Financial and economic management of the Moscow Patriarchate

Story

The act that preceded the creation of the Economic Administration of the Moscow Patriarchate was the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, signed in 1945 by Stalin, which granted the Moscow Patriarchate, diocesan administrations, monasteries and parishes legal rights to “purchase vehicles, produce church utensils, sell to believers, rent, build and the purchase of houses for church needs... The same Decree allowed the ringing of bells and the planned supply of church communities by the state with the necessary building materials”[1].

On June 20, 1946, by decision of the Holy Synod, the Regulations on Economic Management under the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church were adopted[1].

One of the main tasks of the Economic Administration, in addition to monitoring the financial activities of the Church, was the creation of an enterprise that would produce products necessary for church life: candles, vestments, church items, etc. In addition to organizing the work of the Production Workshops, the competence of the KHOZU included issues of construction and restoration of the Patriarchal residences, monasteries and churches[1].

By the decision of the Holy Synod of February 17, 1997, the department was abolished and its powers were transferred to the Commission on Economic and Humanitarian Affairs[2].

Revived by the determination of the Holy Synod of March 31, 2009. Archimandrite Tikhon (Zaitsev), whom the Synod determined to be the Bishop of Podolsk, vicar of the Moscow Diocese, was appointed Chairman of the revived Financial and Economic Administration of the Moscow Patriarchate[3].

Bishop Tikhon described the functions of the Financial and Economic Administration as follows:

The Financial and Economic Administration has many functions related to the internal life support of the Russian Orthodox Church. If we draw secular parallels, then, in fact, the FHU is the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economy rolled into one. First of all, the FHU helps His Holiness the Patriarch and the Holy Synod to carry out the functions of managing the property of the Russian Orthodox Church. And related to this are issues of taxation and accounting, the formation of a general church budget, construction, restoration, and much more. We also have something like...a budget process, but the model, of course, is not comparable to the secular one. From the beginning of its existence, from the beginning of centuries, the Church existed and exists on donations, so what plans could there be here? Relatively speaking, there is no income plan, but there is an expense plan. And we are trying to organize their financing[4].

Cyril's egg capsule

The budget of the central office of the Russian Orthodox Church is 1 billion rubles. per year, the contribution of churches and monasteries is 400 million rubles. plus cash in envelopes to the Bishop personally

​​​​The last time the budget of the Russian Orthodox Church was published was in 1997 under
Patriarch Alexy II
. Since then, the finances of the Moscow Patriarchate (MP) - the central apparatus of the Russian Orthodox Church - have become a sealed secret.

The press service of the Patriarchate does not answer questions about the church budget, and the information leaked to the media is extremely scarce and fragmentary.
Correspondents tried to get a picture of how much money the Patriarchate receives annually and what it spends it on. Patriarch Kirill
It turned out that the income of the MP does not amount to many billions of rubles, although it may seem so when looking at the luxurious decoration of the churches and because of the pace of their construction. The amount of the patriarchy’s own income (without taking into account tranches from the state budget for purposes specified by the authorities), according to our It is estimated that it amounts to up to a billion rubles per year.
The Moscow Patriarchate spends these funds on the maintenance of its departments and departments, on supporting Orthodox educational institutions, on church diplomacy around the world and charity, as well as on the needs of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia
.

Patriarch's egg cup

The Moscow Patriarchate determines how the entire Church lives, contacts the authorities of Russia and other countries, and resolves all the most important church issues.
Its leader is the Patriarch; he also heads the Holy Synod, the advisory body that governs the Russian Orthodox Church in the period between Councils of Bishops. The Synod includes nine permanent and five temporary members - diocesan bishops. Using a political analogy, the Synod is the presidium of the party, and the Council of Bishops is the party congress. Chapter XXI of the Charter of the Russian Orthodox Church states that the Patriarch and the Synod are the main managers of the money of the Russian Orthodox Church. But another one is the Supreme Church Council, which includes the heads of the synodal departments of the MP. The Patriarchate has departments, administrations and commissions. 19 of them are subordinate to the Synod, another 11 are directly to the patriarch. Among them are the press service, the diplomatic service (DECR), departments for youth affairs, social service and charity, and so on.

Money into the budget of the Patriarchate comes mainly in the form of monthly payments from dioceses (diocesan collection), from various church institutions, enterprises and representative offices abroad, as well as in the form of donations. Congregational donations and sponsorship money make up the majority of income. The Charter does not prohibit the Church from receiving revenue from securities and deposits, as well as from the work of companies established by divisions of the Russian Orthodox Church “independently or jointly with other legal entities or individuals,” the Charter says.

