“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

These words have been in my head quite a bit in the past 6 months. It was in early fall that I began the dreaded process of renewing my Russian residency permit, and at the beginning it did not look like things would go well. Immigration officials in different offices told me different information about the process; it seemed like I was getting funny looks as they noted my country of citizenship. I heard various stories – of the Polish journalist who was deported, of the American pastor whose family was allowed to cross the border...while he was stuck in Finland.

Not that I have anything against Finland, mind you, but I was already imaging the various ways the application process could end badly – I could be denied on some technicality; I could be denied without even a technicality. I would have to live in Estonia and get three-month visas. We would need to move with the family to America...

The expiration date of my residency permit grew closer and closer. “My” immigration official in Rostov had been moved to another department. I no longer knew anyone. Days passed. “Wait,” I heard. And “wait” again. There must be something wrong. They must be finding a way to make a good show of exiling an American. “Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.” 

And then, as the working day was ending on the very day when my permit was to expire, I still didn't have my document. I was waiting outside of the office. I was told that I would get the stamp I need. But I didn't have it. It was 5.15 pm on a Friday. It seemed that my paranoia was going to live on through at least another weekend. Unless I was made to leave the country sooner. Or worse...

When you speak with your cat, that's not paranoia.
Paranoia is when you're afraid to say too much
while your cat is around.

And then, the “higher-up” who signs such documents came out of a meeting and, instead of heading home (as he could have done when the working day is officially over), he took the time to grab my folder, look it over, and sign my Vid na zhitelstvo. The process was over; I could legally remain in the country for another five years.

I can't explain why there were so many delays. But I can say that this country is changing. In years past, you wouldn't expect a bureaucrat to steal even a minute of his weekend for you. Not unless he was getting rewarded.

In my experience, this is not the case anymore. There is a chance, even a relatively good chance, that you might be treated as a human being by the bureaucratic machine. I wouldn't go so far as to say that the pressure of the “system,” is decreasing (that would not be the case), but on the other hand more and more frequently, when I push paranoia aside, I see that my interactions with government officials has taken a better turn.

Take the case of my meeting with a traffic police officer just a few days ago. He stopped me as I drove home from Matvey's skating practice; they were stopping everyone driving without their headlights on to warn them that there is a new rule about having your dims on even in the daytime. Besides my headlights being turned off, though, I had a more significant infraction - it turned out that I had left my documents (licenses, insurance and registration!) at home. Now home was just a few minutes away, but it was situations like these just a few years ago, where you felt fully vulnerable to the whim of the police. I was in the wrong, so, was the policeman going to ask for a bribe? Was he going to expect that I offer one? Was he going to tow the car to a safe place (at significant cost of time and money) while I go fetch the documents? I allowed myself only to hope that he might allow me to leave the car with him as I took the bus home to get the documents. But what did this policeman do instead? He allowed me to drive home in the car and return to him to show him the documents! Instead of letting distrust rule the day, he treated me as a human. And I was so thankful I almost wanted to bribe him (almost).

Like many of society's changes here in the past 15 years, this was actually a bit stunning. But it is also reflective of larger changes.

And it makes me wonder – maybe all of us are used to being a bit too paranoid. Whatever concerns the West has with this country (and I understand that there are significant and legitimate concerns) and whatever concerns Russia has with the West (and here, too, I can sometimes see the point) it would be helpful for everyone if we stopped treating each other as though the other is out to get us. Such thinking boxes us in to situations of either us or them, of over-emphasizing one side's being in the right while doing the same for describing the way the other side is in the wrong.

The government here, the one I was paranoid about a few months ago, has given me the right to remain here for 5 more years. I hope that in that time we can all move away from the Cold War environment that created “Catch-22” in the first place...and I hope that I have the wisdom to make my own, small contribution to that change, leading to a greater peace.  

Paranoia - sometimes we overdo it.

Patriarch Sergei and the church in the Russian context

  I was recently asked to give a paper in Germany to a group of friends and partners of the Lutheran church in the former Soviet Union. There was the desire from the group that I speak about Orthodoxy a bit in order to come to a fuller understanding of the post-Soviet context. I prepared this text as an oral presentation, which means I didn't follow in this text academic standards for citations; the text is also quite long. Perhaps, though, it also might be useful to those of you who are interested in learning more about the history and contemporary situation in the church in Russia. It also might give a bit of insight into the churches' actions (or lack of action) when various controversies arise.
* * *
  We all know the tragic story of the repression of religion in the former Soviet Union, but what we might not always think about is the wide variety of ways this traumatic experience affects the life of the church today. To be more precise, we know of the destruction of church buildings and structures and the execution of tens or even hundreds of thousands of people based on their faith. But there is another aspect, too, I would call it the “moral” aspect, that remains in the background even as the church in many other aspects is restored. Taking a look at the life and ministry of Sergei (born Ivan) Stragorodsky will help us come to a fuller understanding of what the church went through and some of the problems it faces today. 
  I'd like to begin with a quote from Sergei's "Declaration of Loyalty" from 1927

We want to be Orthodox, and at the same time to see the Soviet Union as our civic Fatherland, whose triumphs and successes are also our triumphs and successes, whose failures are our failures. Every attack against the Union whether it be war, boycott or any other public affliction...  will be regarded as an attack against ourselves.

