I am now aware of the heated Russia debate within the blogosphere and the division of participants into roughly two camps, the Russophobes on one side and the Russophiles on the other. The former obtaining their information from an incessant western media diatribe, the latter basically trying to refute their claims and set the record straight. I had a feeling this debate would exist from reading Czech discussion boards but had a unique experience with it first hand when I was doing a fieldwork in two of London's Russian parishes.

Namely the Cathedral of the Dormition of Mother of God and All Saints of the Diocese of Sourozh (Moscow Patriarchate) and The Parish of the Dormition belonging to the Archdiocese of Parishes of the Russian Tradition in Western Europe (Ecumenical Patriarchate, Constantinople), a group that came about in the Russian emigration as a reaction to oppression of the Church in Russia in the 1930's, it is also known as Rue Daru after a Parisian street where its central cathedral is located. I was gathering information about the circumstances that have led to the creation of the Rue Daru parish in 2006 when a group of clergy and parishioners decided their unique religious experience was challenged by a large wave of post-communist Russian immigrants. The people that left claim they were forced to abandon the cathedral under pressure. The issue is very complex but small history of the community and the events surrounding the schism is nevertheless quite an interesting excursion to the contemporary Russia debate.

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When the future founder of the Diocese of Sourozh Metropolitan Anthony came as a priest to London from France after the Second World War he found a fledging community of elderly women. Their children and grandchildren were all pretty much Anglicized with no interest in religion of their grandparents. Most of the Russians went to the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA) parish which still exists in London today. The ROCA was another emigrant group, established quite early after the Communist coup in 1922 in Sremske Karlovce, Yugoslavia and had a hard line conservative membership. Reviving his community, Metropolitan Anthony took the path of compromise. The practices were very relaxed in some points. He did not insist on obligatory confession before communion, the frequency of communion was greater than the norm, the services tended to be more abbreviated to what you would find in an average Church in Russia but he insisted on people attending them in full, allowed women to wear trousers and did not insist on headscarves, English slowly replaced Russian and Slavonic as the language of liturgy and sermons, also according to one of my informants there even was milk in tea on fast days. With nobody to effectively criticize these practices, the Church in Russia sundered from Sourozh by the Channel and Iron Curtain, the diocese developed in virtual isolation.

One parishioner told me their ethos was more intellectual and in 'keeping with our present century'. Father Andrew Phillips of ROCA writes in his an article Russian traditions without Russian Orthodox Faith; from 2006 about the character of this liberal clique dismissive of everything and everyone who was 'too Orthodox' and not in line with their goal of blending Western Secular Humanism with Orthodoxy. I was told by a parishioner of the Rue Daru that their church was a 'Living Church' a term in fact first used for a short lived attempt to combine Orthodoxy with Marxism after the 1917 revolution. As she clearly had a White (contra-revolutionary) background it is hard to imagine her making such a blunder without meaning precisely the ideology Father Andrew is telling us about. Several people mentioned that there developed around Metropolitan Anthony a group of liberal minded intellectuals, who essentially held Metropolitan Anthony captive. Specifically mentioned were Bishop Basil, Father John Lee, Father Sergei Hackel, Father Alexander Fostiropoulos and Irina Kirillova, all people on the diocesan council.

The intellectual club was up for rude awakening when following the collapse of the Soviet Union people from Russia began arriving in vast numbers. Many came to the church looking for a place to meet their own compatriots with little or no interest in taking a part in worship unlike the previous congregation which was drawn by serious devotion and often attracted by Metropolitan Anthony's charismatic presence. It was mentioned to me that the old time parishioners never assigned too much importance to the fact that this was a church belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate. The sheer numbers of new arrivals made the once peaceful and amicable atmosphere a little dense. An article by the Mystery Worshiper on Sourozh website gives a rare glimpse into how hectic things were in the cathedral back in 1998.