The Russian Orthodox Church, as of the beginning of 2021, includes 309 dioceses with 382 bishops in various countries, tens of thousands of priests serve in its churches. There are about a thousand monasteries and almost 40 thousand parishes; there are 19 dioceses with 977 parishes and 40 monasteries in foreign countries. The Moscow Patriarchate, which receives fees from all dioceses, manages all this, but its budget is not the budget of the entire Church. Each diocese and each parish is usually registered as a separate legal entity, maintains its own accounting and has its own bank accounts.

Therefore, the Patriarchate is not able to monitor all cash flows in the Russian Orthodox Church.

It is obvious that to manage such a colossal structure, an apparatus is needed, and considerable funds are needed to maintain it.

Moscow parishes

Monthly collections from dioceses throughout Russia and from capital churches are the largest source of income for the Moscow Patriarchate.
Fees are also paid by some monasteries - stauropegial, that is, subordinate directly to the patriarch. The amount of receipts is not disclosed, but, as several sources said, the amount of collection is set individually for each temple and monastery and usually amounts to 15-30% of income.

The abbots are notified of this by letters or emails.

“Previously, receipts from dioceses were symbolic, now they are more. Some wealthy metropolitan areas can contribute up to 50 million per year. Poor dioceses pay nothing, especially those located in the Far East,” said Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin

- one of the few who communicates with journalists on the topic of church finances.

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin

As of 2021, the Patriarchate receives a total of about 300 million rubles from the dioceses per year, Chaplin believes.

Now the Russian Orthodox Church has 194 dioceses in Russia. The money goes to the Financial and Economic Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church (FHU).

In Moscow, as stated in the report of Patriarch Kirill, there are 1,179 churches, but services are held only in 516. Of these, 301 are parish churches that are visited by a significant number of parishioners. Another 117 are temporary. It is these 418 churches that have enough opportunities to contribute significant amounts to the MP. Opportunities depend on donations from parishioners and income from churches selling candles and utensils.

Some temples that have vacant premises rent them out to earn more money.

Moreover, more than 760 churches in the capital are under construction or located in monasteries, hospitals, prisons and other institutions where there are few parishioners. As a rule, they do not pay fees to the Patriarchate.

Sources in the Russian Orthodox Church confirmed that in Moscow only about 400 churches receive significant income. Of these, 300, according to a rough estimate, send an average of 500 thousand rubles per year to the Patriarchate (usually 15-30% of all temple income).

About 100 churches pay approximately a million rubles each - they are mainly located in densely populated areas of Moscow. Only the most famous and popular among believers and tourists are able to contribute more than 1.5 million rubles a year to the Patriarchate, according to interlocutors in the Russian Orthodox Church. After all, each rector, in addition to the “tax,” is entrusted with the obligation to maintain his temple in proper condition and pay salaries to priests and staff. But in the overwhelming majority of cases, the Church does not allocate money for this, so the abbots themselves are constantly looking for sponsors.

“It is obvious that the parishes visited, which are located in residential areas, have great financial resources. But there are also parishes from which there is no income to the patriarchate: hospital, prison churches, where people go who have no means. The situation in all churches is very different,” explained Vsevolod Chaplin.

At the same time, according to the archpriest, in recent years people have begun to leave significantly fewer donations. Because of this, the amount of collections to the Patriarchate has also decreased.

“My parish is one of the largest in Moscow. We contribute approximately one million two hundred thousand rubles a year to the Patriarchate,” said the rector of one of the churches in a residential area of ​​the capital. — The parish may be located in the center and there may be many parishioners there, but there may be no active life there: no baptisms, no funeral services. But on the outskirts, where people live, the situation will be completely different.”

The Patriarchate also receives money from stavropegic monasteries located in Russia and other countries. Stauropegial (“cross-established”) means subordinate to the patriarch. On the MP website, 33 monasteries are called stauropegial. These include the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in Sergiev Posad, Optina Pustyn, New Jerusalem in Istra, Valaam, Solovki, Pyukhtitsa and a number of other monasteries.

An interlocutor in the leadership of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra told us what amounts the stauropegic monasteries contribute to the Patriarchate: “Previously, they deducted 10% of what they officially spent on accounting. Every month the Trinity-Sergius Lavra contributed one and a half to two million,” the source said.

