Russian Priest on Jewish Matters

A Russian priest on Jewish matters Priest-monk Makarios (Markish), Ivanovo, Russia pmmakarios@yandex.ru - Fr. Makarios, we are witnessing the Russo-American relations at their worst stage since the end of the Cold War, and the Jewish issue should be by no means discounted. Do you have any reason for a personal interest at this junction? - Yes, I do. I am a Jew, Russia is my homeland, and this country is my second homeland. - But you are a Christian Orthodox priest, are you not? Is it possible to be a Jew at the same time? - In the English language, indeed, impossible. But in Russian perfectly possible and quite common to that. Though we are speaking English, I cannot help holding on to my Russian mindset! The point is, the word Jew in Russian means ethnic origin rather than religion. In fact, there is a different word to denote the Jewish faith. Neither my Jewish parents, nor my grandparents on both sides, had anything to do with the Jewish faith or synagogue. Equally alien they were to the Christian faith… The tragedy of that I realized far too late: my father, who had often inquired with cautious curiosity, “Are you going to be a priest?...”, died on that very day when the announcement came of my pending ordination. – And it is only by God’s grace that my mother accepted Baptism just a year prior to her repose. - So, when did you convert to Christianity? - As I’ve said, my conversion, like that of most Russian Jews, was not from faith to faith, neither from religion to religion. We converted from stupor of godlessness and faithlessness to a steep and rocky way home. For me, it was a gradual process, coming of age in Moscow, in the heart of the USSR, once Russia, looking deeper into the Russian culture, seeing things clearer, thinking harder, taking actions, grappling with consequences… And so it happened that my Baptism took place on the American soil, in the Russian church of the Epiphany, Boston, MA https://www.bostonrussianchurch.org . I was 32. - How did you happen in Boston? You call America your second homeland, but presently you are back to your first one – why so? - We arrived to the US as political refugees (I was married at that time). It was 1985, the eve of the momentous events which have redrawn the world map. …Then everything changed. My wife divorced me, my children grew up, I completed a correspondence course in the Russian Seminary in Jordanville, NY http://www.hts.edu/ , the dreaded USSR fell apart and Russia reemerged, – and my own view of her turned around. Yes, I do call America my second homeland. I spent here 15 years of my life, my children were raised here (and stay here until now). But what’s yet more important, America has converted me from a cosmopolitan to a patriot. I am grateful to her for the lesson worth the whole life: she has inspired me to love my nation. So I bought a one-way ticket, packed two suitcases and returned. Moved to a smaller town of Ivanovo, some 200 mi NE of Moscow, took monastic vows, was ordained a deacon, then a priest, in which capacity I carry on my service for 15 years now… - As a Jew who has lived in both America and Russia, are attitudes towards Jews different in these countries? How? - Yes, they are different. One of the reasons I have already mentioned: in today’s Russian outlook, Jews are an ethnicity, not a religion. And while Russia from her very onset, since centuries ago, has been a multi-ethnic nation, Jews today do not “stick out”. This, however, was not the case just a couple of decades back. In the ’90-es some of them, indeed, stuck out by their presumption, arrogance, involvement in the organized crime, blatant disregard for the Christian faith and Russian national heritage. It was commonly felt as a problem – and, since Russia, unlike her European neighbors, is a free country, was exposed and protested against. A typical example – Making of an Anti-Semite, a book by a popular author, Deacon Andrew Kuraev http://www.wco.ru/biblio/books/kur7/main.htm . With President Putin coming to power things began to change rather rapidly. From that throng some cringed, some shrunk, some left the country, some landed behind bars for their crimes, like infamous Khodorkovsky, and some suffered yet harsher fate, like the tycoon Boris Berezovsky: while in London, he offered rapprochement to President Putin and was murdered forthwith, apparently by the British Secret Service. Russians aren’t spiteful: having those trouble-makers disappeared, there seems to be no “Jewish question” at all. I’d have suggested that Fr. Deacon Andrew wrote a sequel, Unmaking of an Anti-Semite, – but he has unfortunately lost much of his former creativity… - Have you ever encountered anti-semitism in the Russian church? Do you think it exists at all? - Certainly not in the Church, never mind the title of the book I have cited. In fact, it was an appeal to the Jewish anti-heroes: please kindly behave yourself, lest our people turn the tables on you… There has been a large number of Jewish clergy in the Russian church in the recent decades, the most prominent name being that of Fr. Protopriest Alexander Menn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Men. (Incidentally, his son Michael was the Governor of the Ivanovo province, later appointed to a federal ministerial position http://www.minstroyrf.ru/about/structure/men/). Не was a senior priest near Moscow, very popular among the public, highly regarded and acclaimed by the Church hierarchy, having received every award a priest of his rank could receive. Well educated, he wrote many books and articles (some translated into English) and had many followers. In 1990 