Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 06:28:26 -0400
Reply-To: Orthodox Christianity <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Orthodox Christianity <[log in to unmask]>
From: Michael Brereton <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: State Duma Deputy warns ROCOR Church
Content-Type: text/plain
State Duma deputy urges Russian Church Outside Russia not to doom itself to
role of 'ethnographic museum of gone civilization'
Moscow, May 2, Interfax - Natalia Narochnitskaya, a State Duma deputy and
well-known historian, suggests that the Russian Church Outside Russia cast
away doubts as to the advisability of restoring unity with the Moscow
Patriarchate.
'Today's doubts are like temptations endured by a person who wants to adopt
baptism but the enemy of humankind whispers into his ear: Wait, you are not
ready; don't do it today but tomorrow!' Narochnitskaya writes in her article
published in Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
However, she continues, there may no tomorrow. 'At a time when all the
forces in the world have united to prevent Russia from restoring her
national and religious identity, Russian people cannot understand the virtue
and 'truth' of a Church which cannot put away the secondary things and,
instead of offering an embrace, asks to meet a bill.'
'What kind of faith is it if there is no all-forgiving love in it; what kind
of Orthodox are those who try to see the mote in a neighbor's eye; what kind
of love of Russia is it if it looks more like admiration for itself rather
than for Russia?' the author of the article asks.
She draws the attention of hesitant pastors and laity of the Russian Church
outside Russia to the fact that today when 'Christian Europe has surrendered
without resistance and is going away, it is post-Soviet Russia alone,
however paradoxically it may seem, that is revolting'.
According to Narochnitskaya, 'it is sad to read those lay emigrants who,
shutting themselves away in a ivory tower, endlessly reproduce and transfer
to today's Russia and Russians the notions of 'the cursed days' and demons
of the 1920s. One should probably isolate oneself from reality intentionally
and refuse to change anything in it to fail to see how different today's
Russians, Russia and her much-suffering Church are from the idea of them
drawn up from antiquated cliches.
'To reject with pride an superiority a hand offered today, to repel the
hopes of Russian people who await the reunification of the family with
sinking hearts and a children's unreasoning joy would be a blow on Russia,
the more so that it comes not from an enemy but from a brother. It will by
an irremediable insult to the most sincere feelings of millions of people
who have admired the feat of the Church Outside Russia but have not even
suspected their own Russian brothers abroad to treat them with such
disdain', the author of the article believes.
In this connection, Narochnitskaya asks the question: 'Will such a rejection
devalue the feat once performed by the Russian emigres who have preserved
their Russian nature and faith in foreign lands and who preserved in their
hearts 'the Russia we have lost' and remained committed to it in their love
and faith?'
Do not then lose forever the true Russia which has survived through
suffering and is now in a search', she adds urging the Russian Church
Outside Russia not to doom itself to 'the role of an ethnographic museum of
the gone civilization, to a reservation existence outside the theme of
Russia and Russians in world history'.
St. George Broadcasting
www.stgeorgebroadcasting.com