At the same time, he complained that the visits of the patriarch are expensive for the monasteries. There is an established tradition in the Russian Orthodox Church: every time the top authorities visit, they receive sums in envelopes from the receiving party. It turns out that these expenses also go to the MP. “Each visit of the patriarch costs the Lavra five million rubles,” the source said. “We need to accommodate everyone, feed them and put something in our pockets.”

The rector of one of the Moscow churches, Archpriest Alexy, spoke about the origins of this tradition. “If a bishop comes to a parish, then it is a big holiday. We honor the bishop as a spiritual father. This is the usual gratitude of the priest. Without a bishop there is no Church. It just has to be that way. Now this is done voluntarily, as far as the parish can afford it.

There is no obligation,” said the clergyman.

It is very difficult to derive the average amount of income of the Moscow Patriarchate from stauropegial monasteries. The Trinity-Sergius Lavra - the largest and richest of them, which has its own farm and is located near Moscow - attracts many tourists.

Other monasteries probably cannot contribute such large sums to the MP. If we assume that of the 33 monasteries, half contribute approximately half a million rubles a year, and the other a million, then the Patriarchate receives about 25 million rubles annually.

In general, according to a rough estimate, all Moscow churches and stauropegic monasteries annually replenish the “patriarch’s fund” by 400 million rubles. Money arrives every month through vicariates in the administrative districts of Moscow to the Financial and Economic Administration (FHU) of the Moscow Patriarchate. There the funds are processed and then deposited into bank accounts. A few years ago they were stored in Sofrino

and
"Peresvet"
. Today, VTB Bank is listed on the FHU website in the “Details” section.

Candles and patriarchal wine

A significant line of income of the Russian Orthodox Church is the profit received by enterprises belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate.
According to the SPARK-Interfax system, in 2021 the turnover of the Danilovskaya Hotel at MP amounted to 102 million rubles, profit - about 4.4 million, the company paid 877 thousand rubles in taxes. The patriarchal publishing house has a turnover of 40 million, a profit of 278 thousand rubles, and paid taxes of 75 thousand rubles.

The turnover of the Sofrino church enterprise, which produces utensils, icons and candles, is two billion, but at the end of the year it showed a loss of 40 million.

Moreover, in 2015 its turnover was almost three billion rubles.

Sofrino's only reliable source of income is the sale of candles, which all churches constantly order. However, there is still not enough money to maintain an enterprise with expensive gilding equipment. According to Vsevolod Chaplin, profits are falling due to the fact that parishioners are buying less and less church utensils and icons - most already have them. And churches purchase them once.

“In addition, China now produces cheap utensils for all faiths, Chinese manufacturers have entered the Russian market,” Father Vsevolod complained.

Now the Moscow Patriarchate is creating a new enterprise: the Mezyb winery in the village of Divnomorskoye, next to the residence of Patriarch Kirill. According to the SPARK-Interfax system, the co-owners of the farm are FHU MP and Sofrino.

The media wrote that the company was going to produce classic dry wines from popular grape varieties and sell them under the Mezyb brand. According to the patriarch’s press secretary, Alexander Volkov, the Russian Orthodox Church will use the experience of Catholics: “I don’t think it will be a mass market. It will probably be a fairly exclusive wine, like, say, Catholics have papal wines that are difficult to buy.”

In 2021, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin estimated income from church enterprises at 150 million rubles per year. Now, due to the fall in sales of church goods, we are talking, according to him, about 50-100 million rubles.

The total amount of regular revenues to the MP from Moscow parishes, stauropegies, dioceses and church enterprises is about 800 million per year.

"Festive Abbots"

With money raised in various ways, the Moscow Patriarchate maintains its apparatus.
Its main expenses are salaries. According to estimates based on information from Daily Storm sources, the maintenance of all departments and departments costs the Patriarchate approximately 150 million rubles a year. Interesting detail. As one of the Moscow priests told us, the MP used to pay salaries for the entire apparatus from its budget, but now some departments and departments have been transferred to self-sufficiency and they are financed by several Moscow churches. Monthly receipts amount to hundreds of thousands of rubles. One of the churches with a large number of parishioners contributes 300 thousand rubles every month to support the activities of Patriarch Kirill. As the source noted, in these times when donations are scarce, this is a significant amount.

“Patriarch Kirill appointed the heads of departments of the Moscow Patriarchate as rectors of churches. And now the departments are financed by churches, the heads of which have become the rectors of the departments. They were shoved all over Moscow, and the parishes howled: there is nothing to feed their staff, but here they have to give large sums to a person who appears in the church only on holidays,” said an interlocutor in the leadership of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra.

