Over the past week, several events have occurred that I have been waiting for. Anti-war statements by Russian religious figures appeared in the information space. Priest Andrei Kuraev, who was deprived of his dignity in the Russian Orthodox Church for his anti-war speeches, left Russia and move on to the Czech Republic. Although I am not a Christian, when I was a student I had the opportunity to personally listen to one of Kuraev's lectures on literature – about the Russian writer Bulgakov and the religious meanings in his novel «The Master and Margarita». Kuraev is a good lecturer and spoke not only about the subtleties of the Orthodox faith that Bulgakov refers to in the text, but also mentioned Buddhist ideas in the novel.
Later Andrei Kuraev in his public speeches proposed various strange conservative initiatives, which can hardly be called adequate – but now he openly opposed the war.
Also, a long interview with Fr. Grigory was published. Now he is actively helping Ukrainian refugees who have found themselves in Russia. Since 2014, Father Grigory is no longer a member of the official Russian Orthodox Church – this religious organization headed by Patriarch Gundyaev actively supports Putin's aggression, unfortunately. In the interview he talks about the fact that many Orthodox priests do not support the war, but they are afraid to say it openly.
Grigory is the son of the famous Soviet bard-singer Alexander Galich, who was active in human rights activism in the USSR and publicly condemned the Soviet invasion of Prague in 1968. Like his father, this man is not afraid to live according to his conscience and call things by their proper names.
Many Russians are intimidated by the police and the military, so they remain silent. Russian society is ruled by fear, which creates a desire to pretend that «everything is normal, life is going on as it should, and the war is somewhere out there, far away, with others».
However, I have to say that most of religious leaders committed a real betrayal when they remained silent and did not condemn the military aggression in Ukraine. Personally, I was outraged by the fact that the vast majority of anti-war speakers who have left Russia and are active in Europe or Israel are atheists. Okay, atheists against the war – that's great. But what about the believers? This silence of believers has allowed part of the anti-war diaspora to launch the dangerous rhetoric: «this is not Putin's war against the whole world, it is a war of obscurantist believers against civilized atheists».
But this is a false.
Yes, unfortunately, there are religious people who actively supported the war. There are Muslim republics in Russia – their inhabitants joined the Russian Army and went to fight in Ukraine. Buryatia, a republic where Buddhism is the dominant religion, also sent many thousands of its men to the front, more than many regions of central Russia. Did the religious leaders betrayed their followers?
It is good that the voices of Christian priests – Andrei Kuraev and Father Grigory – are being heard publicly. I hope that representatives of other denominations will join them. Putin has made a lot of efforts to integrate religious organizations with the state machine, and priests have become something like civil servants, absolutely loyal to the emperor.
This loyalty gives atheists a trump card – the ability to publicly argue that «people in Russia never really believed in God!» This is a lie, but it would take a longread to debunk it. Russia occupies a large territory, where different nationalities and races live. There are Buryat Buddhists, there are «Old Believers» in central Russia – such a Russian Puritans, their small communities exist in other countries, even in Brazil and Alaska, USA. In such a large country, there is naturally a diversity of beliefs, including new religious movements in big cities.
Well, I am not afraid to say: I am Eldar, a man of the Spirit, not a man of Science. I believe in God without belonging to religious organizations. And I am strongly against the war and against Putin's policies.
May God help me!
507.526 SRY