Rolo Slavisky – The Unz Review June 21, 2022
The Russian Orthodox Church has been affected by recent events as much as the rest of Russian society has. Now, more than ever, the Church is being asked to support the government and this has had ripple effects on church politics. The biggest story is the unceremonious demotion of Metropolitan Hilarion. Once the Russian Orthodox Church’s ambassador to the West and Ecumenist-in-Chief, Metropolitan Hilarion has now been stripped of his official positions. This is almost certainly because he refused to support the special operation in Ukraine. While we don’t have conclusive proof of this yet, we can piece together the story by looking at recent events in context and then puzzle out the implications that this will have for the Russian Orthodox Church going forward.
The Hilarion Controversy
Metropolitan Hilarion is an outspoken and liberal-minded priest who formerly occupied very high positions in the Church hierarchy.
When he was a much younger man, he was a vocal anti-Soviet activist clergy member. There is an interesting 2020 interview of Hilarion where he shared highlights from his career in the faith. An interesting episode that he brought up was the time he spent serving in Vilnius. He, apparently, personally went on TV to call on the Soviet soldiers to disobey their order to put down the independence protesters in Lithuania. The protestors had decided to seize the TV stations as part of their coup and the Soviet troops stationed at these communication hubs had been given orders to defend them, with deadly force if necessary. Hilarion publicly called on them to stand aside and let the protestors seize the towers and thereby prevent blood being spilt. When asked about this rather interesting display of loyalties in his youth, Hilarion justified his actions by stating that the protestors were anti-Soviet and not anti-Russian and that he was always loyal to Russia, just not the Soviet Union.
In more recent times, Hilarion has vocally come out against Russians’ right to own firearms by claiming that no Christian can use deadly force to defend their lives. I do not know whether or not this is theologically correct, but I find that theology often has very little to do with official Church positions on various social issues. But, the most questionable public position that Metropolitan Hilarion took was when he came out vocally against anti-vaxxers. You may have heard of this:
Now, one individual priest is entitled to his opinions, but Metropolitan Hilarion was serving as the Church’s official PR spokesman at the time. So, when speaking to the press, the question was always whether or not the position being expressed was the Church’s or just Hilarion’s personal opinion. The PR guy is a very important position in the Church and one that was formerly occupied by the current patriarch Kirill. Hilarion and Kirill were always considered to be close and there were persistent rumors that Hilarion would eventually become the new face of the Church. With all that context out of the way, it should become clearer why people kept such a close eye on Hilarion and his various activities. Hilarion was far more important within the Church than, say, the hapless and irrelevant Press Secretary Dimitri Peskov is in the Kremlin hierarchy.
Anyway, Hilarion declared that people who refused to get vaxxed were sinners, or rather, his specific words were, that if someone refused to get vaxxed, and then got someone sick because of that decision, that it would be a sin on the part of the anti-vaxxer. Hilarion also encouraged his congregation to get vaxxed and to not entertain any conspiracy theories about COVID. Knowing what we know about the WEF agenda and the ever-shifting narrative around COVID, it’s hard not to look at Hilarion with suspicion after he so blatantly laid his cards out on the table in favor of Corona-mania.
Finally, Metropolitan Hilarion was constantly being accused of working to promote ecumenism i.e., the merger between the various Christian churches and the project to create a one-world religion. He would often go abroad, most often the Vatican, and talk about the common values of Orthodoxy and other Christian denominations and even other religions. While the Orthodox Church officially cannot even entertain a passing interest in Ecumenism, as it would be an unthinkable, un-canonical and deeply unpopular position to take, the Catholic Church does not seem to be bound by such constraints. Many Catholic websites, including the official Vatican one have an “Ecumenism” page, tab or category where they share stories about meetings with other religious leaders and their progress in promoting interfaith dialogue. During these meetings, they outline points of congruence that Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and the most powerful religion of our time, Liberalism, have in common. If the goal is to create a one world religion to go along with the one world government, as many believe it is, then the final product would resemble the Noahide Laws. After all, if we are to approach the question logically, and ask what both Christianity, Islam and Judaism have in common, the answer would have to be the Old Testament. But that’s a topic for another time.
Now, the relationship of the Russian Orthodox Church to the ecumenist, one-world religion project is complicated. The Russian Orthodox Church was allowed to join the World Council of Churches, the premiere ecumenism-promoting organization, by the Soviet authorities. The WCC was reliably left-wing and there was an interest on the part of the Soviets in using it to promote their interests. This story is difficult to summarize and explain, as it has to do with various spook agendas and scheming on the part of everyone involved in the project. But, recently, the WCC threatened to expel the Russian Orthodox Church from its organization because of the operation in Ukraine. This is welcome news. It is unclear why the Russian Orthodox Church is still involved with the organization; for one thing, it leads to conspiracy-minded people asking uncomfortable questions.