There are other examples of how the MP gets out of the situation. The Department of Social Service and Charity is supported by sponsors, paying staff from regular donations.

Patriarch

Maintaining and ensuring the activities of the patriarch is one of the most important tasks of the Moscow Patriarchate.
In addition to holding festive services, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church often meets with government officials from Russia and other countries, as well as with clergy of other faiths. The patriarch has residences for these meetings. The media most often writes about the cost of their construction, but what is more interesting is that the Church considers investments in the decoration of residences to be politically important and justified.

“Patriarch Kirill needs a good residence, and maybe several. Where one could receive the head of the Orthodox state, a rabbi or a mufti. And then they won’t blame us for being a small organization that cannot adequately welcome a distinguished guest, and therefore is not worthy of attention and respect. Otherwise, then the patriarch will have to sit in their reception room and seek their favor,” said Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin.

The patriarch has at least three residences: in Peredelkino, in Divnomorsk near Gelendzhik

- The spiritual and educational center of the Russian Orthodox Church in the south of Russia - and in the St. Daniel Monastery.

“They are designed as farmsteads, but in essence they are residences,” says an interlocutor at the Russian Orthodox Church.

In May 2021, The Bell published an article about the construction of a patriarchal residence for 2.8 billion rubles in the city of Pushkino. True, the customer was the state: the presidential administration. But later the press service of the Patriarchate denied information about the construction of the residence, saying that members of the Holy Synod would be housed there, and only one or two rooms were intended for the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church.

A source in the Russian Orthodox Church told the publication that he is aware of some expenses for the personal needs of Patriarch Kirill. He noted the following: “The money is spent on maintaining the residences. Well, to support the family: sister, sister’s relatives and others. His sister lives well. They try not to mess with her and please her as much as possible.”

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said on this occasion that close relatives of Patriarch Kirill “cannot use church funds uncontrollably.”

Reptilian fund and “rainy day nest egg”

The Moscow Patriarchate also has other important, frankly speaking, political tasks.
The Patriarchate is actively engaged in church diplomacy. This, naturally, requires costs. For example, the expenses of the Russian Orthodox Church on foreign missions - dioceses in other countries and various public organizations, of which there are approximately 20-30 - amount to about 100-200 million rubles annually. The salaries of church diplomats are not everything.

In the Russian Orthodox Church, as a source in church circles said, a so-called reptilian fund was created - an analogue of the fund in the royal secret police, from which money was paid to the press and officials for loyalty to the royal court. Likewise, the Russian Orthodox Church has a fund to finance the loyalty of foreign officials and representatives of other local churches and denominations.

The interlocutor suggested that part of this fund is used to pay for the costs of resolving the conflict with the Patriarchate of Constantinople after the creation of the autocephalous local Orthodox Church (OCU) in Ukraine. The Patriarchate of Constantinople issued a tomos of autocephaly to Kyiv, which provoked a conflict with the Russian Orthodox Church. By the way, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate, is self-sufficient; it does not receive money from Russia and does not send it to Moscow.

“I admit that very expensive gifts can be made to foreign officials and Orthodox hierarchs. But I don't think there is any special fund. Many items of church utensils that were donated to foreigners were provided by Sofrino, which produces them itself,” Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin commented on the source’s information.

Also, according to sources, the Russian Orthodox Church is putting aside some of its available funds in a “stash.”

After all, over the hundreds of years of its existence, the Church has faced both periods of loyal attitude towards itself on the part of the authorities, and persecution.

Commenting on the information about the “stash,” Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said that he was not sure of its existence, but recalled the bursting of the Sofrino and Peresvet banks. “Much of what was stored there is now lost,” the priest noted.

Charity of the Moscow Patriarchate

Patriarch Kirill’s report for 2021 states that funds collected from Moscow parishes and stavropegic monasteries financed four educational institutions of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Moscow Clinical Hospital of St. Alexis, the Spas TV channel, and partly a program to support the construction of churches in the Russian capital.
Educational institutions are the Moscow and St. Petersburg Theological Academies, as well as the Sretenskaya and Moscow Theological Seminaries. In 2021, the budget of the Moscow Theological Academy (MDA) amounted to about 200 million rubles. As Deacon Andrei Kuraev

, the educational institution is financed 50% from the patriarchate budget, and the remaining half is traditionally provided by sponsors. MDA is the largest Orthodox educational institution in Russia. The report also states that in 2021, 142 clergy with many children received assistance totaling about three million rubles.

