Ever since the brutal attack on the Ukraine, the world has been wracking its collective brain to find out what Russia is all about. Patriarch Kiril graciously agreed to satisfy this curiosity in a recent sermon:
“Our national idea consists in achieving sainthood… [This] largely determines our culture, the aims of our education, our literature and, finally, our people’s view of life, their understanding of what is good and what is evil, where they should go in life and what end they should reach.”
This is in stark contrast to the bloody Ukraine, whose national idea is godlessness, explained His Holiness. And in the Donetsk area that idea has led to Ukrainian genocide, added the patriarch. Now does ‘Ukrainian genocide’ mean murders by Ukrainians or of Ukrainians? Contextually, His Holiness meant the former, the mass murder of Russians by Ukrainians.
So far this outrage hasn’t been reported by any news service, which means Kiril is in possession of new and privileged information. If that’s indeed the case, he must by all means divulge it. I for one will be waiting with bated breath.
But never mind the connotation. The patriarch’s denotation clarified his meaning beyond any doubt. Since Russia is all about sainthood, continued His Holiness, Russophobia is by far the most dangerous of all xenophobias.
If other xenophobias are aimed against nations, Russophobia has to have God himself in its sights. And it’s Russophobia that has animated the on-going slaughter of Russians by the godless Ukies, which massacre has been maliciously overlooked by the world’s news services.
I must say that, as a Christian, I welcome any state that defines itself in spiritual, theological and eschatological terms, especially if it identifies sainthood as its national idea. And I’m proud of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) that leads this march to collective canonisation.
Even though I’m not an ROC communicant myself, I’m ready to go down on my knees and thank God for having guided Russia, her Church and its patriarch to such a holy mission. Or rather I would be ready to genuflect but for a few annoying facts.
Such as the personal record of His Holiness himself, which ill-qualifies him to set such lofty goals. Recently published documents, cited in the two-volume Mitrokhin Archives, identify Kiril as a lifelong KGB operative (codename ‘agent Mikhailov’).
The uncovered KGB dossier cites many assignments entrusted to ‘agent Mikhailov’ on his foreign travels, when he was head of The ROC Foreign Department. According to the dossier ‘agent Mikhailov’ carried out every assignment with distinction.
He is by no means unique in his dual loyalty. The entire ROC hierarchy is an extension of the KGB/FSB, and both rivals of ‘agent Mikhailov’ in the 2009 patriarchal election had KGB codenames of their own.
One must admit with chagrin (and a frightened look toward heaven) that His Holiness’s personal habits are more in keeping with his KGB identity than with his declared role of leading the nation to sainthood.
For example, he was recently photographed sporting a £30,000 Breguet watch at a press conference. Since all Russian senior clergy have to be monks, an outcry followed, and the patriarch’s PR men came out fighting.
They accused everyone who had commented on the timepiece of Russophobia, atheism and lies. The patriarch, they claimed, had never worn the offensive item – and as proof they showed a doctored version of the same photograph, with no watch anywhere in sight.
Alas, meticulousness not being the most salient Russian virtue, their Photoshop artist overlooked an important detail: the reflection of the watch on the tabletop in front of His Holiness. The picture became supernatural, as befits a prelate: only the shadow of an object, not the object itself, was in evidence.
In a more serious vein, whenever an evil and aggressive regime decides to go the route of self-sacralisation, it becomes particularly nauseating. Russia has always had this tendency, only suppressed during the early Bolshevik years, when religion was unfashionable and priests were being slaughtered en masse together with their congregations.
Ever since the war, when Stalin converted international bolshevism into the national variety, Russia’s criminal state has been making use of the ROC. While communism was still the nominal idea of the state, this was done more or less surreptitiously.
After Putin’s advent, Russia has achieved a successful fusion of Third Rome, Third Reich and Third World, and the ROC is an essential hypostasis in this rather unholy trinity.
I’m not sure that Russia really has a national idea or, if she does, what it might be. Whatever it is, it seems to be not so much sainthood as its direct opposite.
A KGB state running a KGB church and using Third Rome drivel as its self-justification is heading not for sainthood but for perdition. The only question that remains unanswered is how many others it’ll take down with it.
It really saddens me, however, that so many good Western people, including some of my Ukip friends, fail to see the true nature of Putin’s kleptofascist state. Some even hold Putin up as a model our own leaders should follow.
He’s a patriot, they say, or better still a nationalist who loves his country, has no time for minorities, takes a tough line with liberals and bans homomarriage. So did Hitler, I invariably reply.