Музей форума дьякона Кураева (1999 - 2006)

Ниже следует копия сообщения еп. Тихона Сан-Франциского (ОСА), опубликованного им на форуме университета Индиана. I first became aware of this character when, over fifteen years ago, I bought the large, beautiful “coffee-table” book called, “The Orthodox Church in Russia: A Millennial Celebration:, published by the Vendome Press in New York and Paris, and first published by Thames and Hudson, Ltd., London, Distributed in America by Vendome and Viking presses. It is full of beautiful color photography, the work of Fred Mayer. It portrays all aspects of Russian Church life. The book is approximately 10x13x1 inches. ”Page 167“ is actually a two page spread, and its caption is ”Archimandrite Valentin in Suzdal is an energetic parish priest. A collector of church antiques, he is, however, best known as an expert in the old Russian cuisine.“ That's just what he looks like in the picture: he's almost an icon of a classic type: the Priest who is ****best known” for cuisine (monastic, no less--Archimandrite, no less). In the picture you see the interior of a Russian “Izba”. There are a couple men in podriassniks standing at a well-laden table full of various zakuski/appetizers and lots and lots of those red/black/gold enameled cups, dishes, ladles. The more prominent of the two men, the fatter of them, is holding an enameled tray, on which is a silver tray containing nine cup-like vessels. His podriassnik is a rich royal blue and he has a very shiny, wide leather belt. His moustache and beard are neatly trimmed. To me, when I first beheld the picture, he looks like an wonderful illustration for either Krokodil, the humorous Communist periodical or for an exhibit in the Anti-religious museum. It is a picture of what can only be described as the ideal of antireligious propagandists, who teach that the clergy exploit the laborers. If one wanted to make a movie and demonstrate the very worst side of the Russian Church today or yesterday, say, one would pick this picture out of an agent's folio as the ideal character actor to depict that. Central Casting would probably have it in their files under “Corrupt Clergy.” Well, this picture was taken at the height of the rather baroque, morally speaking, Brezhnev era, when even so-called “Soviet morality” was breaking down. I have to admit it always made me uncomfortable, since I have always tended to idealize the Russian Church. I would ordinarily have liked to share the book with my non-Orthodox family members and friends, but the idea of them spotting that picture and the comments they might have made always discomfited me. It was only two months ago, however, when someone mentioned that “Archbishop” Valentin of Suzdal was in a big book about the Russian Church that I made the connection. I had not remembered the name in the book at all and when I got home I got out my book off the shelf and--“It's him!” Well, after the time of Gorbachev, “Glasnost,” etc., there were some personages in the Church in Russia that must have felt quite alienated. I think that this Archimandrite Valentin and that Metropolitan Philaret were probably two of the most alienated. When the Patriarch Aleksi launched into a massive campaign, still going on, to try to restore morality and true (that is, Russian Orthodox) values to Russian society, and probity to the Church, two of the first to go were those two. Interesting how similar their fates! They were like fish out of water in the new climate where the real Christianity was not just tolerated but preferred. Valentin was suspended, and while he was under suspension he was able to present a convincing case to some leaders of ROCOR that he was being persecuted by Sergianists and was himself a hero of the Catacomb Church! What an idea! ROCOR received him and made him a Bishop. It was only a short time before they realized what kind of viper they had taken to their bosom, and he was deposed by ROCOR. From that time, with a power base among the diehards of the “old establishment” he has carved out a twilight career of sorts by depicting himself as the last of the righteous, persecuted by the corrupt. He designated himself as “Autonomous”, only thing, he did not designate, as the head of an autonomous Church, which Church it was that had to confirm the naming of a Metropolitan. This is autonomy as fiction. It is a new Valentianism, not Orthodox, not even Christian. Probably Nikolai Kearney is very close to being “on the mark” with his assessment of Valentin's role in the recent and continuing troubles within ROCOR. What a fantasy the Hierophant Valentin came up with in his message: Metropolitan Vitaly on the street without a PODRIASSNIK! That means shirtsleeves and trousers! That is typical of the trash that such as he excretes and that is bruited and copyrighted by long time internal enemies of ROCOR who will accept no image of an ideal ROCOR save their own perverted one. I believe that that woman that kept Metropolitan Vitaly medicated and in the process seems to have whispered paranoia-inspiring gossip in his aging ears, his jail-keeper, so to speak, may be responsible for this bit of lying gossip. Metropolitan Vitaly has no sooner issued and signed (while free of medications, apparently) a peaceful and appropriate greeting to the new First Hierarch, when, Guess What! There's another document signed by him that says the opposite and even goes so far as to name Varnava as his successor: a highly dubious and uncanonical act. Who is Valentin? God only knows, but I think one might sum him up in Russian: “Takoj tip!” God be with him, and Philaret, too. Love, +Bishop Tikhon We read that Metropolitan Anastassy “designated” Metropolitan Philaret to be his successor (an idea obviously the product of Suzdalian imaginations and vain thoughts), when it is widely known in America that the ROCOR hierarchs were deeply divided between two candidates, one of them, I believe, St. John, and, in order to arrive at a solution that both sides could accept it was agreed to simply pick the youngest one, who had had no votes at all: Philaret. It is satisfying, I admit, though, to see that those who pretended to be appalled that the “usurpers” were planning on the unheard of, to have a new First Hierarch while the old one was still alive, have had to come around and implicitly admit that “been there: done that” applies: Metropolitan Philaret served as First Hierarch while Metropolitan Anastassy was still with us.