What is the Russian world for the UOC

This Sunday, according to the church calendar, we celebrate the memory of "All the Saints Resplendent in the Russian Land". The Russian land in the Orthodox tradition was called the state formations of the Slavs throughout the territory of Kievan Rus. In the broad meaning of this word, all peoples with common Slavic roots come here. And while our politicians quarrel with one another, the Church celebrates the triumph of this Holy Rus.

The Russian Synaxis includes the saints of Ukraine and Russia, Belarus and Romania, Moldova and Serbia, Bulgaria and Poland, and other Slavic countries. The Russian Council shows the true, unshakable unity of all the Slavic peoples, and, believe, this unity cannot be destroyed by any authority, whatever it claims, because this unity is not built around a national idea or ideology, but around our Lord Jesus Christ.

Today, some nationalist ideologists talk a lot about preaching the ideas of the Russian world among the UOC. But what is the Russian world for the parishioners of our Church? The Russian world takes its origin from Holy Rus, from Prince Vladimir, Princess Olga, from the first Russian martyrs Boris and Gleb, this succession is taken by Yaroslav the Wise, holy righteous princes and princesses, the holy saints of Kiev Caves, and this light is scattered with emeralds of holiness in all the vast expanses of Ukraine – Rus. St. Sergius of Radonezh and Seraphim of Sarov, Job of Pochaev and the Optina elders, John of Kronstadt and Blessed Xenia. Their names can be listed in hundreds. This is the beauty and purity of Holy Rus, which gives a unique taste and fragrance of Slavic holiness. You can add here the saints of Serbia, Moldova and many others.

To identify Holy Rus with Russian statehood would be extremely ignorant. If we take exclusively Russian saints, they grew on their state field not thanks to, but contrary to the policy of the state. They were able to nurture the Grace of Holiness, despite the secular reforms of Peter the Great, despite the dictate of the state in the Synodal period, despite the upheavals of Bolshevik persecution.

All this was not due, but despite statehood. It is unlikely that anyone who knows history has at least the slightest illusion about the aggressive policy of the Russian autocracy to small nations in pre-revolutionary times and the power of the Bolsheviks in the future.

This applies not only to Ukraine, but equally to Georgia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and other nations. But what we understand by the Russian world in the ecclesiastical meaning of this word refers exclusively to the fragrance of the grace of Russian saints. You should clearly separate these two concepts – the Russian world of holiness and the Russian imperial world, which do not coincide by their content. On the contrary, they are antagonists.

It's easy to understand, if you want. When it comes to the universal human heritage of Germany, an educated person has associates it with neither concentration camps and Nazi parades, nor gas chambers and Hitler's speeches, but with the music by Bach and Beethoven, with the philosophy of Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, Schiller and Heine.

There is such a thing – planetary reading. This is something that is read and studied all over the world, which is part of the compulsory educational programme of all world universities. This general planetary reading list includes such Russian writers and poets as Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Mandelstam, Akhmatova, Pasternak, Tsvetaeva, Bulgakov, Platonov, Russian religious thinkers, and others.

The fact that our education system deprives our children of the opportunity to study these world literary treasures speaks of only one thing – the narrow-mindedness and shallow thinking of some of our officials. Only this can explain their identification of Russian politics with Russian spirituality and culture.

What should we do? Actually, nothing – it's enough to be who we are. On one bookshelf, the poems by Timur Kibirov and Lina Kostenko can stand together. It’s really not worth while giving in to the changing world. Human dignity is more valuable than any immediate benefit.

The Synaxis of the Russian Saints became so not due to, but despite the state policy. Last Sunday we celebrated the memory of St. Luke the Crimean. His first step to personal Golgotha was made when only a madman could be ordained. The clergy were shot, rotted in camps, exiled without charge and trial. At home the future saint had small children, who they would stay with after the death of their mother?

But he accepted the offer of Patriarch Tikhon to ordain and immediately after the consecration was sentenced for exile. That was his entire life – between the camps and serving people. But what is important, the saint chose service to God, and God did not leave his children. All of them received a good education, lived a decent life, some became famous scientists. This is an example of what we need – only faith and love for God and people, and the rest does not matter.

And it does not matter what power is in the country today, what politics, ideological weather are outdoors. All of them are subject to seasonal changes. Now – one, tomorrow – others, the day after tomorrow – the third. And God is always the same. And our heart must be attached to Him, and everything else does not matter.

Even during the most severe persecutions, St. Luke always went to lectures for students and surgeries in cassock and Panagia on his chest. To any threats and accusations, he answered briefly, "You will only take off the cassock from me with the skin." If we rephrase these words, we can also say that our faith can be taken out only with our soul. Otherwise it will not work, no matter how hard they try.

Some time ago, while reading the Сreed, I stopped at the words "His Kingdom will have no end." As if for the first time I gave a new the meaning to these words, which I had already read hundreds of times before. The only Kingdom that will have no end is the Kingdom of God. How important it is for us all to understand this. A little more, and there will be no form of statehood. Russia, Ukraine, America, Europe, and even the Maldives with the Canaries will disappear. There will be only the Kingdom of God. And the world of people will be divided into two parts: those who will live in this Kingdom, and those who will be outside it. How we cannot understand that the dress code for entering this Kingdom of God will be a pure soul rather than a national dress.

By the way, as for the Maldives, there will be something better, and according to the Savior's promise, it is neither the stars of Hollywood nor businessmen, nor even rich politicians who will inherit it but those with a gentle heart – "for they will inherit the Earth." So, think whether your heart meets this criterion?