This week the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia turns 65. Soon three years will lapse since the time, when he became Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne first, and later the Patriarch. It’s time to review the administration reforms in the Russian Orthodox Church. What has changed during these years?
Collegiality and centralization
Reforming the church’s central bodies was a primary concern of Patriarch Kirill. The head of the church was creating a so-called “customized fit” for the new administration standards in accordance with his own reform agenda. First of all, Cyril’s main rival, Metropolitan Clement, was deprived of his influential position as chief of administration at the Patriarch’s Office. Having limited the functions of the Department of External Church Relations (DECR) to his own church diplomacy, the patriarch preferred to administer the foreign eparchies by himself. For this purpose Patriarch established a special administration led by Bishop of Egoryevsk Mark (Golovkov). The Synodic Department for building relations between Church and society, now led by arduous archpresbyter Vsevolod (Chaplin), was separated from the DECR.
As a result, the Church administration got rid of several competing administration bodies that crippled its efforts under the deceased Patriarch Alexy II.
Many experts point out that the establishment of a brand new body – Interim Council Presence – was a real breakthrough. This body, earlier unknown to the Church, is actually an advisory panel that unites archbishops with ordinary church ministers and laymen who discuss and prepare documents for the bishops’ councils of the Russian Orthodox Church. This is also a very important standing platform for holding the broadest possible debate on making fundamentally important decisions. In fact this is a regional council in small. In the words of Director of the Center of Political Technologies Alexei Makarkin, “Earlier on, all issues were settled at the Synod level, but now we see a new structure where a wide circle of stakeholders is involved in serious and lively discussions, which is a unique practice for the Russian Orthodox Church.”
The General Church Court established back in the days of Patriarch Alexy II has begun functioning under Patriarch Kirill. In many cases this Court rules in favor of ordinary ministers countering the decisions of their eparchial superiors.
Mission versus catechesis
One of the main tasks patriarch sets before the church is missionary activities aimed to attract more people to the church. Sermons at rock concerts, a meeting with bikers, the patriarch’s appeals to large youth gatherings – many think these have been the most outstanding events since the new patriarch’s accession to his throne. Yet more conservative church members were confounded by these outreach efforts.
Be that as it may, many believe that missionary activities are not the church’s primary concern. Catechesis in local churches should be the key focus, for the church must have something to offer to those who come to worship and approach the sacraments. Until now there has been no compulsory catechesis as everyday church practice – some churches have introduced it while others may baptize people without any prior interlocution. Many congregations are closed and sometimes there is a big question whether a new convert, especially a younger one, can adjust to congregational life without special support.
This matter does not only concern mustiness and aversion to reforms. Quite often parishes and specific church ministers simply do not have time and means for this work. “In small towns church ministers are people of scanty means who are forced to look for moonlighting opportunities, which are rather limited,” says Mr. Makarkin. “They moonlight with Chaplaincy, special-order prayer services, consecration of apartments and automobiles. But this drains too much of their time and energy given that most church ministers have large families. No wonder they resist new obligations.”
Yet the search of an acceptable solution is inevitable. Twenty years ago faith was thought the old women’s business, but in recent years a lot has changed. For many younger people have accepted Orthodoxy as part of their personal religious identity and they are not formal believers, since according to latest surveys about 10-12% of casual visitors to church services later transform into devout parishioners, against only 5% in the 1990’s.
Speaking the language of the poor
Though it is sometimes said that social work is not the top priority for the church, this is an area where changes are especially notable and it is here that the greatest consensus of church and society can be seen: minimum criticisms and maximum collaboration.
Last summer the church became one of the main organizers of aid to those who suffered from intense fires. Groups of church ministers were also very active helping people after the terrorist attack at Domodedovo airport.
Active participation in the works of charity is largely the personal merit of Bishop of Orekhovo-Zuevo, Panteleimon (Shatov) and his associates, having rich experience in this ministry. His Grace emphasizes the contribution of the Patriarch, though, who personally takes part in many stages of charity work. “The church knows how to speak the language of the wealthy; now we ought to learn speaking the language of the poor,” he quotes the Patriarch.
It was last summer during the terrible fire that people began talking about real aid offered by the church to those in need. ROC raised more than 100 million rubles to help the victims (only the Civic Chamber raised more among NGOs). It’s also important that the church brought together thousands of volunteers.
Church and state
Targeting the symphony of church and state is perhaps the most bitterly criticized part of Patriarch Kirill’s policy. The critics see symptoms of dangerous rapprochement with the authorities and assume that this may antagonize “the well-educated elite.” “Socialization of the church should occur through a direct dialogue with society, rather than through the authorities. The church must be an institute of the civil society,” says Boris Falikov, Associate Professor with the Center for the Study of Religion at the Russian State University of Humanities.
At the same time Alexei Makarkin doubts that an alliance with the state may really repel masses of believers. In his opinion, the skeptical attitudes of intellectual elites towards the church go back to the nineties and the policy of Patriarch Kirill antagonizes only those who did not trust the church before. In reality the state is not willing to embark upon the slippery path of clericalism (hence the alternative choice in the Fundamentals of Religious Culture and Secular Ethics course), and the church itself is not too enthralled with the idea of a marriage with the state, since this is fraught with the unwanted results. At least for now no real symptoms of the Church dependence or outright servility like the one that was typical of ROC in Soviet times can be seen.
With the accession of Kirill to the patriarch’s throne, certain processes commenced in the Russian Orthodox Church that may well pose a challenge to both the state and society. Patriarch says that modernization is a top priority and it seems that, for all its conservatism, the church better copes with the task of reforming the clerical life than the government handles its own modernization attempts. Whatever our assessment of the reforms of the past two recent may be, the unity of thought and will is clearly discernible.
And the challenges facing society are no small thing. Building its internal life, the church is creating an entire network of more or less vibrant communities – congregations, parishes, fellowships and sisterhoods, schools and foundations. Not all of them, but many are engaging in social endeavors that do not have any particular religious thrust. And this is worth noting.
Boris Serov
