Biography of Patriarch Kirill
Gundyaev Vladimir Mikhailovich was born into the family of a priest and a German teacher. The Patriarch is the second child; he also has an older brother, Nikolai, and a sister, Elena. All the children of the family connected their professional activities with religion.
Vladimir Mikhailovich graduated from 8 classes of secondary school. Studying was not easy for him. The believer Vladimir was persecuted for his refusal to wear a pioneer tie. However, he stood his ground without becoming a pioneer.
Afterwards he entered the Leningrad Theological Seminary, and upon graduation, the Theological Academy. In 1969 he was tonsured a monk, where he was given the name Kirill.
In 1970 he graduated from the academy, by that time he had a candidate of theology degree. From that moment on, the church activity of the priest began, who became the first Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' in history to be born in the Soviet Union.
In 1984, the future head of the Orthodox Church was appointed Archbishop of Vyazemsk and Smolensk, and in 1986 he became the manager of Orthodox parishes in the Kaliningrad region. Having shown remarkable hard work and diligence in his service, Patriarch Kirill in 1989 was appointed a permanent member of the Synod, where he actively participated in the development of laws on religion and religious freedoms. In February 1991, Archbishop Kirill was elevated to the rank of metropolitan.
In 2008, after the death of Alexy II, Metropolitan Kirill became the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne, who in 2009 was elected Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' in a local vote, gaining 507 votes and 677 possible. Metropolitan Kirill's enthronement took place on February 1, 2009.
Patriarch Kirill will serve at the Altar of Victory
Now Patriarch Kirill will be able to maintain regular spiritual and business contacts with the leadership of the Ministry of Defense. Photo from the site www.patriarchia.ru
Having consecrated the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in the Patriot Park in Kubinka on June 14, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' announced that he himself would become the rector of this temple. “I have decided to assume the duties of rector of this holy temple. This will be a patriarchal cathedral, and I will have special concern for the performance of divine services, for the pastoral activities that will be carried out within this temple, remembering the great significance and role that the Armed Forces have in the life of our people,” he said . However, back in May 2021, this ministry was entrusted by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church to the chairman of the Synodal Department for interaction with the Armed Forces and Law Enforcement Agencies, Bishop Stefan (Privalov) of Klin. Why did the patriarch change his mind?
The new cathedral is the third largest in Russia after the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow and St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg. The decision to build it was made in 2021. In addition to Patriarch Kirill, the consecration of the foundation stone was attended by President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. However, neither the head of state nor Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin was present at the consecration ceremony, which was postponed several times due to the threat of the spread of coronavirus. The day after the ceremony, Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov assured journalists that the head of state would definitely visit the cathedral.
In a conversation with NGR, the head of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society of the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Roman Lunkin, noted that the current abbot is a well-thought-out step: “This temple is an important not only historical, but also a political symbol for our state and government. That is why Patriarch Kirill decided to become its rector. By this he showed that in addition to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the main cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church, there is now also an “Altar of Victory”.
“By becoming its rector, the patriarch, on the one hand, showed that this is the main patriotic cathedral of Russia, as both the Ministry of Defense and the authorities wanted, and on the other hand, he put an end to all the discussions that were going on around the temple during its construction,” Roman Lunkin believes. – After all, it is known that among the Orthodox clergy there were many who were dissatisfied with both the appearance and interior decoration of the temple. Now it will not be easy for clergy to criticize the cathedral, the rector of which is the patriarch himself.”
“The patriarch’s decision is a positive signal in relations with Sergei Shoigu,” this was the opinion of NGR, first vice-president of the Center for Political Technologies Alexei Makarkin. “Since this cathedral was built with the active participation of the Minister of Defense, the Patriarch thereby decided to show that he has excellent relations with the Minister and his department,” the expert believes. – Most likely, the Patriarch also expects that thanks to this decision the role of the military clergy may strengthen, partnership with representative bodies, whose role in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation is now quite significant, will become more active, and accordingly the Russian Orthodox Church has a great desire to cooperate more closely with the Ministry of Defense " “I don’t think the patriarch will serve there often. Most likely on some major holidays related to the army or military themes, for example, on May 9, although this is not a church holiday, or on the Day of Remembrance of Alexander Nevsky,” Makarkin suggested.