To counter this situation Metropolitan Anthony several times requested Hilarion, an Oxford educated theologian to come to Britain and help with the growing number of Russians. Bishop Anatoly whose job it was until then, was going into retirement. Hilarion was consecrated a Bishop in Moscow in 2002 as the youngest hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church. His youth was making the graying squad in Sourozh nervous. Rumours began to circulate that he came from Moscow with instructions to undermine Metropolitan Anthony's authority, make an audit of the diocesan property and then take Metropolitan Anthony's place. The last one was the most scary because people around Bishop Basil expected him to lead the diocese after Metropolitan Anthony, already old and frail, would go into retirement.

It is unclear what the truth behind this affair really is. Bishop Hilarion claimed he had been pushed around by Bishop Basil and his clique. He says he had been criticised for talking exclusively to Russians in the cathedral and not paying enough attention to other nationalities. He countered that by saying, Russians make up the majority of parishioners in the London cathedral (he came as bishop to help with the Russian flock in the end). He visited provincial parishes, many of which had no episcopal visit in years and was accused of creating a divide between London and the rest of the parishes, because the conditions in the parishes were not good. Apart from pastoral duties clergy there had to do other jobs and felt overworked, Bishop Hilarion gave them his support. According to Bishop Hilarion, Bishop Anatoly received a similar treatment. Anatoly lived in a damp basement flat with a salary several times lower (£260/Month in London!) in contrast with the senior clergy (£1200/Month) and had to come to the cathedral by foot.

This was the first major unrest in Sourozh and it ended in Bishop Hilarion leaving the diocese and Bishop Anatoly reinstated. At this time a parishioner Adrian Dean, his Russian wife Tanya, and Lyuba Alieva were worried about elements around Bishop Basil wishing to go under the Rue Daru. They petitioned Metropolitan Anthony about reconsidering his retirement which was rather untimely given his age. They said that appointment of Bishop Basil would be going against the democratic statutes of the diocese according to which the bishop should be elected by all members of the diocese. They also said that in 10 years in office as an Assistant Bishop, Basil did not open a single parish and did nothing to alleviate the situation in the diocese. 

According to a commission which investigated the 2006 schism, there was an unsuccessful attempt in 2002 to change the way in which the property of parishes were administered by removing control from the hands of the Parish Council to an unelected committee of Trustees of the Parish. This was said to ease a potential transfer to another jurisdiction. Indeed at the time of the Hilarion affair there was already talk of schism. One informant told me that Bishop Basil was planning this for a long time, from another source, although the information is unconfirmed, he contemplated the possibility of going to Rue Daru already in the 80's.

Metropolitan Anthony died in 2003 and things calmed for a bit, they erupted again in 2005 when a priest invited from Russia Father Andrei Teterin said in a speech delivered on the meeting of Russian Christian Movement  that Christians of the diocese should be loyal to the authorities of their jurisdiction (i.e. Moscow) and the movement should have the word 'Orthodox' in its name. He was striking a sensitive ground, whether willingly or not is an open question. For a long time the allegiance to Moscow was perceived as uncomfortable, many have said the organisation has links to Russian nationalism, is anti-Semitic, has uncomfortably close relations with the state etc.

Many Russians on the other hand in the diocese were critical of the leadership and practices in Sourozh. They would tell women to put on a headscarf, demanded confessions before communion for which there were not enough Russian priests (I found some UGC saying Bishop Anatoly was forced to do a 'quick', 'public' confession and was accused by one English parishioner not used to such things of hold up) and criticised the excessive usage of English in the liturgy and the sermons (they all knew English to a point but listening to religious themes really requires higher levels; on a completely different occasion I asked one Russian about the parishes he goes to, he replied saying he prefers places where they speak Russian because he does not understand English well enough).

