"I'm in a state of disarray." Why was Protodeacon Kuraev defrocked?

The Moscow diocesan church court decided to “defrock” Protodeacon Andrei Kuraev. He himself did not come to the trial. Kuraev asked to postpone the hearing to January, but he was refused, and the decision was made in absentia. For it to come into force, all that is needed is the confirmation of Patriarch Kirill.

Insulting the feelings of believers

The reason for his defrocking was one of the priest’s publications on LiveJournal, where he left “an offensive description of Archpriest Alexander Ageikin, who died that day from the consequences of coronavirus infection.” Kuraev described the deceased clergyman as “a stupid careerist who made a career in the field of VIP service.” Immediately after this, in April, Kuraev was banned from holding services for more than six months.

Father Andrei Kuraev told 360 that a day after the scandalous publication he apologized to the family of the deceased Ageikin - both on his blog and in the press. But this did not help, although, according to Kuraev, for the Christian church court, repentance and forgiveness are the main thing.

Patriarch Kirill sent Kuraev into a kind of exile to a monastery, where the guilty clergyman had to atone for his sins. During this time he was prohibited from holding services.

“There is an ancient rule of Roman law - one crime cannot be punished twice. Can an offensive word spoken by one priest to another be considered a crime? There is no such canon. The ban on serving in itself is already a punishment, and eight months is a very long time for a priest. And then, on the same basis, an even greater punishment follows for the same, already repented, sin,” Kuraev explained.

“Hope for the patriarch has faded.” Andrey Kuraev - about defrocking him

The diocesan church court deprived Protodeacon Andrei Kuraev of his rank. Since April, Kuraev was temporarily banned from serving by Patriarch Kirill. Now the decision to defrock him must be approved by the patriarch.

The reason for banning Kuraev from ministry was his entry in LiveJournal about the rector of the Yelokhovsky Cathedral in Moscow, Archpriest Alexander Ageikin, who died of coronavirus. Kuraev then wrote that Ageikin will remain in his memory “as a stupid careerist who made a career in the field of VIP service.”

He also criticized Ageikin for his attitude towards the coronavirus epidemic. In one of his last interviews, the archpriest, in particular, stated that the plague epidemic was stopped by prayer. The rector of the cathedral called the closure of churches by authorities in some regions unreasonable, since secular authorities cannot establish bans for the church. The Russian Orthodox Church considered Kuraev’s blog post a public insult to the memory of the cathedral’s rector.

Andrey Kuraev is one of the most famous missionaries of the Russian Orthodox Church. He regularly gathered large halls for sermons, performed at rock concerts, television, and was one of the first in the church to go online. He was a referent of Patriarch Alexy II and one of the closest associates of Metropolitan Kirill (Gundyaev) before his election as Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2009.

In recent years, Andrei Kuraev has actively criticized church structures and the patriarch, accusing the church of being distant from parishioners, bureaucratic and inert. Shortly before the decision of the church court, a petition appeared on the Internet addressed to the hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church, calling on Kuraev to be deprived of the rank of deacon.

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Andrey Kuraev answered questions from Radio Liberty.

– Did you expect such a turn of events?

“I’m not a boy, so I have an idea of ​​what happens if a calf starts butting heads with a bull.”

– For 30 years you have been one of the most active and preaching figures in Russian Orthodoxy. The church structure has changed, your views have changed. What is the reason that things have come to such a conflict?

– So far it seems to me that the reason is precisely that I have not changed. I am too much a child of my time, my sociocultural circle, and therefore the humanistic ideals of the Moscow intelligentsia of the late Brezhnev years are very important to me. For me, religion in general is, on the one hand, something that cannot be imposed by definition, a gift of Christ, and secondly, something that helps to humanize. This is what helps preserve humanity in inhumane conditions.

Religion is what helps preserve humanity in inhumane conditions

– From what time do you count the beginning of your conflict with the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate, perhaps it’s better to say, or with the church? In your opinion, is this conflict wider or narrower than the conflict with the leadership of the church and individual personalities?