In summary: Metropolitan Hilarion’s pro-protester, anti-gun, pro-vax and pro-ecumenist views put him squarely in the Liberal wing of the Russian Orthodox Church. But he has now been stripped of his positions and sent to Hungary, where he won’t be able to cause any trouble in Russia, which is welcome news indeed.
The Ukrainian Church Crisis in Orthodoxy
is he not in line with jewish aimes ?
I suport the half world religions of
Budda, Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu, Indra,
Krishna and the right for christians to
defend armed themself + their tribe !
Sounds like he is a troublemaker. Maybe Siberia would have been better.
Banished to Hungary, I think he’d be more at home in Portland Oregon.
When anyone starts with this ban the guns lark, just doesn’t understand the issue and the principles behind the right to carry arms.
Why is it that only the state (UK) has the right to engage in violence? If you believe in individuals having their own opinions, their own rights, & responsibilities, then the individuals right to carry arms and use violence in appropriate events, is a basic right.
The police in Britain offer you the individual, zero protection, unless it’s a by chance event that they are there to act, and that’s a very rare event.
Bad sheeple are violent, and they’re often armed, so it is only right that sheeple can defend themselves.
The Rus empire needs a strong rear, critical for a fighting army. History repeats itself here.. like in the days of Stalin.
Order no.227, not a step back..
See what religion does? The headgear is too tight as it encourages fantasizing new ‘sins’ into existence.
“Metropolitan Hilarion”? The name sounds like something conjured up by Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or perhaps Kurt Vonnegut. So Hilarion is FOR the toxic sludge injections created by psychopaths and administered by maniacal imbeciles. In fact, Hilarion has been such a strong advocate for the poisonous fake vaccine and Covid-1984 war against humanity, he told people of faith they are sinners if they do not obediently line up for something that will permanently alter them assuredly for the worse and quite possibly kill them.
Then that asshole Hilarion is anti-gun, meaning he is firmly against citizens being able to protect themselves against violent criminals and tyrannical government, which is repeating myself, I know.
That bloated museum of treason and treachery Hilarion can eat a dick. Literally. In fact, it should be his own dick he is forced to eat, just prior to being hanged for crimes against humanity.
or because he followed jewish orders ?
Crypto Jew, like Biden??
He is outed as a Western agent. The only question that remains is whether or not he is just a useful idiot, or if the West has some hold over him.
“Google” says he died on May 16, 2022 in New York.
sounds like those pedophiles who infiltrated the catholic church by Zionists’ close mentors and assistances assume top positions and abused boys. now the gold in vaults has to be paid to Jlawyer and blackmail the church.
it is very fortunate for this Russian clergy to be thrown out of orthodox churches.
Hilarious is the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing. Why would he not support the president when 14,000 Eastern Russian ukrsnians were been slaughtered. No – he should be defrosted and banished. He has a hidden agenda contrary to what is right and probably been bought.out with him
Pope Francis will take him in
This article saddens me. First, it is difficult to understand Metropolitan Hilarion’s ecumenism. I had a idea that for the Slavic Orthodox Churches, faith and nation are inseparable. Then, ‘he [might have] refused to support the special operation in Ukraine.’ Eh? So he was OK with the Ukranian military’s murdering of the Donbas Russian civilians?
And vaxx-pushing with the enthusiasm of ‘it is a sin not to’! The Archbishop of Canterbury pulled that one, but had to back-track. And Hilarion is anti-gun-ownership … I was expecting to read next of his push for ‘gender diversity’, ‘trans-rights’, BLM and LGBTQIxxxx.
No doubt about it: antivax, Bellator, waw and Anonymous are right about him. I hope this Metropolitan is a lone fifth columnist in the Russian Orthodox Church.
Metropolitan Hilarion ?? Wonder when he would have blessed same sex marriages ?? & would he have said about homo-paedophilia ?? Who am I to condemn it ??
We need to do this same procedure in America, in which case HALF our government would disappear overnight, but to get these nasty troublemaking Jewish supremacists out of our hallowed institutions would result in the most beneficial and monumental changes to happen in America. A truly welcome surgeon’s knife excising the most hideous and malignant cancer within our body politic.