  These may seem like very strange words from a person who lived in at a time and in a country that executed some of the worst (probably the worst) repressions of Christians in all history.  We might be more surprised still when we know more about the person who was the purported author of the text - Sergei Stragorodsky, a church leader whose path led him to be a missionary, a seminary rector, a progressive bishop ...and at the end of his life, Patriarch under Stalin. 

Sergei Stragorodsky

  For anyone who knew Sergei in the first decade of the 20th century (when he served for a time as Rector of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy) or in the second (when he led the Orthodox mission board, was made Archbishop and then Metropolitan), his declaration of 1927 would have been quite a surprise. His life reflects the tempestuous times - 

Konstantin Pobedonostev

 Sergei had served in Japan (becoming fluent in the language) in a period when the Russian Empire was trying to increase its influence in the Pacific region; after returning to Russia, he got involved in the most important cultural and political events of the day. He was one of the main initiators of a series of meetings between church leaders and the intelligentsia which strove to build bridges of understanding between the two groups (the "Religious-Philosophical Dialogs.") Those in the tsarist government who were responsible for the church (and most especially the reactionary Ober-Procurator, Konstantin Pobedonostsev) believed that any dialog with liberals (let alone compromise or reform) would be dangerous for both the state and for Orthodoxy, but Sergei consistently fought for renewal of the church. He was the major author of a 1904 request to the tsar that a synod of the Russian Orthodox Church be called as soon as possible in order to do away with the current system (under which the church was a part of state bureaucracy), and "demanded an immediate council of clergy and laity for the renewal and liberation of the whole church organism." Although Nicholas II said that he favored reform of the church, he constantly put off the synod until "calmer times." Because Nicholas' reign was anything but calm, the council was not called until after he had already abdicated the throne. During the years intervening years, Sergei became heavily involved with the planning of the first Synod of the Russian Orthodox church since the 17th century. Not only did he side with those who suggested significant changes in everyday life of the church (e.g., making Russian the primarily language of worship in the place of Old Church Slavonic), he also believed that the laity should have a major voice and vote in the decisions of the upcoming synod.

  After the Revolution these desires to bring about real reform in the church led him to participate in the council, which tried to carry out its business in the midst of the revolutionary chaos of 1917-18).  Though the council was not able to address many of the questions on its very wide agenda, it did manage to restore its pre-Petrine structures and elect a Patriarch (Tikhon). While this might seem to us to be a step backward toward the old ways, in fact it was a move intended to free the church from state attempts to control and limit its intended reforms. This was not enough for Sergei, though, and this led him to join, for a period of just over a year, a splinter group called the "Living Church." It appears that Sergei saw the enormous influence of a reactionary form of Orthodoxy taking hold in the official church and felt that the best way to move forward was to leave the Moscow Patriarchate. 
  But Sergei was sorely disappointed in his experience. There, together with sincere reformers, he found an even greater number of power-hungry and /or ignorant revolutionaries. The reformers fought among themselves, too, and splinter groups splintered even more. It also became clear fairly quickly that the Bolsheviks planned to use the “Living Church” and other groups as a way to “divide and conquer” Orthodoxy. Suffering complete disappointment, Sergei returned to his roots. By the autumn of 1923 he repented before Tikhon and was accepted back into the leadership of the Patriarchal church. 