– The fact is that incongruence itself, let’s say, was visible from the very beginning. In Soviet times, all shortcomings were explained by remnants of the tsarist regime. And then, in the 90s, they explained all the roughness with remnants of the Soviet past. I also had a period when I hoped: nothing, people who survived Dostoevsky, Berdyaev, Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh will come to church, somehow the church will spread its wings, catch its breath, throw off some kind of KGB balance, and we will live, we must be patient, be patient . As Father Vitaly Borovoy said, we are manure, we are shit, our generation will die, but a new free tribe of Christians will grow up. I had such hopes. And I remember exactly the day when I realized that I had no hopes for Patriarch Kirill. It was a May day in 2009 when the first meeting of the newly elected patriarch with Moscow youth took place at the Izmailovsky stadium. I went there, I was interested in listening to how he would communicate with young people, and maybe even learn from him. But it turned out that there was no communication. All questions are asked by pre-arranged persons, read out from pieces of paper, this is not a dialogue. Then my hopes that under Patriarch Kirill something good would happen to the church in the missionary sense went out. Even before this, I said that our country and church have only 10 years, I said this in the mid-2000s, and if in these 10 years we cannot make young people fall in love with Orthodoxy, then simply the demographic situation will be such that it will some completely different country, with a different identity, but not Orthodox Rus'. And since Kirill’s rule does not give hope, it means, naturally, this expanded to the entire system.

Russian President Vladimir Putin receives Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' in Novo-Ogarevo, November 2021

– You mentioned Father Vitaly Borovoy, I will explain for our readers that he was a priest who worked for many years in the department of external church relations, in the early 60s, a representative of the Russian Church at the Second Vatican Council, who served for many years in the Elokhov Cathedral as rector and spiritual father, mentor of many of today's active Orthodox preachers. He lived to be almost a hundred years old, but in the last years of his life, as you noted, he was rather pessimistic. But his pessimism, as you quoted him, that we are manure, is a rather optimistic pessimism. Why do you only give 10 years? The Church has existed for centuries, and we do not know when the Lord will come and put everyone in their place. What has to deteriorate so radically to give up hope?

– It’s very simple - the demographic situation in the country will change, I mean this, but this is not an apocalypse. The situation with the notorious migration will change. I understand that this is a problem for Western societies, but also for Russia.

– Today the news reported that in Italy, in what seems like two hundred municipalities, not a single newborn was born in a year. In Russia, the situation is probably better, but not much. But in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, and we live in a world where ethnic and national components are mixed. Are you completely pessimistic about the possibility that migrants and visitors will become Orthodox? Why?

– According to the law of large numbers, one of them will. In a more or less open, multicultural society, transitions constantly occur, and some Russian, St. Petersburg resident becomes a Buddhist, say, there are some wonderful cases when almost an entire Russian village accepts Judaism or becomes Molokans and so on, but there is also the opposite when suddenly a Chinese or Korean converts to Orthodoxy. But these are all one-time decisions, this is not something serious. But seriously speaking, the church is a rather old organism, and I’m afraid that it is no longer very capable of digesting it. After all, if the church couldn't digest me, how could it digest a million Chinese?

If the church couldn't digest me, how will it digest a million Chinese?

– You are in this situation, I just want to say, you were digested and vomited out, a tragic situation.

– I mean what is called churching, I would say, irreversibly churching – this was not possible. Privatize thinking, emotions, language.

– You started, at least actively, after your studies as an assistant to Patriarch Alexy II (Ridiger). In your opinion, are these comparable figures? Or is the pontificate of Patriarch Kirill significantly worse in some respects than the previous one?