Father Andrei was not quite sane I was told and there is a lot of evidence to corroborate that claim, he exchanged correspondence of disrespectful nature with his superior, Bishop Basil. He also wrote to Metropolitan Kirill (then head of the Department of Church Relations [DECR], now Patriarch of All Russia), Archbishop Innokenty in Paris and the Russian Ambassador criticising the practices of the diocese. This was taken by Bishop Basil as a threat to his authority and Father Andrei was dismissed from duty and banished from the cathedral, latter which is in fact uncanonical. After his ban a group of his supporters, a small one (209) according to Xenia Dennen's article on opendemocracy (in fact in the words of Bishop Basil's supporters dissent is always small, Bishop Hilarion also had a small group of supporters according to Gillian Crow's biography of Metropolitan Anthony, it is a mystery why dissent always created panic on their part) gathered signatures under a letter sent to Metropolitan Kirill and Patriarch Alexi defending Father Andrei, they said he preached 'strict canonical tradition'. No wonder after seeing how liberalised the practices in Sourozh were. Father Andrei was reinstated in January 2006, after a call from DECR, which was interpreted by Bishop Basil's clique as Father Andrei having protection on the high. Again one must wonder if such a heavy handed and uncanonical response to criticism on the part of Bishop Basil did not invite such a decision from DECR? Father Andrei however did not stop criticising Bishop Basil and was deposed in March. 

After that supporters of Father Andrei were campaigning on the net, basically chatting on discussion boards and passing out petitions. Father Andrei in one harsh post called the clique around Bishop Basil a Russophobic sect and schismatics, he added: 'Sourozh rots and Moscow marches forth'. He was right on all accounts but they way he put it must have sent shivers down the spines of Bishop Basil's supporters who had inherited distrust of Moscow from the Cold War times. Bishop Basil was growing nervous at this time, the dissenters on the parish council were expelled, it was alleged by the commission that this was done so in order to ease the voting on transfer to another jurisdiction, something Xenia's article misses out. A small group does not need to be barred from the voting process. Transfer to Rue Daru apparently won a majority in Bishop Basil's own parish in Oxford. One only wonders on the techniques of censorship some proud democrats are willing to use when championing their cause.

Of course people who were expelled did not like the fact, went on strike and staged demonstrations in front of the church. Bishop Basil asked Metropolitan Kirill whether these people had been supported by the DECR, for which he received no answer. Also he claimed Bishop Anatoly was not helping him quell the dissent, no wonder after the treatment he received. Metropolitan Kirill wished to see a full report from the place before he took any actions, he sent Father Mikhail Dudko to investigate. One Rue Daru parishioner was enraged that an uninvited priest would be sent from Moscow. Father Mikhail did not speak to people recommended by Bishop Basil allegedly, these people were Father John Lee, Irina Kirilova and Alexander Fostiropoulos, Bishop Basil's inner circle simply. The commission report says this does not correspond to reality. It is rumoured Father Mikhail said 'it was time to make Sourozh into a normal Russian diocese'. That was in sources from 2006, in 2009 Xenia Dennen added the words 'Sourozh must be brought on its knees'. Well Sourozh is not a normal Russian diocese today, its congregation is multi-ethnic, multiracial and multilingual (the sermons are in fact are held both in Russian and English unlike in the Rue Daru parish) place, all the qualities the Rue Daru people would like to claim for themselves. It is also alive and well although Xenia would like to see this event as 'death knell of Russian Orthodoxy in Britain'. Anyway Father Mikhail's words are cited as the reason why Bishop Basil decided to leave Moscow Patriarchate and move under the wings of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople because he could no longer continue the way he did under Moscow.

Interestingly enough a battle is raging over diocesan property which spawned a nice showcase of contemporary Russophobia. Xenia's article is one of the more recent additions to the debate speaking about bad Russians in leather jackets elbowing their way through the church. It also quotes Peter Scorer saying the diocese became an embarrassment to the Moscow Patriarchate which is beset by clericalism. Sourozh to them was an oasis of freedom that could not be tolerated and was snuffed out. An oasis of freedom where slanderous accusations and rumours fly, Russophobia reigns and people are expelled from the parish council for voicing disappointment? A soul is forbidden to enter the Church, even if it is critical of the leadership? It is also interesting how plans to bring clergy could be worked out in 2005 when the crisis was present for more than a decade. That is really beyond my comprehension.

Further discoveries in the depths of the www

First article I came across in my research was a piece by Paul Valley in the Independent with a grandiose title The battle over Britain's Orthodox Church, the content is not so epic however (a deconstruction is here). Apart from the absolutely irrelevant politics already tackled in the deconstruction there are some really nasty and outrageous things in that article.