The Patriarchate has created a Fund to support the construction of churches in Moscow, which is engaged in the construction of churches, but it is financed from funds received from philanthropists. As we found out, this organization mainly helps with the development of project documentation, and the money for the construction itself is raised by the future rectors of the churches. The Patriarchate does not participate in the creation of all churches, helping only where sponsors could not be found.

According to the SPARK-Interfax system, in 2021 the Fund for Support of the Construction of Temples in Moscow received 194 million rubles in contributions. He spent 182 million on charitable activities, three million went on employee salaries. The head of the fund is the head of the FHU, Metropolitan of Vologda and Kirillov Ignatius (Deputies).

The patriarch's report states that in 2018 there were 365 social workers in the capital's parishes. Of these, 56% are full-time salaried employees (one third are clergy), 44% are volunteers or non-staff employees. In 2021, 72 new own social services were created. Among the most common types of parish social service are the organization of volunteer charity groups, clothing collection and distribution points, family assistance services, and parish counseling. In total, in 2018, 1,017 charitable organizations operated at Moscow churches.

In Moscow in 2021, there were four canteens for the homeless and a mobile bus for the Helper and Patron charity foundation, which provided assistance to approximately 2,200 people in need every month. Seventy-six priests worked in eight Moscow pre-trial detention centers, supporting detainees and providing them with books, clothing and other assistance. On church holidays, the prisoners received gifts from them.

In 2021, the “Program of Assistance to Clergy with Many Children” was implemented for the first time. It included payments at the beginning of the school year - five thousand rubles for each student from seven to 18 years old. Aid totaling 2.43 million was provided to 142 priests. Also, 133 people received it from parishes for total amounts of 866.7 thousand rubles (monthly payments) and 1.35 million rubles (one-time payments). This list includes payments to Church servants at the birth of a child; the Patriarchate allocated 510 thousand rubles for this.

Live within your means

Considering the complexity of the organization and the volume of the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church, it becomes clear why there is no federal church budget.
The Moscow Patriarchate monitors only its income from dioceses, Moscow parishes and stauropegic monasteries, but is not able to track all donations. The Church is not a financial institution, so it does not see the need to create a centralized financial system. There are only diocesan fees, and the Patriarchate does not interfere in how dioceses spend free funds. As a result, most donations are spent on maintaining the temples, otherwise they will soon fall into disrepair.

The Russian Orthodox Church is not a corporation created to make money, said the rector of one of the Moscow churches, Father Alexy: “If the Church wanted to make money, then we would serve services for everyone: atheists, Catholics, and Baptists - as long as they gave money. And so we only perform funeral services for our own baptized Orthodox Christians.”

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin also spoke about the role of money in the life of the Church: “Some believe that the money issue in the Church is the main one. During Soviet times, many people came to the Russian Orthodox Church who were very gifted in commercial matters. If they went into business, then perhaps they would become successful businessmen and be able to amass large fortunes, which they would spend on themselves.

But the very lives of these people show that they did not come to the Church for money. But now this money has become very little. Therefore, it is strange to look for some kind of selfish motivation in the Church. But how the funds are spent is a matter of heightened moral significance.”

According to the archpriest, now a schoolteacher on average earns more than a priest, so the church has ceased to be a place of enrichment.

Not all clergy approve of the secrecy of the financial activities of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Many of them advocate transparency, but do not go against the general church principle of “this is how it is done.” Vsevolod Chaplin believes that it is necessary to return to the practice of publishing expenses and income, as was the case under Patriarch Alexy II. After all, openness will also affect the attitude of millions of Russians towards the Church.

“The main question is what to do. First of all, live within your means. Why not invite several economists and together with them weigh all income and expenses? And then, together with the entire Church - with the clergy and laity, who fill its budget - discuss what funds should be spent on and what should be abandoned,” the archpriest expressed his opinion.

“It is important that every parishioner understands where church funds are spent. It is necessary that people are not treated as fodder, since they are members of the Christian brotherhood,” added Vsevolod Chaplin.

When calculating the income of the Moscow Patriarchate, I did not take into account sponsorship from individuals and legal entities, including state-owned companies, since its volume and regularity are impossible to predict. The Church participates in the life of society and the state allocates money for certain purposes and events that are carried out by the Russian Orthodox Church. Sometimes these are large sums—hundreds of millions of rubles a year. These budget expenditure items are open information.