- No, in the administrative sense, he is, of course, much better. Patriarch Alexy, to be honest, never understood why he became a patriarch. That is, he didn’t understand it for himself; he didn’t have any strategic goal. This is Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, who lives himself and does not interfere with others. Just as Brezhnev did not have a serious program for modernizing the country, conducting it as it was, so it will be, so Alexy had something similar. Hence, by the way, many of his trips to dioceses, which everyone rejoiced at. But I simply saw and understood that for Patriarch Alexy these trips are an escape from Moscow documents, from the need to make many decisions every day. He was in this sense burdened by power, he was in a state of, I would say, good confusion in the years when I worked with him, and therefore he was open to listening to different points of view and so on. And from a human perspective, it was, of course, much more pleasant and interesting to work with him. Kirill spent his whole life preparing to become a patriarch, even if not personally, but he was preparing to become a “cardinal” under a patriarch named Nikodim (Rotov), ​​and then himself personally. Therefore, of course, he had some kind of program, and humanly it’s a shame for him that he flushed it down the toilet by becoming a patriarch. Because I have no doubt that both Metropolitan Nikodim and Kirill in their youth had a program of some kind of reforms, not of an administrative nature, but of a more serious nature, but the political situation in the country and in the church, as it became during Kirill’s pontificate, showed that there can be no serious changes.

See also

Patriarch Kirill urged not to buy “leftist” candles

– The aforementioned Metropolitan Nikodim aroused great hostility among the Orthodox clergy for his sympathy for Catholicism. But one of the Orthodox publicists noted that these were sympathies not for Catholicism as dogma and history, but for Catholicism as a rigid vertical of power. And in this sense, it can be assumed that if he had not died prematurely - at a reception with the Pope from a heart attack, then he would have built a vertical of power similar to the one that is being built in modern Russia. In your opinion, is it inevitable for the Russian Orthodox Church to form a vertical of power? Or is it, in principle, possible in the church to have what in Ukraine is called “rule of the people,” a more democratic model, as in the American Orthodox Church, for example?

– A few words about Nicodemus. Yes, there are some bad aspects of his legacy. The first is what you noted, intoxication with power, falling in love with power, envy of the Vatican, namely, it seemed to him that this was a vertical of power, and therefore Nicodemus was in love with him. This is understandable; the then humiliated church in Russia to see from afar St. Peter's Square filled with people, it is clear what impression it makes. And the second thing is what he always bequeathed to his students: we must fulfill all the whims and wishes of the secular authorities, and we will win. That is, such servility is extreme. But Nicodemus had another trait that, I would say, his disciple did not have. Nicodemus entered church life when the generation of bishops from tsarist times, people with a more or less solid academic education, was still living out their days. Nikodim did not have this, he was already a Soviet peasant guy, so the bishops of Nikodim’s generation, I saw, had a respectful, reverent attitude towards the intelligentsia, towards educated people. If they were laymen, they secretly helped them, sometimes the same Metropolitan Pitirim, say. And Nicodemus did this too. If these were some priests, then they also tried to somehow protect them, bring them closer, and so on. And Kirill considers himself a mustache. He does not have this Nicodemus trait - reverence for the scribes - he did not inherit it. He considers himself self-sufficient, and this is not a Nicodemus trait.

“Nevertheless, today the All-Church Postgraduate School consists of hundreds of people defending dissertations and writing books that have huge circulations. That is, the amount of Orthodox, most diverse, academic and popular literature today is comparable to the amount of Marxist-Leninist literature under Brezhnev, whom you mentioned. So, maybe this is not a question of the personal views of one patriarch, but nevertheless a church environment is being created that is seething, seething and intellectually thinking?

– The fact that such an environment is being created is undeniable. But this is something that does not depend on the patriarchs, their personalities, their policies. By the way, yesterday another such sad event occurred - Andrei Shishkov, a teacher at the All-Church Postgraduate School you mentioned, was notified that his services were no longer needed. This is a liberal theologian, and first he was expelled from the Academy, and now from graduate school. The system of church education is being standardized in all areas. Nevertheless, regardless of this, objectively, of course, there is a growing circle of people who are interested in thinking and reflecting on their faith, and this in itself will change the atmosphere of church life. But instead of taking this factor into account and using it kindly, the patriarchy decided to conflict with it. This may give a temporary effect, but it will result in empty seminaries, a crisis of vocation, and it will result in that very church intelligentsia becoming de-churched, and certainly they will not feel it is their duty to apology the church system. And now you can already feel it.