he was murdered; the crime has never been solved. Once in a while liberal media tend to portray Fr. Alexander as a “victim of anti-Semitism”: this is sheer nonsense. Some of his personal opinions and occasional, apparently hasty statements were critiqued and opposed by his fellow clergy: but who among the great preachers and missionaries has never been critiqued? Check with St. Peter (Gal.2:12-14). – Yet they insist on accepting this as a “proof of anti-Semitism in the Church”! The truth, however, is indeed sinister. Fr. Alexander brought to Christ substantial numbers of the Russian Jews, and that made him an object of flaming hate in certain foreign Jewish groups whose representatives felt quite comfortable back then in Russia. Even here in the US I received hate mail from Jewish correspondents who, having learned about my Christian faith, wished me finding the same end as Fr. Alexander’s… A less emotional and more scholarly message was sent to me by a learned “observant” Jew from Brooklyn, NY: “...Even if somebody really happened to care about Alexander Menn, the punishment he had to get for his sins, according to Torah, is the most severe one a man can get – “kores”, the death from the hand of G-d”. So, I personally have little doubt as to who is behind his murder. + + + During my service as a priest I have never experienced anything like anti-Semitism within the Russian church. Moreover, there were a few occasions to the contrary, ridiculous in a sense, but indicative of a sane attitude to the whole issue. For instance, a nun (of a purely Slavic origin, to be sure) was praising Jewish clergy: “They are all so wise and friendly, Fr. X, Fr. Y, Fr. Z…” – Wait a sec, – I interrupted her eulogy, – Fr. Z is no Jew at all! – That’s right, he isn`t… But he’s kept company with a lot of Jews. Another nun, unmistakably Aryan, expressed her disappointment with an element of the Liturgy carried out by Fr. A. I retorted saying that Fr. B did the same thing without a glitch. – Oh, well, – said she, – Little wonder: Fr. B has Jewish brains! At which point I had to carefully remind her of the menace of racism… - How about in Russia in general? - Russia is a great country. Smaller than the US, but still over 140 million. If you try real hard, you can find any sort of kooks around: Internet “helps” quite a bit. But, as I said, they pose no problem in Russia, as attested even from within the Jewish circles. Here in Ivanovo we have started a cross-confessional project, Candid Conversation, with Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Evangelicals and Jews participating http://iv-eparhya.blogspot.ru/2017/06/blog-post_12.html . Among other activities at the time of Ramadan a joint visit was arranged to the city mosque packed with young Muslims from all quarters of Russia and neighboring Islamic lands. We were treated to a great supper, had a serious, substantive discussion, but probably the most valuable impression has been made by a welcome feeling extended to every participant. On a larger scale, there has been a first-rate journalistic inquiry published in a mainstream Russian paper https://www.msk.kp.ru/daily/26347.4/3229296/: a Jew in traditional outfit strolled down Moscow streets, testing the level of anti-Semitic expressions or absence thereof. As reported, such a stroll in Paris brought about an avalanche of hate (caused by the Israeli bullying the Arabs, not by the French anti-Semitism – but that’s a different story altogether). Anyway, in Moscow the harvest was zero. Some curiosity, some humor, but no ill will at all. In a last-ditch attempt to stir controversy, the man moves straight to the Orthodox cathedral: no one cares. Thence to the mosque: same result. Folks there didn’t quite understand what the man was up to and suggested that he met the imam: they guessed he was interested in conversion to Islam! - Does the Russian church have an official position about the Jewish role in the Russian revolution? - No, she does not – even though the last year, on the centennial of the revolution, there were official statements made by the Patriarch and by the Council of Bishops (the topmost ruling body of the Church) regarding the causes and consequences of the Russian Catastrophe. The reasons for the reticence are multifarious. The Church is not a political party, not a think tank, not a research center for humanities: her purpose is different. The Church is concerned with the well-being of her members, society, nation and the entire mankind, well-being in the most profound and farsighted sense (which in other context could be denoted as salvation). – Any statement coming from within the Church is based upon this principle. - And what is your personal opinion about the responsibility of Jews for the Bolshevik terror? - Here we have a ground for discussion. First off, let us consider the meaning of the phrase “responsibility of Jews” or of any other broad, loosely related group – racial, ethnic, religious, professional etc. There is a notion deeply if subconsciously engrained in our mindset: that every human bears responsibility for the Original Sin. It’s hardly a time to plunge into theology, but let us make it brief: the Orthodox do not share this notion (which stems from inaccurate rendering of Rom.5:12 and from certain personal views of Blessed Augustine http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/bless_aug.aspx). – We do not bear responsibility for the Original Sin; we bear consequences thereof. The issue is not so much in what we owe, but rather in what we are. This statement applies to any question of collective responsibility, and certainly to our case. Rather than