Chairmen

• Makariy (Daev) (June 20, 1946 - January 13, 1960)
• Stefan (Nikitin) (April 2, 1960 - April 9, 1962)
• Leonid (Polyakov) (April 9, 1962-1963)
• Vladimir Elkhovsky (1963-1968)
• Alexander Solertovsky (1968 - June 25, 1970)
• Leonty (Gudimov) (June 25 - August 25, 1970)
• Seraphim (Nikitin) (August 25, 1970 - July 29, 1974)
• Hermogenes (Orekhov)
  (January 29, 1974 - September 2, 1977) and. O.
• Serapion (Fadeev)
  (May 12, 1984 - June 18, 1985) and. O.
• Methodius (Nemtsov) (June 18, 1985 - October 20, 1988)
• Alexy (Kutepov) (October 20, 1988 - July 20, 1990)
• Victor (Pyankov) (July 20, 1990 - April 21, 1994)
• Matthew Stadnyuk (1994 - October 11, 1996)
• Alexy (Frolov) (October 11, 1996 - February 17, 1997)
• Tikhon (Zaitsev) (March 31, 2009 - July 25, 2014)
• Mark (Golovkov) (July 25, 2014 - February 26, 2019)
• Ignatius (Deputies) (February 26, 2021 - August 25, 2020)
• Paramon (Dove) (August 25, 2021 - April 13, 2021)
• Ilia (Rudnev) (from April 13, 2021)

History[ | ]

The act that preceded the creation of the Economic Administration of the Moscow Patriarchate was the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, signed in 1945 by Stalin, which granted the Moscow Patriarchate, diocesan administrations, monasteries and parishes legal rights to “purchase vehicles, produce church utensils, sell to believers, rent, build and the purchase of houses for church needs... The same Decree allowed the ringing of bells and the planned supply of church communities by the state with the necessary building materials”[1].

On June 20, 1946, by decision of the Holy Synod, the Regulations on Economic Management under the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church were adopted[1].

One of the main tasks of the Economic Administration, in addition to monitoring the financial activities of the Church, was the creation of an enterprise that would produce products necessary for church life: candles, vestments, church items, etc. In addition to organizing the work of the Production Workshops, the competence of the KHOZU included issues of construction and restoration of the Patriarchal residences, monasteries and churches[1].

By the decision of the Holy Synod of February 17, 1997, the department was abolished and its powers were transferred to the Commission on Economic and Humanitarian Affairs[2].

Revived by the determination of the Holy Synod of March 31, 2009. Archimandrite Tikhon (Zaitsev), whom the Synod determined to be the Bishop of Podolsk, vicar of the Moscow Diocese, was appointed Chairman of the revived Financial and Economic Administration of the Moscow Patriarchate[3].

Bishop Tikhon described the functions of the Financial and Economic Administration as follows:

The Financial and Economic Administration has many functions related to the internal life support of the Russian Orthodox Church. If we draw secular parallels, then, in fact, the FHU is the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economy rolled into one. First of all, the FHU helps His Holiness the Patriarch and the Holy Synod to carry out the functions of managing the property of the Russian Orthodox Church. And related to this are issues of taxation and accounting, the formation of a general church budget, construction, restoration, and much more. We also have something like...a budget process, but the model, of course, is not comparable to the secular one. From the beginning of its existence, from the beginning of centuries, the Church existed and exists on donations, so what plans could there be here? Relatively speaking, there is no income plan, but there is an expense plan. And we are trying to organize their financing[4].

Notes

1. ↑ 123
   History | Financial and economic management of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).
2. FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEPARTMENT OF THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHY CREATED
3. JOURNALS of the meeting of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church dated March 31, 2009 / Official documents / Patriarchy.ru
4. Answers of the Chairman of the Financial and Economic Administration of the Moscow Patriarchate, Bishop Tikhon of Podolsk, to questions from visitors to the website of the Synodal Information Department / ...

Financial and economic management of the Moscow Patriarchate

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How the Russian Orthodox Church works

In a special material devoted to the current state of the church, BG studied various aspects of the life of the Russian Orthodox Church - from the economy of parishes and Orthodox art to the life of priests and intra-church dissent. And besides, having interviewed experts, I compiled a brief block diagram of the structure of the Russian Orthodox Church - with the main characters, institutions, groups and philanthropists

Patriarch

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church bears the title “His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'” (but from the point of view of Christian theology, the head of the church is Christ, and the patriarch is the primate). His name is commemorated during the main Orthodox service, the liturgy, in all churches of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Patriarch is de jure accountable to the Local and Bishops' Councils: he is “first among equals” of bishops and governs only the Moscow diocese. De facto, church power is very highly centralized.