And Kirill considers himself a mustache. He does not have this Nicodemus trait - reverence for the scribes

- Over the past year, at least two bright priests have left brightly - the St. Petersburg priest Antsiferov and the Moscow Fyodor Lydogovsky, who simultaneously worked at the Institute of Slavic Studies. Father Fedor went abroad. Both did not announce that they were resigning their rank, but said that they were stopping, as it were, serving the church. And both, curiously, moved, and they themselves said so, into the field of psychotherapy. Don't you have such prospects? Many de-church and say: “I don’t want to be treated with respect, because I am a priest, I want to be loved and appreciated for who I am, without my rank.” Do you have such aspiration?

- No, no. I quite consciously refused the priesthood, there was such an opportunity, and Patriarch Pimen also signed documents stating that I was ordained as a priest, but I decided to stick with the deacons. And one of the reasons is that I am afraid of invading other people's lives. I don’t feel the strength and authority to delve into their souls and correct anything there. And since I was not a priest, therefore, I have no pastoral experience.

– But, nevertheless, you have vast experience as a writer, and this work is not at the micro level, not at the level of the psychology of one person, but this is pastoral and even archpastoral work, at the level of hundreds of thousands of people who read, listen and watch you, there are a huge number of them. In this sense, do you intend to change anything? Give more lectures, less, go into seclusion?

– My texts are something, let’s say, remote in relation to a person, which leaves him the right to choose his own reaction to this text. This is not a doctor-patient relationship, meaning it does not involve this kind of rigid hierarchy. Lectures are not up to me. I would gladly give some lectures, not even as an educational enthusiasm, that no longer exists, but simply for intellectual hygiene. A person needs, of course, live eyes, ears, a live reaction from people, not only on the Internet, but also in direct communication. Therefore, I do not refuse, if there is an opportunity to give a lecture, it is clear that it will probably not be on a church site. As for writing, not blogging, but books, yes, there are such plans. Just last week I submitted a book to the publisher; it is not entirely new, but well-developed, on a classic topic for me - missiology. And I hope to continue working in this direction.

year 2001. Vladimir Putin and two patriarchs: the then, Alexy II (right), and the future, Kirill, at that moment - Metropolitan of Smolensk and Kaliningrad (left)

– Will you introduce yourself as a deacon, protodeacon? Or will you, as it were... carry out the court’s decision?

- Don't know. On the one hand, of course, Deacon Andrey Kuraev... I never introduced myself as an archdeacon, but Deacon Andrey Kuraev is called a “trademark”. And I, again, have not yet been defrocked; this moment has not yet come. I think that if we are talking about reprinting books, then, of course, I think this will remain. The texts were written by me as a deacon, and I think they will be signed in the same way.

– You mentioned the need for live communication, live eyes, human warmth. Now, during quarantine, all this sounds especially painful, because there are few opportunities to satisfy this need. Will you miss the worship service in which you were a character? Because those people who are now de-churching in recent years, whom I mentioned, to one degree or another say... here is a very recent entry by Ilya Zabezhinsky, there was such a famous Orthodox entrepreneur in the north of Russia, the business, unfortunately, did not take off, and now he He writes with some despair that Covid has shown that you don’t have to go to church, don’t take communion, all you need to do is listen on Zoom, confess over the phone, and that’s all. Would you agree that the church should, in principle, die out and take its place somewhere next to the online press?

– Since I have been deprived of the opportunity to participate in divine services for 8 months due to the ban, of course, this is there. And I think that this feeling will most likely even grow. As for the changes that quarantine brought to church consciousness, this is serious, and this, of course, makes many people think about what worship is in my life, my personal needs in it, why I go to church. But I think that for many, this will most likely be in favor of their churching. If there is a lack of communication, people understand that going to church is not some obligatory and always available option, then many will begin to value this opportunity.

Show me, on the basis of what specific texts, quotes, expressions are Jehovah's Witnesses declared extremists threatening society?

