The Glory of "Holy Russia"

Images and text copied from the Voices from Russia blog.

Metropolitan Hilarion Kapral of New York of the ROCOR has taken the Kursk Root Icon to Russia. Look at the size of the crowd for the procession! There are THOUSANDS present! There are more people here than there are in most American Orthodox archdioceses… reflect on that and understand why all those who bloviate concerning “American Orthodoxy” are all wet. This humbles one… these people had many options… watch TV, listen to the radio, visit friends, go to work, read, go to the shopping mall, or potter at the dacha… instead, they are HERE. Make no more sarcastic and condescending comments about the Church in Russia until you can muster a crowd of THIS size. WOW!!!

Patriarch Kirill Gundyaev (1946- ) of Moscow and all the Russias, the de facto spiritual head of the Orthodox Church, at the procession. Russia is the centre of Orthodox civilisation, being the largest, strongest, and most influential Orthodox state. Therefore, it is no surprise that Vladyki Kirill is the leading hierarch of the Church throughout the world. Numbers do speak… There are more people here present than there are on the entire legitimate canonical territory of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Istanbul… ponder that… it tells us something, no?

I quoted the text above completely without editing, so that my Orthodox brethren and other Christians can see where the Russian Orthodox Church is headed.

There was another news article reporting on the return of the famous Kursk ikon to Russia. It was this article that prompted my response as a comment on Fr Milovan's blog:

Holy Russia, hmm, well, as a historian and an Orthodox Christian, I know much of what that implies. For one, a big, very big country, the biggest in fact as far as size goes, and one that had an Orthodox emperor, just like the old Byzantine state, a fatherly, semi-divine protector of the poor and innocent, and defender and promoter of the Church. For another, a land of immense plains and forests filled with a crowd of hard-working, industrious peasants of simple but immovable faith, worshipping the Lord with thousands of self-crossings and prostrations, the lighting of thousands of candles daily, crowds, crowds of the pious and God-fearing Christians…

So, the ikon of the Mother of God, the miraculous, the not-made-by-hands, returns to its homeland finally, like an exiled queen after the defeat of her enemies, and is greeted by crowds, crowds of the pious God-fearing Christians…

Where were these Christians when the ikon was still overseas in safety? Were they in hiding just as she was, waiting for the opportune and safe moment to come out? Where were these crowds when Holy Russia was being trampled under the feet of Godless criminals? Would there have been enough bullies and bandits to keep a crowd this big in check? Would there have been enough bullets to slay them all and put Holy Russia forever under the earth, just a memory in the pages of history?

As long as the crowds that greeted Jesus with hosannas on His entry into Jerusalem dissipate or, even worse, become the crowd that cried out, “Crucify him!” there will be no “kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,” and possibly no “Holy Russia” in reality.

Let’s not be blinded by our “devotion” to the Mother of God and the saints, and following Metropolitan Hilarion’s “call on all believers to come to the Church and adore the icon” imagine that this has anything other than ceremonial significance. Yes, it is a historic moment. It does signify what they say it signifies, a kind of “peace” in the Russian Church at large, at home and abroad.

It does certainly give the Orthodox believers of whatever level of commitment and faith a feeling of solidarity. All these things can lead to real faith, if real faith is desired. They can also lead to a whole menagerie of other things, some of them not so praiseworthy or Christian. The “imperial church” has not always been a friend to believers, neither has the “imperial state.”

As glorious as the ikon of Saint George slaying the dragon appears, when you venerate the ikon, which do you kiss, the saint, or the dragon?

This comment elicited a mild rebuke from a Russian Orthodox woman, which can be read at Fr Milovan's original post, to which I also responded, trying to affirm that it was not my intention to be condescending in my comment above. As people who know me will also know where I am coming from, my comment probably needs no further explanations from me. The warning implicit in what I wrote is only this: Crowds can mean many things, and neither numbers nor a show of strength matters. What matters is faith. Let's see what this crowd, or any other, does for Christ. I hope, as always, for the best.

Da, moya shestra Vara, slava Yisusu Kristu, slava Bogu!