"The Russo faction began to petition Moscow for reform to press the original community to become more Russian"

Well this is nice, but the Russians made up a majority of people and a Church that does not cater to its  target group is a failure. In reality the discussion was not so much about ethnicity as they would have us believe but about correctness of worship (i.e. Orthodoxy).

Concerning an incident which occurred in 2001 when a crumbling Church in Manchester was saved by Deripaska's money on condition the party guilty of mismanagement would in the future have no say in its matters is commented by Karin Greenhead comments: '...we didn't understand what was happening'. That they were out of touch with much of the things going on in the diocese certainly is true.

And the most vile of them all. According to Rue Daru people the commission of inquiry sent by Metropolitan Kirill were 'vulgar peasants used to pushing people around' (images of vulgar peasants are favourite amongst the Russophobes), this is frankly outrageous language worthy of the most obnoxious elitists. I mean these (former) aristocrats and intellectuals really think too high of themselves. But let's look at who was in the commission.

Father Mikhail Dudko is generally perceived as a nice person among Bishop Basil's camp. Then we have Archbishop Mark of Germany and Great Britain, a ROCA hierarch, of whom it was contemplated by Bishop Basil's camp that he was to inherit the diocese. People around Bishop Basil wondered why he was present, as ROCA was not yet in full communion with the Moscow Patriarchate. Father Andrew Phillips pointed out that the schism was timed to coincide with the Fourth Council of the ROCA which was to bring full communion with the Moscow Patriarchate. Perhaps as the Moscow Patriarchate making overtures to ROCA employed Archbishop Mark in their affairs? Who knows, the fact is nothing short of ROCA takeover of Sourozh happened. It was yet another product of Bishop Basil's fertile mind. I do not know if Archbishop Mark is a peasant (he is German and was not nurtured by the Soviet system so any connection Valley is trying to make seems ridiculous) or if that is a proper way to refer to a hierarch albeit from a different jurisdiction. The same goes for Archbishop Innokenty from Paris who was also in the commission.

Anyway, I tried to find out which sites link to Paul Valley's article in order to get some info from discussion boards or perhaps to be linked elsewhere when I stumbled upon a really odd place called the ROCOR (the same thing as ROCA) refugees. I instinctively suspected the site to be a home of some schismatic sect but what I found out after a short research surpassed my expectations. 

The site owners claims their leader is certain Vladyka (Bishop) Agafangel Pashkovsky of Odessa. Orthodox Wiki provides some thrilling information about the man. He did not accept the Act of Canonical Communion between ROCA and the Moscow Patriarchate. It is said he was driven by political motives, he is said to have uttered: 'CIA is the most human organization in the world, it cares for the good of all people'. He was friends with the US Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst and actively supports the administrative of Victor Yushenko, an American puppet. He also harbours an irrational hatred for Russia (i.e. he is a Russophobe) He established something called the the Provisional Supreme Church Authority (whatever that is) which also has outposts in the USA.

The ROCOR refugees often link to a site which immediately caught my attention. LaRussophobe, with a name like that, you are simply tempted to give that site a click. It reminds me of an article Go on wind us up by Brian Cathcart for the New Statesman, this is exactly how LaRussophobe works, the content of the site is so insulting to either Russians or normal people with heart they just have to come for more. So who is LaRussophobe, Kim Zigfield? Folks from eXile have posed this question, suggesting it might either be a fat frustrated woman with irrational hatred of good looking Russian women, or a seriously bad NGO project, or a combination of both. I personally think it's a psychopath on welfare checks with a lot of time on his/her hands who has chosen a good strategy to attract attention. The NGO theory seems not very plausible, what kind of NGO would put their capital behind such abomination is hard to imagine, it is most probably a work of a loner with few willing servants. It always amazes me how psychos often create around themselves a group of likeminded sycophants when they are in cyberspace.

The connection between ROCOR refugees and LaRussophobe is hard to establish I would not be surprised if the ROCOR refugees was just another project of that creature. Given that the sect's guru and LaRussophobe share very similar viewpoints, it could just be possible that Provisional Supreme whatever is that creature's spiritual home.

Anyway I found out some people in the comments section on LaRussophobe link to their own blogs. So I visited them and some can be seen in the 'Blogs I read' section to the right.

The End