– At the beginning of our conversation, you mentioned the ideals of the Moscow, I would say, Russian, Russian intelligentsia of the 1970s and 80s, but they were different. It is no coincidence that Sergei Averintsev loved to quote the words of father Nikolai Golubtsov, famous for the fact that he baptized Stalin’s daughter, and for this the KGB brought him to premature death from a broken heart, that the intelligentsia is a class with which the priest needs to suffer, critical, distrustful , little disciplined, because to be an intellectual means, first of all, the Hamlet complex: to doubt everything. There was an intelligentsia that was oriented towards the West, there was an intelligentsia that loved Eurasians, a pro-government intelligentsia and a rather democratic intelligentsia. How are you navigating this space? You are an intellectual, but did you drift, did you change some of your concepts, your positions? Where are you today?

– Well, the intelligentsia, of course, will never be unanimous. But still, it is very important for the church that at least some part, some group of the intelligentsia would consider it their human duty to explain the world, themselves, from the standpoint of Christianity. Well, roughly speaking, Slavophiles in the 19th century are not gendarmes, not professors on state or church support, they are volunteers who do not receive money from the church treasury and at the same time talk about how they understand Orthodoxy, causing grins and sidelong glances from the hierarchy side. Such a group is needed for the church itself and for the country's intelligentsia. People like Chesterton in England, Lewis, Tolkien, Mounier, Marcel, that’s how it is. These are the “jackets” who made up the glory of Christianity and European culture of the twentieth century. This is what you need. As for my experiments, changes, I believe that in the main things there have been no changes, but so... I will say this, I cannot stand listening to the lectures of Deacon Andrei Kuraev and reading his texts of the 90s.

– This is a familiar feeling: it always seems that it should be better. But then you can reformulate it a little, such a microtest. Here is freedom of conscience, there was the law of 1991, then there were amendments and the law of 1997, and finally, three years ago, the so-called Yarovaya package, which turned into a mass imprisonment of Jehovah's Witnesses. And you wrote a lot about Jehovah's Witnesses as a missionary, criticizing them, analyzing them. Now what is your attitude towards what is being done with them? And would you suggest changing the legislation? To what extent do you now see the limits of freedom of conscience?

– You know, my position on this issue has not changed. I also said in the 90s that my favorite dish is finely chopped sectarians, I will never deny myself the pleasure of arguing with a sectarian, but on one condition: if the state does not eavesdrop on our discussion and does not accept any administrative or police measures based on its results. That is, I allow myself to criticize someone else’s faith only on the condition that my opponent has a similar right against me, against my faith, if his lips are not gagged with a policeman. Vladimir Solovyov once said that the most powerless class in the Russian Empire is the Orthodox clergy. Because it has a state-police status, and therefore it is deprived of the right to free debate, no one dares to openly argue with it, which means they are deprived of the right to seriously explain their faith. I wouldn't want this situation to happen again. Therefore, as soon as the arrests of Jehovah’s Witnesses began, I immediately began to publicly speak out in their defense. I can’t get it anywhere: show me on the basis of what exact texts, quotes, expressions Jehovah’s Witnesses are declared extremists threatening society? These quotes are not found anywhere. It’s the same thing in court with me - not a single quote from me was given about how I blasphemed the church, how I turned out to be a “Turkish spy.”

Deacon Andrey Kuraev at a press conference in Moscow, 2014

– Well, you are in good company, because the Monk Maxim the Greek was imprisoned for 25 years, it seems, precisely as an agent of the Turkish Sultan. Returning to what you said a little earlier. Christmas is ahead, which is probably already celebrated by a minority, and not a very significant one. A small baby on an armful of hay. Are you afraid that culture, population explosions, progress, that they will crush this little baby? Or do you still think that he is stronger? In general, this is a rhetorical question, and you probably think that the Lord is stronger, but what is your faith based on?