charging members of a group as a whole, we would seek, explicitly or implicitly, what makes them the way they are. But in so doing we face a formidable obstacle. Which traits of Jewishness, if any, were, indeed, responsible for the Jewish role in the Russian tragedy of the XX century? – Maybe none, as some would assert? Maybe it was just an incidental personal involvement on the part of a few?... – And what is even more important, how did those traits develop in the course of the past century in various places and circumstances, and which of them have survived to this day? I have called these questions a formidable obstacle for a reason. With regard to another historical tragedy another person tried to resolve them and failed miserably, swayed by an enormous folly. His failure cost a disaster for the whole world, and primarily for his own nation which he had endeavored to aid. The folly was that of racism, the nation is German, the person was Adolph Hitler. Having said that, I am far from losing hope. The path to the truth of the matter is poorly visible, yet there are guideposts on this path which we should not overlook, the elements of the heritage – historical, social, religious, political etc. – which have brought about certain traits of the group in question (in our case the Jews). Being a Jew myself (see above), I can certainly attest to it and look forward to exploring the issue – together with the readers. But my personal testimony is of a limited value compared to recent works by great Russian authors, particularly Igor Shafarevitch (Russophobia https://mybook.ru/author/igor-shafarevich/rusofobiya-1/ and Enigma of 3000 years https://www.e-reading.club/book.php?book=64701) and Nobel prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn (200 years together https://thechosenites.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/200-years-together.pdf). - Are you familiar with Jewish religious beliefs? Do you think they harbor negative tendencies that could influence general Jewish behavior in a negative way? - With an odd feeling I have to admit that as a Christian clergyman I am much more familiar with Jewish religious beliefs than my ancestors of two generations… However, yet another difficulty expects us here: the religious diversity in time and space. We all know (and sometimes bemoan) the differences between Christian beliefs and practices. It is only too obvious that diversity within the Jewish religion has to be, and is, a lot wider. In any textbook on the History of Religion you can read how far removed from the Old Testament religion is the Rabbinical Judaism and how it has evolved throughout the two millennia. Add to this the Kabala, add the Chassidism, add the modern developments – Conservative and Reformed Judaism – and you get the idea how hard it is to define what the Jewish religious beliefs are! There are, to be sure, in the Jewish religious heritage, both in the Talmud and in later texts, elements deeply hostile and hateful to both Christians and Christ Himself. But to which extent the Jewish rank and file are (or were at a given moment) affected by them, or even aware of them, remains to be seen… On the other hand, for instance, David Klinghoffer https://alchetron.com/David-Klinghoffer, a Rabbinical Jew to boot, teaches about the Judeo-Christian relations fully in line with what St. Paul says in Romans and is being accused by fellow Jews of helping promote a “Christian-friendly world view”. It is not, however, the Jewish religion which spells trouble, no matter from what side we examine it, but the absence thereof, that is, godlessness. I call to witness a great Russian religious leader of the XX century, Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), the Primate of the Russian Church in Exile. Back in 1905-07 he had been the ruling Bishop of a diocese in South-Western Russia where the Jewish masses were fomenting unrest soon to become a revolutionary movement. At that time he published his famous paper, The Jewish Question and the Holy Bible http://dugward.ru/library/mitr_antoniy/antoniy_evreyskiy_vopros.html , later translated into Yiddish. There he wrote: “Let me repeat that so-called “progressive Jews” wreak most harm upon their own people. They ax their own history, their own culture. They pursue the waste of the hollow, petty, egotistic modernist culture of the West which has rejected Christ… The Jews have an enormous treasury of their own moral philosophy, works by the great Jewish medieval scholars based upon the Holy Bible, the philosophy incomparably loftier and purer than Positivism, Communism and Marxism, degrading for the human dignity… With no reservations I claim a closer affinity with a faithful Jew or a Muslim than with a faithless Russian”. …This is an endless topic! Let me just quote rabbi Arthur Schneier I once met at an Alliance of Civilization conference: “Until religion becomes a solution, it will remain a problem”. – Alas, no one heeded to him. - Do you think that Jews have a problem with self-criticism as a group, admitting when they have done something wrong? Is this related to their religious heritage? - The answer is unconditional yes, but I would substitute either socio-political or irreligious for the religious. As we have just seen, Jewish religious heritage is a rather vague concept; yet the books of Prophets and Psalms seem to unmistakably belong there… And it is upon these Old Testament foundations that the Christian discipline of repentance, confession of sins and moral cleansing is based, which gives us both the hope for the better future and the instrument of attaining to it. As far as the Jews are concerned, however, those