wfn.org | 10 years after coup, Putin seeks inspiration from Russia's Christian

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24-August-2001
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10 years after coup, Putin seeks inspiration from Russia's Christian roots

Visit to monastery seen as highly symbolic

by Andrei Zolotov
Ecumenical News International

MOSCOW - Ten years after the coup attempt that triggered the end of Soviet
communism, Russia's president has said that his country needs to seek its
inspiration from its Christian roots.

	"Without Christianity, without the Orthodox faith and culture which sprang
from it, Russia would have hardly existed as a state," said President
Vladimir Putin during a visit to the Solovetsky monastery, on the Solovki
Islands, part of Russia's northern White Sea archipelago.

	He was accompanied to the monastery by Patriarch Alexei II, leader of the
Russian Orthodox Church.

	"Today, now that we are rediscovering ourselves, it is very important,
useful and timely to return to these sources in our search for the moral
foundations of our life," he told reporters on Aug. 20.

	In what observers have described a carefully-timed vacation, the president
has been visiting Orthodox churches and monasteries in northern Russia as
his country marks the 10th anniversary of the attempted coup which was
launched against the then Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, on Aug. 19,
1991.

	The coup attempt - although unsuccessful - started a chain of events that
led to Gorbachev's downfall, the break-up of the Soviet Union, and the rise
of Boris Yeltsin as president of an independent Russian Federation.

	The wisdom of the coup is now the subject of heated debate in Moscow. Many
of those directly involved - including Gorbachev, democracy campaigners and
those who plotted the coup - have made statements in recent days about the
events. But, publicly, neither President Putin, nor Yeltsin, nor Patriarch
Alexei have uttered a word.

	Moscow commentators have criticized the failure of President Putin to make
any direct comment about the anniversary. However, his visit to the
Solovetsky is seen as highly significant.

	The first Soviet labor camp was founded there in 1923 after the monastery
was closed at the time of the Russian revolution. During Stalin's rule, many
thousands of people, including many clergy, were shot or died at the camp.
The monastery was re-opened in 1991.

	Georgy Satarov, who heads the "INDEM" political think-tank, told ENI that
President Putin's visit to the Solovki Islands was intended to send a "coded
message."

	"The interpretation of the coup is still something that divides the Russian
people, and Putin strongly dislikes publicizing his views on such divisive
matters. He has given himself the task of unifying Russians, not dividing
them," said Satarov, a former Yeltsin aide.

	"It is not accidental that he went to the Solovki Islands on Monday nor
that he went with the patriarch."

	According to a prominent historian, Dmitri Furman, writing in the Rodina
magazine, "Putin is gradually distancing himself from the revolutionary past
while establishing [himself] as a 'normal,' traditional Russian power."

	From this perspective, President Putin's Solovki visit served this purpose
by simultaneously commemorating the victims of the Soviet regime while
stressing the continuity of Russian history.

	In his remarks at the monastery, President Putin also appeared to distance
himself from the "exclusivist" interpretation of Orthodox Christianity often
propagated by Russian nationalists.

	"If God saved all nations, that means that all are equal before God," he
said, referring to a famous statement by Metropolitan Hilarion, a famous
11th-century bishop of Kiev.

	This "simple truth," President Putin continued, became the basis of Russian
statehood "making it possible to build a strong and centralized multi-ethnic
state" and a "unique Eurasian civilization."

	"Besides glorifying the Russian people, besides cultivating the national
dignity and national pride, our spiritual teachers ... taught us to respect
other nations," he said. He stressed that ancient Orthodox teaching was free
of chauvinism or any ideology of nations chosen by God.
	"It would not hurt to remember this today. These are exactly the moral
values which should form the backbone of domestic and foreign policy."

	Vsevolod Chaplin, a senior Moscow Patriarchate official in charge of
relations with political and government organizations, told ENI he welcomed
the president's statement on the need to respect other nations, particularly
at the present time when Russia itself was torn by ethnic tensions.

	"These are very good words," Chaplin said. "Although the president cannot
be considered a professional theologian, he correctly understands the
essence of our teaching, which combines profound faith in our own tradition,
understanding of its uniqueness and value, with openness to other people,
other traditions and other nations."

	Asked about the significance of the fact that President Putin visited
Solovki at the time of the anniversary of the coup, Chaplin told ENI: "I am
not a clairvoyant and cannot fathom what is going on in another person's
soul.

	"But the very fact that during these days he prayed and venerated the holy
sites of our church and our country speaks for itself."
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