– No, you know, the situation here is exactly the same as with the question of whether one can become infected in a temple or while traveling. Christ did not promise to act as a sanitizer. Yes, it can work a miracle and protect from threats, from a poisonous snake, of course, but there is no guarantee that Christians can always climb any telegraph pole, grab any wires and nothing will happen to them - there is no such guarantee. The same thing applies to encounters with other cultures – there may be a miracle, and another culture may become churched. But there is one important limitation. With the exception of the Greco-Roman culture, perhaps no other culture of the peoples of the world was Christianized if it had its own written language at the time of the meeting with the missionaries. The population of Egypt can be considered an exception, but by that time the Egyptians themselves could no longer read their hieroglyphs; they were Hellenized. There is some information that it seems that the Armenians had their own written language before Christianization, and that’s all. And then either the missionaries carried, created an alphabet for the pagans, like the mission of Cyril and Methodius, or... For example, the Jewish people: the Jewish people had their own written language, their own culture, historical memory, and the Jewish people remained that way. Part of it, of course, became Christianized, but its own Jewish mainstream also remained. Well, a very sad example is the Indians of Central and South America, who had a written language, but in the end their fate was sad, there was simply genocide.

– Genocide and pandemic. However, as I understand it, there are Copts in Egypt.

– By the time of Christianization they had already lost their written language. There is a very interesting story by Philostorgius, a historian of the late 4th century, he tells how exactly the Egyptians adopted Christianity. And Egypt surprisingly accepted Christianity, without protests, it became the birthplace of monasticism, this surprised even its contemporaries. And such an apocrypha appeared, of course, this is a fairy tale, but very interesting, why they adopted Christianity so quickly. Because there was a small earthquake, and dishes in houses and shelves fell on the floor, as always, and the Egyptians at that time used a phallic symbol, but similar to a cross, a loop-shaped cross very loved by modern tourists, they understood it then as a kind of amulet and hung it over door lintel and above infants' cribs. And during this earthquake, says Philostorgius, all the other amulets fell, and only this one remained unharmed. And even the priests perceived this as a sign that this was a sign of true power and victory, and therefore a sign of the cross, and therefore the priests said: let's go and accept Christianity. This is a historical myth, but still.

- But it sounds charming. Merry Christmas! And God grant that you survive your shock, like the Egyptians, becoming closer to Christ.

Accusations without explanation

In the words of the protodeacon they found signs of “blasphemy against the Church” and “slanderous activities,” including accusations of the Russian Orthodox Church of “organizing a schism” in world Orthodoxy.

They refused to tell me what I would be accused of. Even when the trial took place, neither the verdict nor its motivational part was published. What’s funny is that in the publication on the Patriarchate’s website there is not a single reference to the articles of the laws of church law that I violated

Father Andrey Kuraevprotodeacon.

He attributed the libel charges to his joke, as he calls it, that the Russian Orthodox Church became a schismatic organization when Patriarch Kirill severed ties with the Patriarch of Constantinople.

“I am in a state of some disarray. It is in my interests to file an appeal [to the Patriarch of Constantinople], but it is in the interests of the Russian Orthodox Church that I do not do this. But I would like it not only me to think about this,” says Kuraev.

In his opinion, if he asks the Patriarch of Constantinople to cancel the decision of the Patriarch of Moscow, he will admit that one of them is higher than the other, thereby in a sense discrediting the Russian Orthodox Church. However, Father Andrei Kuraev emphasized that he still considers Patriarch Kirill to be his ruler.

Kuraev's reaction

Protodeacon Andrei Kuraev, in a commentary for the radio station “Moscow Speaks,” stated that he knows about this decision, but it does not bother him.

“Yes, I already found out. Now there is a quarantine anyway, the courts cannot work. “I’m now bringing a wonderful teddy bear to my granddaughters, and this is much more relevant and important for me.”

Then, in a commentary for RBC, the archdeacon stated that he had not yet thought about his attitude to the ban in ministry, since he was grieving over the death of his mentor.

“I don’t have any attitude [to the ban on ministry] yet, because today another, much more significant event happened: Archpriest Georgy Breev died,” Kuraev said. The archdeacon clarified that it was the rector of the church in Krylatskoye who gave him a recommendation for the seminary 35 years ago.

“Today I was orphaned again, my thoughts are only about this,” Kuraev added.