The Russian Church was not always headed by a patriarch: there was no patriarch from the baptism of Rus' in 988 until 1589 (governed by the metropolitans of Kiev and Moscow), from 1721 to 1917 (governed by the “Department of Orthodox Confession” - the Synod headed by the chief prosecutor) and from 1925 to 1943.

Synod

The Holy Synod deals with personnel issues - including the election of new bishops and their movement from diocese to diocese, as well as the approval of the composition of the so-called patriarchal commissions dealing with the canonization of saints, matters of monasticism, etc. It is on behalf of the Synod that the main church reform of Patriarch Kirill is carried out - the disaggregation of dioceses: dioceses are divided into smaller ones - it is believed that this way they are easier to manage, and bishops become closer to the people and the clergy.

The Synod convenes several times a year and consists of one and a half dozen metropolitans and bishops. Two of them—the manager of the affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Barsanuphius of Saransk and Mordovia, and the chairman of the Department for External Church Relations, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk—are considered the most influential people in the Patriarchate. The head of the Synod is the patriarch.

Local cathedral

The collegial highest governing body of the church. All layers of the church people are represented in it - delegates from the episcopate, white clergy, monks of both sexes and laity. A local council is called to distinguish it from the Ecumenical Council, at which delegates from all sixteen Orthodox churches of the world should gather to resolve pan-Orthodox issues (however, the Ecumenical Council has not been held since the 14th century). It was believed (and was enshrined in the charter of the church) that it was the local councils that held the highest power in the Russian Orthodox Church; in fact, over the past century, the council was convened only to elect a new patriarch. This practice was finally legalized in the new edition of the charter of the Russian Orthodox Church, adopted in February 2013.

The difference is not just formal: the idea of ​​the Local Council is that the church includes people of different ranks; although they are not equal to each other, they become a church only together. This idea is usually called conciliarity, emphasizing that this is the nature of the Orthodox Church, in contrast to the Catholic Church with its rigid hierarchy. Today this idea is becoming less and less popular.

Bishops' Council

The Congress of all bishops of the Russian Church, which takes place at least once every four years. It is the Council of Bishops that decides all the main church issues. During the three years of Kirill's patriarchate, the number of bishops increased by about a third - today there are about 300 of them. The work of the council begins with the report of the patriarch - this is always the most complete (including statistical) information about the state of affairs in the church. No one is present at the meetings, except for the bishops and a narrow circle of employees of the Patriarchate.

Inter-conciliar presence

A new advisory body, the creation of which became one of the symbols of Patriarch Kirill’s reforms. By design, it is extremely democratic: it includes expert experts from various areas of church life - bishops, priests and laity. There are even a few women. Consists of a presidium and 13 thematic commissions. The Inter-Council Presence prepares draft documents, which are then discussed in the public domain (including in a special community on LiveJournal).

Over the four years of work, the loudest discussions flared up around documents on the Church Slavonic and Russian languages ​​of worship and regulations on monasticism, which encroached on the structure of life of monastic communities.

Supreme Church Council

A new, rather mysterious body of church governance was created in 2011 during the reforms of Patriarch Kirill. This is a kind of church cabinet of ministers: it includes all the heads of synodal departments, committees and commissions, and is headed by the Patriarch of the All-Russian Central Council. The only body of the highest church government (except for the Local Council), in the work of which lay people take part. No one is allowed to attend the meetings of the All-Russian Central Council except members of the council; its decisions are never published and are strictly classified; you can only learn anything about the All-Russian Central Council from the official news on the Patriarchate website. The only public decision of the All-Russian Central Council was a statement after the announcement of the Pussy Riot verdict, in which the church distanced itself from the court decision.

Church-wide court

The church has its own judicial system, it consists of courts of three levels: the diocesan court, the General Church court and the court of the Council of Bishops. It deals with issues that are not within the competence of secular justice, that is, it determines whether the priest’s misconduct entails canonical consequences. Thus, a priest, even if he committed murder through negligence (for example, in a traffic accident), can be acquitted by a secular court, but will have to be defrocked. However, in most cases the matter does not come to court: the ruling bishop applies reprimands (punishments) to the clergy. But if the priest does not agree with the punishment, he can appeal to the General Church Court. It is unknown how these courts proceed: the sessions are always closed, the proceedings and the arguments of the parties, as a rule, are not made public, although the decisions are always published. Often, in a dispute between a bishop and a priest, the court takes the priest’s side.