who dare to mention any kind of a Jewish wrongdoing are subject to be whipped as “self-hating Jews”: not quite conducive to repentance… Yet there are remarkable exceptions, e.g. just cited David Klinghoffer and his classic article Anti-Semitism without Anti-Semites https://www.firstthings.com/article/1998/04/002-anti-semitism-without-anti-semites: a must for everyone concerned with the issue. - How would you describe how openly the question of Jewish guilt for the Bolshevik terror is discussed in Russian society? Is it in the bookstores?, on the main TV shows? On the internet? How good is Russia in general at fairly and openly discussing the historic past? Compare to German experience? - I think, what I have said about the problems with the whole notion of the collective guilt is fairly common among the Russians, even if not clearly articulated. This might not necessarily come from religious thought; more likely it is related to a sober assessment of the past events. Yes, certainly there was a “Jewish guilt”; but whose guilt there was not?... – And, just like with anything else, remorse ought to have a right measure, lest it turns into self-destruction. There are no impediments to an open conversation on any reasonable subject in Russia, both in person, in the media or on the Net. Though, I would say, there is an inherent tendency to de-emphasize the issue, to smooth sharp corners. Someone recently compared the Jewish role in the revolution with that of a woodpecker felling a rotten tree. – While the image of an innocent bird is an obvious cover-up, it would be equally wrong to deny a deep rot inside the trunk – to which fact many an author and speaker have repeatedly attested, year after year. Speaking of the German neighbor… The amount of the Russian and German blood spilled by each other in the XX century is incredible and incomparable to any other combatant. Yet, strange as this might sound (though in truth quite natural), it makes the sister nations. Clergy from both sides would visit battle sites and conduct memorial services at mass graves: it works a lot better than official visits and pompous receptions… Sad enough, recent political strife in the Western Europe has slowed the process down, but it must resume and pick up the speed. I have just said that the German nation has been the primary victim of Hitler: typically this place is given to the Jews… But look at the Jewish nation (that is, in the state of Israel – since the Jews of other countries do not constitute a nation) and compare it with Germany: which one is healthier? Which one is in a better shape? – This is, of course, not to condone the ugly Israeli policies, but the health of a nation can be judged irrespective of the crimes of her rulers. Horrendous yoke of the EU the Germans have imposed on themselves with all the attached strings, including “language rules” and jail terms for the war memoirs or a “wrong” count of Jewish victims bears sinister resemblance to the totalitarian past and effectively squashes the national spirit. Once I talked to a lady from Germany and was astonished by her stubborn resistance to the patriotic education at school. Maybe that was designed as a special torture for Hitler in hell: a Russian Jew, an Orthodox priest, is trying to convince a Volksdeutsche of the merits of patriotism and fails… Yet it does not make anyone happier. - Now the last question for today: how would you explain the venomous hostility of the Jews to modern-day Russia? - Oh, that’s a big one… Indeed, the question would require quite a bit of research and thought. It seems important that the question is specifically about the American Jews: as far as I know, there are no such sentiments in Israel, let alone in Russia proper, where Jews are no less patriotic than anyone else. Let me try just one guess. A priest is a psychotherapist by necessity – so I will follow the psychological approach set forth by David Klinghoffer in his aforementioned article. See, the notion of a “self-hating Jew” is not altogether bogus. A fact of one’s wrong-doing, a sense of one’s guilt are realities which one cannot simply dismiss as irrelevant. And while in a faithful, God-fearing soul these realities cause repentance, resolve to amend oneself by following God’s will and resulting catharsis, for someone who has rejected God this path is closed and resentment piles up. Needless to say, the army of therapists is happy to offer their services – but cannot help indefinitely… So, the build-up of sin, guilt and dissatisfaction in a godless soul brings about an exclusively Jewish phenomenon. It was discovered (or maybe conjured?...) by one Sabina Spielrein, a Jewish girl from Russia, Karl Jung’s lover; it was explored by (in)famous Sigmund Freud, a Jew from Austria, whose fraud was later exposed by Jeffrey Masson, a really famous American Jew, presently of New Zeeland. The phenomenon is called thanatos, death drive. Freud relates it to “an instinct of destruction directed against the external world” (The Ego and the Id). Needless to say, a healthy national spirit would extinguish any traces of such an instinct! (Hence the Jews of Israel are out of consideration). And what about the Jewish life in this country? External affluence, internal havoc – and a Black Hole ahead. Subconscious desire of annihilation is hard to resist… Judged by her military power, Russia is weaker than the US, and those inspired by the victory at Wounded Knee and such are feeling antsy and fomenting hostilities. Yet an attack will result in a revenge with the force sufficient to eliminate this nation. Along with the Jews, to be sure, – but that's hardly a relief.