Reasons for “defrocking”

Kuraev does not believe that the words against Alexander Ageikin were the reason for such a severe punishment. In his opinion, the best evidence of this is that the patriarch appointed a new abbot of the monastery on the same day that the priest died.

“An unprecedented case in church history: a person has not yet been buried, and a new rector is already arriving,” Kuraev said.

According to Kuraev, shortly before Ageikin’s death, Patriarch Kirill held a religious procession around Moscow and brought the icon to the church to Father Alexander. After this, numerous pilgrims began to come to the monastery to worship her, and more than two weeks later Ageikin died.

“There is every reason to believe that Ageikin fell ill precisely then. Maybe the patriarch understood that the priest died also through his fault,” Kuraev suggested.

What will happen to Kuraev next?

The patriarchal decree calls Kuraev’s behavior “immoral” and “especially cynical” and notes that it “caused indignation” among the bishops, clergy and flock of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Patriarch also noted that he had also previously received complaints about Kuraev’s actions. Now Kuraev will have to answer all complaints before the diocesan church court.

"In law. And according to conscience,” Vladimir Legoida, head of the Synodal Department for Relations of the Church with Society and the Media, commented on the patriarch’s decree in his Telegram channel.

The life path of Archpriest Alexander

Alexander came to Orthodoxy at a conscious age; he was baptized in 1989, when he turned 18 years old. The decision to devote his life to church service arose and strengthened while studying at the institute, where during the learning process he had to come into contact with the Holy Scriptures. After graduating from the university, he took his first obedience at the church in Peredelkino as a watchman and janitor. Having a wonderful voice, he began to sing in the choir. This is where the church life of Father Alexander began.

The main milestones of the church ministry of Alexander Ageikin:

For his diligent long-term service to the Russian Orthodox Church, Alexander Ageikin was awarded high church awards:

1. deacon's kamilavka (2005);
2. medal of the 1st degree of St. Sergius of Radonezh (2011);
3. pectoral cross (2012, in connection with the elevation to the rank of archpriest);
4. miter (2016);
5. Order of the III degree of the Holy Blessed Prince Daniel of Moscow (2019).

   
   The medals of Sergius of Radonezh are awarded to the hierarchs of the Local Orthodox Churches

The Order of Daniel of Moscow is awarded for a significant contribution to the revival of spirituality

What is Kuraev's main problem?

Church historian, founder of the “Orthodox Faith Corps” Boris Yakemenko, in his Telegram, positively commented on Kuraev’s removal from the priesthood, recalling many statements of Father Andrei, which ran counter to the official position of the Patriarch and Patriarchate. Here are excerpts from an article where the author answers a question he asked himself.

“What is Kuraev’s main problem? In all-consuming, irrepressible ambition, lack of appreciation and the desire to climb as high as possible. It is well known that Kuraev never liked objections and did not tolerate competition in his field between the “church intellectual” and the missionary. He immediately regarded any attempts to disagree with him as obscurantism, inertia and the difficult legacy of the Soviet or patriarchal regime. The desire to be popular and always say something original, something that doesn’t fit, that goes against the grain, eventually became an end in itself, began to harm objectivity, leading first to mistakes and then to outright lies, as, for example, in the case of the consideration of the siege of the Trinity. Sergius Lavra by the Poles in the 17th century, when Kuraev, during the celebration of the 400th anniversary of Russia’s victory over the Poles, certainly wanted to question the feat of the monks.

There were a lot of lies and distortions about the blasphemy in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior (Kuraev in the end was completely confused about who he was and what he wanted and declared those dancing in the temple “martyrs”), because he wanted to be original and liberal. There were plays on the swamp, for which Gelman, Navalny, Kredo ru, etc. recognized him as one of their own. There were provocative hints about the man-made nature of the Holy Fire and revelations about the Olympic fire. A common thread running through all this was “and as a result, the sexual theme in his speeches became a real mania (apparently the author is referring to the scandalous revelations of the homosexual lobby within the Russian Orthodox Church - editor’s note). At the same time, the publication of serious books ceased, their place being taken by tabloid feuilletons on the topic “who, when, where and with whom.”

