Tkachev’s denunciations by such influential figures as Kuzmin and Dvorkin exposed a Pandora’s box within the Russian Orthodox Church, where the “Two Towers” of crusades faced off against what was denounced as a “liberal wing” tied to the memory of Alexander Meng, the “spiritual father of dissent.”
KAZAN (AsiaNews) – A theological conference on the spread of sectarian movements, held recently in Kazan and Bolgar in the Republic of Tatarstan among scholars and clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church on the topic “Spiritual Fatherhood and False Starchestvo”, unexpectedly developed into a heated debate on “political orthodoxy”, which went far beyond the narrow group of experts and spread to the broad community of “Orthodox bloggers”.
The conference was organized at a high level, with the participation of three bishops, including the Patriarchal Missionary Head, Bishop Effimy, several representatives of local civil and ecclesiastical authorities, Roman Silantev, the creator of the term “subversiveness” (a demonstration of destructive religious tendencies), and Professor Alexander Dvorkin, Russia’s leading sektved (expert on sects).
The debate was sparked by comments by Father Andrey Tkachev (pictured), one of the most ardent supporters of Orthodoxy during the war, who called the victims of the ISIS attack on Crocus town hall “fools” and those killed by a Ukrainian bomb in Belgorod “infidels who died because they did not know how to pray.”
Father Alexander Kuzmin, one of the conference’s organizers, responded to Tkachev’s comments, calling them “shameful, unacceptable, contrary to common sense and arousing hostility towards our Church.”
Moreover, Father Tkachev, who replaced Father Alexei Uminsky, who was expelled from the Patriarchate in Moscow for his pacifist tendencies, denounces violations of liturgical norms, passages from the Book of Revelation are now read during processions, and even inserts threatening phrases into the Eucharistic Prayer. Father Andrey is linked to the National Liberation Movement, a very radical movement led by the far-right deputy Father Yevgeny Fedorov, which funds his political and ecclesiastical activities.
Kuzmin then continued the polemic by publishing documents from the Association of Razilist Scholars, accusing Tkachev of being a “false staret who does not represent the Church” and “causing great harm to believers and society as a whole.”
Commenting on this statement, the most authoritative member of the association, Mr. Dvorkin, asserted that the condemnation of Tkachev is shared “at the parliamentary level”, but this is a sobering opinion.
“The atmosphere in the church has become unbearable, no one listens to anything,” said the professor, a long-time friend and collaborator of the exiled Father Uminsky, who now meets Father Tkachev in the same Holy Trinity Church in Khokhli, Moscow.
Born in Lvov, Andrey Tkachev served in Kiev for a few years before the war, when, as a parishioner recalled, “I thought he was just a woman-hater, but then I realized he hated everyone, especially Ukrainians.” In Russia, he was greeted in the most exaggerated way as a “victim of the Nazi regime in Ukraine,” even Patriarch Kirill invited him to preach at his celebrations, and the militant Orthodox oligarch Konstantin Malofeev gave him a slot on his Tsargrad TV channel, making him very famous.
Today, the denunciations of Tkachev by such influential figures as Kuzmin and Dvorkin have exposed a Pandora’s box within the Russian Orthodox Church, pitting the crusading “Two Towers” against what has been accused of being a “liberal wing” linked to the memory of Father Alexander Men, the Soviet-era “spiritual father of the opposition movement” and one of Uminsky’s closest disciples, who was assassinated in 1990.
Since even the greatest sectarian experts, such as Alexander Dvorkin, have condemned the vulgar cruelty of war propaganda, it is clear that not all Russian Orthodox are so convinced about their support for the invasion of Ukraine.