Under Alexy II, he headed the Administration of the Moscow Patriarchate and was the main rival of Metropolitan Kirill in the election of the patriarch. There are rumors that the Presidential Administration was betting on Kliment and that his connections in circles close to Putin remain. After the defeat, he received control of the publishing council of the patriarchate. Under him, a mandatory publishing council stamp was introduced for books sold in church shops and through church distribution networks. That is, de facto censorship was introduced, and also paid, since publishers pay the council for reviewing their books.

Financial and economic management of the Moscow Patriarchate

Church Ministry of Finance under the leadership of Bishop Tikhon (Zaitsev) of Podolsk; a completely opaque institution. Tikhon is known for creating a system of tariff scales of contributions that churches pay to the patriarchate depending on their status. The bishop’s main brainchild is the so-called “200 churches” program for the urgent construction of two hundred churches in Moscow. Eight of them have already been built, and 15 more are in the near future. For this program, the former first deputy mayor of Moscow, Vladimir Resin, was appointed advisor to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' on construction issues.

Educational Committee

In fact, it is the Ministry of Special Theological Education: it is in charge of theological seminaries and academies. The educational committee is headed by Archbishop Evgeniy (Reshetnikov) of Vereisky, rector of the Moscow Theological Academy. The committee is trying to reach an agreement with the state on the accreditation of theological schools as universities and the transition to the Bologna system - the process is not easy. A recent internal church inspection showed that out of 36 seminaries, only 6 are able to become full-fledged universities. At the same time, Patriarch Kirill, having come to power, forbade the ordination as priests of candidates who had not graduated from the seminary. There are also several universities for lay people in the Russian Orthodox Church. The most famous of them is St. Tikhon's University for the Humanities, where students study to become philologists, historians, theologians, sociologists, art historians, teachers, etc.

He worked for 19 years in the department of Metropolitan Kirill, and before that he worked for Metropolitan Pitirim in the publishing department. He was primarily involved in inter-Christian relations and ecumenism, regularly went on business trips abroad and was involved in a wide variety of church and political circles in the world. In 2009, after zealous participation in the election campaign of Patriarch Kirill, he received a new synodal department - for relations between the church and society. Many expected that Chaplin would be immediately made a bishop, but this did not happen even after 4 years. Chaplin patronizes various social and church-social groups, ranging from the Union of Orthodox Women to bikers. Regularly makes scandalous statements in the media.

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Notes[ | ]

1. ↑ 123
   History | Financial and economic management of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate).
2. FINANCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEPARTMENT OF THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHY CREATED
3. JOURNALS of the meeting of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church dated March 31, 2009 / Official documents / Patriarchy.ru
4. Answers of the Chairman of the Financial and Economic Administration of the Moscow Patriarchate, Bishop Tikhon of Podolsk, to questions from visitors to the website of the Synodal Information Department / ...

Chairmen[ | ]

• Makariy (Daev) (June 20, 1946 - January 13, 1960)
• Stefan (Nikitin) (April 2, 1960 - April 9, 1962)
• Leonid (Polyakov) (April 9, 1962-1963)
• Vladimir Elkhovsky (1963-1968)
• Alexander Solertovsky (1968 - June 25, 1970)
• Leonty (Gudimov) (June 25 - August 25, 1970)
• Seraphim (Nikitin) (August 25, 1970 - July 29, 1974)
• Hermogenes (Orekhov)
  (January 29, 1974 - September 2, 1977) and. O.
• Serapion (Fadeev)
  (May 12, 1984 - June 18, 1985) and. O.
• Methodius (Nemtsov) (June 18, 1985 - October 20, 1988)
• Alexy (Kutepov) (October 20, 1988 - July 20, 1990)
• Victor (Pyankov) (July 20, 1990 - April 21, 1994)
• Matthew Stadnyuk (1994 - October 11, 1996)
• Alexy (Frolov) (October 11, 1996 - February 17, 1997)
• Tikhon (Zaitsev) (March 31, 2009 - July 25, 2014)
• Mark (Golovkov) (July 25, 2014 - February 26, 2019)
• Ignatius (Deputies) (February 26, 2021 - August 25, 2020)
• Paramon (Dove) (August 25, 2021 - April 13, 2021)
• Ilia (Rudnev) (from April 13, 2021)