Let us recall that in April it became known: on the mosaic panel dedicated to the 1945 Victory Parade, there is a portrait of Joseph Stalin. This was opposed by the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the head of the Archdiocese of parishes of the Russian tradition in Western Europe, Metropolitan John of Dubna (Renneto). Bishop Stefan (Privalov), together with the chairman of the Expert Council on Church Art, Architecture and Restoration of the Russian Orthodox Church, Archpriest Leonid Kalinin, in turn, saw nothing wrong with the portrait. Both clerics considered it “impossible to avoid the presence of Stalin in the depiction of the 1945 Victory Parade.” Only after the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations, Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev), on television called Stalin “a persecutor of the church, on whose conscience is the blood of millions of people,” was it decided to redo the panel.
Alexey Makarkin believes that the patriarch’s abbotship hardly serves as a kind of “punishment” for Privalov for all the scandals that accompanied the construction of the temple. “I don’t think that the issue of Stalin or Putin (the panel depicting the president was also originally supposed to be installed in the cathedral - NGR) was resolved at the level of Privalov. Another thing is that when there was a negative reaction from the president, the department launched a process of reviewing what the temple would look like from the inside. But the church did not want and does not want to conflict with the Ministry of Defense. The Patriarch clearly favors Shoigu. Perhaps the patriarch’s decision to become rector of this particular cathedral puts this whole story with Stalin’s mosaic in precisely the opposite context. After all, the military clearly wanted Stalin to be present in some form in the temple, and many church leaders, including the clergy of the Church Abroad, and the recently joined Parisian Archdiocese, as well as some clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate, opposed this. All this created quite a lot of tension in society. And now the patriarch has demonstrated: despite everything, he has excellent relations with the minister, and there is no tension between the department and the Russian Orthodox Church,” Makarkin concluded.
According to Privalov himself, the patriarch has always been the rector of the military temple. “The Patriarchal Cathedral is actually the cathedral of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus', all other clergy help him in this service. In fact, he simply indicated what is contained in the name of the cathedral,” the bishop emphasized in a conversation with TASS. The Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church is already considered the head of the community of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, the sacred archimandrite of the Novospassky, Donskoy, Simonov, Vysoko-Petrovsky and Zaikonospassky monasteries in Moscow, the Trinity-Sergius Lavra and the New Jerusalem Monastery near Moscow, as well as the Valaam monastery in Karelia and the Solovetsky monastery in the Arkhangelsk region. Of all the listed cathedrals and monasteries, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church constantly performs divine services only in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. He visits the Trinity-Sergius Lavra several times a year, always on the feast of the Holy Trinity. True, this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic and the large number of people who suffered from this infection, the monastery in the monastery was closed not only to believers, but also to the patriarch.
Some, however, assumed that since the head of the Moscow Patriarchate held the celebration privately at his own residence in Peredelkino, this was how he was preparing for a meeting with Vladimir Putin at the consecration of the cathedral.
They say he complied with the required two-week quarantine. The President never arrived in Kubinka on June 14, but this became known only on the eve of the consecration ceremony.
“It is remarkable that after decades of unbelief imposed in our country by absurd atheism, the people have turned to faith,” said Patriarch Kirill in his speech after the liturgy. – One of the symbols of the historical turn of the people, their Armed Forces from unbelief to faith, from a meaningless existence to a meaningful one, is this majestic temple. A temple cannot only be a monument; it is a testimony to the faith of those who built it. We prayed today that the Lord would protect our country from enemies external and internal, that he would unite us with the power of faith. We know that many wars have been won with faith. As people who fought on the front line during the Great Patriotic War told me, not knowing whether they would return: “There are no atheists in the trenches under shells.” Because faith in God gives hope for immortality. Faith fills our lives with power, which, according to the word of the Apostle Paul, crushes kingdoms and defeats armies. In such harmony of the armed and spiritual power of the church, spiritual and material, state and church, in peace and prosperity, may the historical path of our people into the future flow.”