Kuraev devoted many years to attacks on the Patriarch, and during these same years everyone around asked questions - why is the Patriarch silent? The Patriarch tolerated insults against him. But when Kuraev insulted the memory of Father Alexander, the Patriarch made a decision that many had been waiting for a long time. This once again proves that this is not revenge. And especially not a ban on the priesthood by the Patriarch - Kuraev himself banned himself from the priesthood long ago. Patriarch Kirill could only state this,” Yakemenko sums up.

What will happen next?

First Vice President of the Center for Political Technologies Alexei Makarkin explained to NG that this decision of the patriarch was only a matter of time. “This was expected, the question was what would be the reason for this. Despite the fact that Andrei Kuraev had previously given enough reasons to be banned from serving, he was once quite close to the patriarch, participated in his election campaign, for which he received the highest diaconate. And therefore, even despite the fact that many demanded its ban, such a decision was not made precisely in memory of past merits. Now the Moscow Patriarchate considered that he had violated ethical principles and finally decided to ban him.”

According to Makarkin, what will be more important is not the ban on ministry itself, which is “a fairly common occurrence in the church,” but the further decision of the church court, at which Andrei Kuraev may lose his rank.

Let us recall that Andrei Kuraev had previously been subject to disciplinary action by Patriarch Kirill. In particular, penance was imposed on him with the departure to atone for his sins in the Moscow Novospassky Monastery.

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Biography of Alexander Ageikin

Alexander Ageikin was born on June 8, 1971 into a military family in the closed military town of Odintsovo-10, Moscow Region. He was brought up, as he himself recalls in one of his interviews, far from being brought up in church traditions.

Odintsovo (now Vlasikha) has already been removed from the secret list, but is still considered the “rocket capital” of Russia.

Alexander successfully graduated from high school in his hometown. Then he received higher education at the Moscow Institute of History and Archives as part of the Russian State University for the Humanities. Although at first the parents predicted a career as an officer for their son, for which they had been preparing since childhood. However, the pull towards the humanities turned out to be stronger. According to Alexander himself, he escaped from the military school. And he left the Aviation Technology Institute after the first year. As a result, I graduated from the university of my dreams.

Alexander Ageikin was married and was the father of three daughters with many children: Ksenia, Anna and Anastasia.

[edit]Also

• Kurai is a Bashkir folk herb, whose flower is schematically depicted on the flag, coat of arms and a bunch of other objects of sunny Bashkortostan. As a rule, kurai is the name given to a number of umbrella plants: angelica, angelica, hogweed, etc. Kurai is also a wind instrument made from this herb.
• In Lunar language, “kurai” (暗い) means “dark, gloomy, bad (person).” Nevertheless, there is a couplet circulating among fans: “Everything that Kuraev does is a model for samurai.”
• In Spanish, el cura
  means, suddenly, the parish priest.
  As they say, it was written in the family. And the grass kurai in the same language is called angelica
  , which also cannot but symbolize.
• Please do not confuse the protodeacon with the bass guitarist of the Leningrad group of the same name, although he would look great there (the song “Where are you, whores?”) would be rethought.
• Trolls who are sick with PGM sometimes choose the surname “Kuraev” as a nickname.

Voice like a gift from God

Thanks to his well-trained voice at services, Fr. Alexander created a special prayer atmosphere, so for a long time he remained an indispensable member of the patriarchal services in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. It is this circumstance that explains his long service, first as a deacon, and then as a protodeacon in the main church of the country.

The vocal activity of Alexander Ageikin was not limited exclusively to divine chants. As a protodeacon, he performed on the big stage more than once, accompanied by the Central Symphony Orchestra of the Ministry of Defense. Father Alexander took a direct part in the formation and development of sacred music: he created a large parish choir, opened a singing school for boys, and organized a children's and youth choral singing festival.

As the chairman of the church-public council for the development of church singing, formed in 2021, Ageikin oversaw the holding of international regency and singing congresses, organized numerous cultural events: thematic master classes, concerts, festivals.