Putin Awarded
24/3/2011
Russia’s PM Vladimir Putin was awarded on Wednesday the Serbian Orthodox Church’s highest distinction – the Order of St. Savva, which was handed him by Patriarch Irinej.
Thousands of believers gathered inside and outside the country’s biggest cathedral in Belgrade where the ceremony was held welcomed the Russian Prime Minister.
Earlier in the day Vladimir Putin met with Serbia’s President Boris Tadic and Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic to discuss a wide range of bilateral and international issues.
As Orthodox priest and believer I really cannot understand why this man is so highly estimated in certain circles of our Holy Church. Being a former member of the Soviet KGB which was known by its repressive measures against the Orthodox Church he now seemingly pretend to be a kind of “convert”. In nowadays´ Russia there have been in the course of the last years some tendencies to revitalize the principle of “symphonia” between Church and state known already from the Byzantine Empire and the Tsardom of Russia. I am very well aware that these ideas are popular among a quite great part of the hierarchy who wants to provide a greater influence of the Orthodox Church in the Russian society.
There are even those who think that Putin enabled a kind of “Orthodox renaissance” but at the same time they are blind concerning the possible consequences – the Church being held hostage by the political system ! It cannot be denied that there are once again dangerous tendencies to link Orthodoxy with national and political interests (this being a kind of heresy called “Phyletism” and condemned by the Church already in 1872) which can be very harmful for the Church´s mission. It is also known that nowadays in Serbia there are certain influential movements promoting ideas which could be summarized as “Orthodox Russophilism” – according to their worldview it is necessary that the Orthodox brothers (Russians and Serbians) would combat everything which is “liberal” and “European”. For them the only rescue is a close relationship with all those who are seemingly opposed to “unorthodox” tendencies in society by appreciating values which in reality are not that much characterized by their religious or spiritual dimensions but more or less by a distinct nationally orientated exclusiveness.
Concerning Orthodoxy´s further development I really think that it would be necessary to differentiate even more between national claims and the Church´s very essence as theanthropic organism. The mingling of these concepts can only be contraproductive to the Church´s witness to the world.
This news makes me feel physically sick.