What we can be sure of is that harmony between church and government officials is maintained, at least outwardly. It is important for the elites to demonstrate consent in the current difficult political and social conditions. It is likely that both the military department and the political administration will be sympathetic to the patriarch’s desire to take control of all significant church structures. Military leaders are well aware of the importance of the supreme commander, even if he does not wear shoulder straps.
Personal life of Patriarch Kirill
Patriarch Kirill devoted himself to serving God. He maintains warm relations with his loved ones. The bishop's sister, Elena, is a co-founder of the St. Petersburg Orthodox gymnasium and vice-rector for culture at the Theological Academy of St. Petersburg. She has a daughter who works where her mother does. The girl graduated from the conservatory (conducting department).
“The Russian Church does not merge with anyone, including the state. She is responsible for the moral state of the people, for maintaining spiritual and material culture. And in this sense, it will be in dialogue with any government so that, through cooperation with the government, including serving these high goals that stand before it.”
Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' celebrates Great Vespers in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior
Festive services are held in all Orthodox churches. Thousands of believers gathered for the evening service. Today it is special - in honor of Christmas. Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus' celebrates Great Vespers in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
By the way, the patriarch has a very busy day today, he has already been to many places, including the Salvation Hangar (Homeless Assistance Center), and even managed to wish Merry Christmas to the astronauts on the ISS.
Divine Liturgy, candles, prayers, peace. Thoughts out loud and to yourself. About the most important and secret things. Millions of Orthodox Christians came to churches last night.
“This is a time to be with family, a time to be together, to pay attention to relatives and friends. This is such a sincere, warm holiday that you want to celebrate with loved ones according to old Russian traditions,” says Vitaly Fomin.
Those rushing to the Christmas service were not deterred even by frosts, as, for example, in Novosibirsk, where it was minus 30°.
“This brings everything together, somehow the mood immediately becomes good, the soul sings,” says Viktor Simonenko.
“We went to church. My soul became lighter, brighter,” admits Natalya Zyulkova.
And so throughout the country: both in large cathedrals and in tiny village churches. They walked alone and with whole families. For some, this is already a long-standing tradition, while others walked the road to the temple for the first time.
“Today we baptized a child. The child himself wanted to, asked to be baptized. He left the temple and said: I am so happy! The child is 8 years old, boy. A conscious step,” says the child’s mother.
In Khabarovsk, the Transfiguration Cathedral could hardly accommodate everyone.
“You have to feel it. God must touch man. I felt that I feel good here now, I am drawn here, I get joy here,” says Elena Evpak.
In Makhachkala, parishioners gathered in the only Orthodox church in the city - the Holy Assumption Cathedral.
“Happy holiday to everyone! Happiness to everyone, the most important thing is health. Be tolerant and believe that we will succeed together,” Tatyana Surneva congratulated the believers.
Christmas is one of the most important Orthodox holidays. A connection between generations carried through two millennia.
“Christmas is just the moment when you can cleanse yourself and say that life has truly begun with a clean slate. I treat this with respect, because I know how my family treats this, how my parents and grandparents treated it,” says Olga Gatsuk.
The President of Russia celebrated Christmas, according to tradition, not in Moscow. Vladimir Putin visited the Simeon Church in St. Petersburg. His father was baptized here. The temple has a difficult fate. One of the oldest in the city, it was built in the 18th century on the site of a wooden parish. In 1938 it was closed and looted, and in the 80s a meteorological museum was organized. And only in 1991 they returned it to the believers.
During the service, the president briefly entered the altar room and donated to the temple a mid-19th century icon depicting the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Resurrection of Christ and the holy prophets. After which Vladimir Putin returned to defend the all-night vigil with the parishioners.
The Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' traditionally performs Christmas services in the main church of the country - Christ the Savior. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church addressed believers with a Christmas message.
“Let each of us today overcome alienation and enmity, fear and hostility, and be able to discern in our neighbor not the source of problems, but the person for whom God himself came to earth. May our homes once again be filled with the joy of Christmas, there will be so much of it that there will be enough for everyone who needs it. But only you and I can bring this joy and we will not forget about it. Happy holiday, my dears, Merry Christmas!” — Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Kirill congratulated.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev also attended the ceremonial service in the capital. Together with the five thousand believers that the Cathedral of Christ the Savior accommodated.
“Different people, from different places: there are people from Makhachkala, we are from Taganrog, from Kirov... And we are all here side by side, and everyone is happy, and everyone is great,” says Marina Guseva.
The patriarch and the wards of the Moscow Center for Helping the Homeless visited. He has been working in the capital for three years. About a hundred people are received there every day. People left homeless for various reasons can eat, warm up, take a shower and get clothes. During a joint meal, the primate wished everyone to find a home. And in return he received a gift - a carved Kazan icon of the Mother of God, made by the shelter’s residents.
The Patriarch congratulated the Orthodox not only on earth, but also in space. The communication session with the International Space Station and its crew was held right in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. And this is also a long-standing tradition.
Patriarch Kirill should resign?
The results of 2021 for the Russian Orthodox Church - from the point of view of its liberal and intellectual “wing” - were discussed online at a round table with the famous Christian journalist and public figure Sergei Chapnin. And the year was also fateful for the Russian Orthodox Church: according to the presenter and speaker, “in 2021 the church has changed in a way that it has not changed for 10 years - and perhaps this is comparable to the entire 30th anniversary of the church revival after the fall of the USSR.”
We started with the most pressing issue - the coronavirus pandemic. “Many today remember with sorrow their fascination with religious processions and “flights,” said Chapnin, recalling that other Christians even rose in a hot air balloon with an icon, hoping in this way to ward off the infection, and “some bishops said that the ringing of bells kills the virus.” . “Orthodox magicians today should be ashamed of this game,” the presenter emphasized.
What is especially important is that it seems that the coronavirus has encroached on the unshakable centuries-old Orthodox custom of receiving communion from one spoon (liar). And here at first they tried to get by with an empty formality. “When the order was issued to disinfect the spoon in an alcohol solution,” said Sergei Chapnin, “they quickly figured out that dangling it for 3-4 seconds does not play any role, the destruction of the virus does not occur.”
And many abbots came to their senses: two “unique practices” arose: in some churches, disposable spoons or metal ones appeared, but one for each communicant, which were then sterilized. And the second option: a return to the ancient practice of “communion in the hand.” The prosphora is given to the communicant on a napkin, and the priest applies a few drops of wine onto it with a spear (a knife in the shape of a spear).
According to Chapnin, many priests, both old and young, switched to this quite easily. “But the opposite story has already begun: I already know several priests who were directly forbidden to serve in their hands,” the speaker added, saying that he had seen a denunciation in one parish, where the most zealous charter official wrote: “We do not know what kind of communion we received: Orthodox or Catholic."
We moved from the specific to the general: the speaker touched on the financial situation of the church, which was dealt a devastating blow by the pandemic. Naturally: after all, the most beautiful churches and monasteries in iconic places live primarily through tourism. Many parishes live “not at the expense of parishioners, who are few, but at the expense of parishioners, who are many.” And quite a lot of priests survive due to their needs: weddings, christenings, funeral services...
157847 The Russian Orthodox Church fell into three traps at once
Well, it is clear that, except perhaps the funeral service, everything else has shrunk sharply during the epidemic. “I know dozens of churches where there was not a single wedding in the summer,” said Chapnin. He said that giant Orthodox publishing houses can no longer sell such copies - and meanwhile, the main manufacturer of church utensils, Sofrinsky workshops, have not been able to get out of the crisis for several years without an epidemic, and, obviously, they will never be able to do so in this form.
As one of the options for getting out of the financial crisis, Sergei Chapnin suggested that the Russian state, which already sees the church in the role of some kind of large state corporation, can give it such status by choosing the appropriate wording to its liking - and provide direct state support.
Moreover, a certain demonstrative gesture depicting the church precisely in the role of a state corporation took place this year, on Victory Day - this, of course, was the opening of the main temple of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in Patriot Park.
“The large cathedral was deliberately built not in the city and not near the places where parishioners live, but in a military-patriotic amusement park,” the speaker noted. — There is a skating rink on a large square in front of the temple, and people are invited to skate. There’s nothing wrong with that—the question is the purpose of the temple.”
The cathedral, as Chapnin correctly explained, “was created as a tourist site,” it “does not imply parish life, any kind of community,” it is “a corporate temple - one of the most influential, powerful and rich corporations: the military.” And there must be obvious wealth in it, including a wealth of technology.
Most of all, Chapnin complained about the depiction of orders in the form of stained glass windows on the glass vaults of the cathedral. The “sincere unchurchishness of the decorators” was expressed in the fact that imperial and Soviet orders were given mixed up, including the Order of the Red Banner of Battle, which perfectly reads “Workers of all countries, unite!” “But the hardest thing: in the interior decoration, the idea of the patronage of the Mother of God is played out so directly that it is impossible not to be horrified,” the speaker stated.
At the same time, the presenter noted that the new amendments to the Constitution will not please every believer, especially the thinking one. According to Chapnin, the mention of God there was not in first, or even fifth place. God in the new version of the basic law is “the cherry on the cake”, “God is in a subordinate position in relation to our ancestors.” “God is powerless to influence anything, he is a small pocket God,” Chapnin noted. “We should be ashamed for such a mention.”
The same is true in foreign policy. Here, Sergei Chapnin considers the most alarming point to be that several months ago, Metropolitan Anthony (Pakanich) of Boryspil and Brovary “came out with an anti-Greek manifesto - and no one objected to Anthony’s manifesto of renunciation of the universal mission of Orthodoxy.” “We can say that an ideology of opposition to the Ecumenical Patriarchate has already taken shape: this, they say, is no longer Orthodoxy, but a simulacrum,” the speaker noted. “The next move could be a declaration of a completely autonomous Church of the Russian Federation, and, possibly, Belarus, Kazakhstan, etc., not united with other local churches. So much has already been done for this that the task is practically solved.”
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The Second Vatican Council in Russia will be “in installments”
The Orthodox intellectuals themselves would like a completely different way out of the crisis: “to give maximum freedom to parishes,” so that only those issues that cannot be resolved at the parish level are delegated to the top. This, of course, will require a 180-degree turn from the policy that Patriarch Kirill has been pursuing for many years. “Parishioners can decide for themselves in what language they will serve. And the appointment of a priest is decided by the parish itself,” Sergei Chapnin briefly outlined the desired picture. — These fables may become reality quite soon. Otherwise, at the next stage it will all simply collapse.”
By the way, worship in Russian instead of Church Slavonic is also making its way - although the number of such parishes is still very small, there is a trend.
We also talked a little about two church anti-heroes of the year who were subjected to church punishment. This, on the one hand, is the rebellious fundamentalist, former schema-abbot Sergius, now simply Nikolai Romanov - and on the other, on the contrary, the overly life-loving Bishop Flavian (Mitrofanov), banned from serving and fled to London.
Regarding Sergius, much has already been said before: Chapnin only noted that this populist has successfully shown himself to be a charismatic leader against the backdrop of bureaucratic bishops - and now “all Orthodox Christians in positions, in general, behave like bureaucrats.” And that there is a demand for such leaders in society.
Regarding Flavian, the speaker about, and after only three months of monasticism, became a bishop in a small diocese that had good sponsors (in Cherepovets). According to the information announced by Chapnin, the Patriarch had the intention of making Flavian the manager of the parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church in North America (the British passport Flavian had already received played a certain role: after a series of scandals, according to the speaker, the Patriarchate feared that the new bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church would simply not be given a visa to the United States ). And Flavian even went there, at first with a delegation, but somehow abruptly began to behave like a host. And “our Americans” wrote a letter to Kirill saying that they did not want such a bishop. “I think that Flavian’s resentment over his unfulfilled romance with America greatly influenced his psyche,” Chapnin suggested.
PS After the article was written, news arrived that the Diocesan Court had deprived of the rank of Protodeacon Andrei Kuraev. “After everything that happened, I see only one way out of the impasse: the voluntary resignation of Patriarch Kirill and the removal of his team from any administrative positions. But alas, to expect wisdom or at least sobriety in assessing the situation from the current patriarch is ridiculous and naive,” Sergei Chapnin expressed his opinion in this regard on Facebook, adding that “the opposition is sitting silently” and “this means that the degradation of the Russian Orthodox Church MP will be deep and heavy."
Leonid Smirnov
