans. For the more moderate
traditionalists, however, one of Synod’s elders might be a more acceptable
choice.
Perhaps one of the main topics of heated discussion during this preconciliar
period is the procedure for electing the patriarch. The Synod proposes,
following the election model used in 1990, voting by secret ballot for one of
three candidates introduced by the Bishops’ Council. An idea that is popular in
the church circles, however, and especially among the traditionalists, is using
the 1917 model of electing the patriarch – when the Council first votes to elect
three candidates, and then a patriarch is chosen from their number by casting a
lot. This is the way they see as reaching the maximum balance between the will
of man and the will of God. And in a more earthly sense, this is their only
chance of “snatching” the patriarchy from the hands of Metropolitan Kirill (in
1917, the elected patriarch was the man who had won the least number of votes
among the three leading candidates, St. Patriarch Tikhon (Bellavin), and the
candidate with the most
votes, Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky), later became the founder of ROCOR).
This is exactly why the supporters of Metropolitan Kirill today actively
campaign against the election by lot and do all they can to make sure that this
idea does not surface during the Council.
In the meantime, the locum tenens, who has already venerated the holy shrines of
his native St. Petersburg, is delivering services every day in different
churches and monasteries of Moscow and is doing a lot of preaching. On Sunday,
on the eve of Epiphany, he delivered a service before the famous icon of Our
Lady of Vladimir I in the St. Nicholas Church attached to the Tretyakov Gallery.
After the service, according to the press service of the Patriarchate, he went
to the exhibition halls of the Gallery and aspersed holy water on the famous
painting by Alexander Ivanov, “The Appearance of Christ to the People,” which is
recognized as an icon of Russian spiritually-oriented art, but not as an icon in
the narrow ecclesiastical sense. This kind of going outside the
narrowly-understood ecclesiastical boundaries is probably what is meant when
people talk about the main candidate’s missionary pathos.
Responses:
