“On the one hand there is a church subculture that is near … to a huge number of people who associate their churchliness with this subculture,” Patriarch Kirill said in Moscow on April 15 at a traditional meeting with journalists in advance of the Orthodox celebration of Easter on April 19. “But if we say that churchliness and this subculture are … the same thing then we exclude bearers of other subcultures, first of all youth, from Orthodoxy,” the patriarch said, in remarks reported by the RIA Novosti news agency.
On February 1, in his first sermon as patriarch, Kirill had said that he would reach out to young people as a priority for the Russian Orthodox Church. Other church officials, appointed to new posts in March at the first meeting since Kirill’s enthronement of the church’s governing body, its Synod of Bishops, have also recently stressed the importance of such work.
At a media conference in Moscow on April 10, Bishop Hilarion, the newly-appointed chairperson of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department of External Church Relations, formerly headed by Kirill, noted that his predecessor had appeared in 2008 at a rock concert in Kiev. The concert was to mark the 1020th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus, celebrated as the conversion of Russia to Christianity.
“Believers from our church go to discotheques and rock concerts,” said the bishop, “and if there is a chance to impart a certain spiritual dimension to such youth gatherings and even mobs, if young people are ready to hear a few words from a clergyman, then why not go there and say several words?”
Vsevolod Chaplin, appointed by the Synod of Bishops to lead a newly-created Department of Interrelations of Church and Society, caused waves in the Russian media and blogosphere by saying recently in a meeting at Moscow State University that Orthodox nightclubs are an idea to be considered.
“To my mind, nightclubs are not just necessarily debauchery, drunkenness, narcotics, and striptease,” he told Ecumenical News International in a telephone interview from Moscow. “There is a rather good tradition of young people talking late into the night. I remember when I was 14 or 15 we would gather with a small number of Christians in kitchens or on the street and talk about God and the fate of Russia. We usually talked right up until the last train of the metro at 1 a.m. We did fine without alcohol or spending our time frivolously. It was interesting. I want to say that if not for the conversation in those years I would never be the person I am today.”
Chaplin, who was previously Kirill’s deputy in the external relations department, said that the public debate about his nightclub comments led a businessman to call him and offer to turn slot-machine venues that have been ordered closed in Moscow into Orthodox youth clubs.