Sergei and Patriarch Tikhon

  From this moment on, it seems, Sergei is convinced of the necessity to save the structures of the Moscow Patriarchate, and that unity among Orthodox Christians is essential for Christianity in Russia to survive. 
  And by this time, of course, there was a real question about whether or not Orthodoxy could survive. The Bolshevik regime was placing enormous pressure on the church, though it was not yet confident enough in its powers to start an all-out, frontal attack. Although you probably know this already, let me remind you a bit of the ways the Soviet leaders tried to destroy Christianity in the country from the time of the revolution until the end of the 1930s. 
  In 1918 Lenin issued an edict of separation of church and state. While this could be interpreted either as a step toward neutrality in regards to religion or even a positive thing, in fact it was meant to strip away the church's legal status and begin the process of taking away its material possessions. Throughout the 1920s various excuses were found by the government to repress the church – it was rich while the people were suffering from famine (in the Volga region 1921-22 and in the Ukraine and central Russia in the early 1930s), the church's precious medals were needed for state purposes, church leaders were involved in “anti-Soviet activities,” etc. During the early 1920s this was not a major priority of the government, but by the mid-20s there was a huge propaganda campaign organized against the church. In addition, it was at this time that clergy (and leaders in the hierarchy in particular) were being arrested. Between 1925 and 1927, 117 of the 160 bishops of the Moscow Patriarchy were in prison. 
  This was the church-wide context of Sergei's “Declaration of Loyalty.” But making the situation even more difficult was the fact that he himself had spent two terms in prison by this time, Patriarch Tikhon had passed away, and there was great confusion regarding who was now the legitimate leader of the Moscow Patriarchate. Sergei was one of the candidates for that position, and the government decided that it was with/through him that they would work. The secret police threaten Sergei, saying that they would arrest the rest of the bishops that remained free and would hand over congregations to splinter groups if there was no clear sign from the Moscow Patriarchate that they supported the Soviet government. Sergei took the hint and wrote and draft statement that he found to be an acceptable expression of the church's position to the state. In it he basically repeated the views of Patriarch Tikhon, that the church was “inherently neutral” in questions of politics. His draft was not accepted, however, and he was arrested once again. This time a draft was written for him (probably by the secret police), and Sergei eventually agreed to sign it and issue the text as the “Declaration of Loyalty.” 
  Sergei knew that by taking this step he would be condemned by many church leaders and also that there was a large chance that the government would not fulfill their promises of making life easier for Orthodox Christians (e.g., by allowing them to officially register as legal entities and by freeing arrested bishops) after the publication of the "Declaration." At the same time he felt that this was the best way to maintain the church and its structure - despite his earlier progressive stance, he was typically Orthodox in thinking that even bishops that were approved by the Soviet secret police were better than no bishops at all insofar as bishops guaranteed the survival of the church. In short, then, there doesn't seem to be much evidence of Sergei's personal ambition in issuing the "Declaration." Instead he was doing what he thought best for the survival of the church.

  Yet, there were no immediate positive affects for Orthodox believers after the publication of the "Declaration." In fact, the 1930s make the 20s look like child's play in regards to the repression of the church. At the beginning, the Bolsheviks believed that the church would collapse in on itself once the material possessions were gone. But neither that nor massive propaganda approved terribly effective in destroying the church. By the end of the 1920s, too, the government knew that its efforts with encouraging splinter groups were no longer productive, and that open repression of the church led believers to go "underground," and the "catacomb church" was more difficult to control. New efforts (starting in the 1920s but spreading in the 1930s) were directed at the repression of individual believers - people were kicked out of the party and then lost their jobs for perhaps baptizing a child or visiting the cemetery. New and enormous tax burdens were place on clergy. Not paying these taxes helped the government have an excuse for another and even more effective method of repression - to arrest local clergy (since Orthodox parishes functioned very poorly without a priest). According to the best statistics we have, in 1928 1500 were arrested; in 1929 - 3000; in 1930 -13,000; and in 1931-32 -19,000 more. As priests "disappeared" local officials found it much easier to close down parishes. By 1933 only around 20% of pre-Revolutionary churches were still open. In 1936 there seemed to be a new effort for the mass liquidation of all religions; the Stalinist regime tried to collapse ALL power into one place. Between 1918 and late 30s, approx. 42,000 Orthodox clerics were killed. But soon the wider political situation of the Soviet Union and its neighbors changed, and this had a large effect on the place of Orthodoxy in the country.
  During the 1930s, Sergei did the best he could to maintain a holding pattern, to somehow keep some sliver of church life alive. He also tried to distance himself from anti-Soviet agitation from Christian groups (including Orthodox Christian groups) abroad.  One of “his” most infamous acts of these years was a supposed interview with the western press in which he declared that there was no and never had been any repression of the church in Russia (this in response to the Pope's and the Archbishop of Canterbury's calls for Christian nations to stand up against Stalin's repression of the church). Only in the years since the fall of the Soviet Union has been possible to prove that these declaration were made in Sergei's name, but did not come from his hand – they were falsifications written by KGB agents, though Sergei had no way of bringing this fact to light without threatening his own position and the position of the church as a whole. 
  In addition Sergei tried to gain support among conservatives through taking the unusual step of condemning emigre theologian Sergei Bulgakov, whose theology of Divine Wisdom ("Sophiology") was the apogee of the movement known as the "Russian Religious Renaissance,"a movement that Sergei himself had been very close to in those long-past days of the early 20th century when he tried to build bridges between the church and educated society. Here Sergei, it seems, was overcompensating to prove his (capital and small "o") orthodoxy to those who condemned him for various reasons. In these years, it seemed that the only possible maneuvering for Sergei was to condemn those whom the Stalinist regime also found reason to condemn. 
  As I mentioned earlier, the situation changed for the Orthodox church only at the end of the 1930s, when new territories were added to the Soviet Union. This provoked a new religious policy on the part of Stalin insofar as he knew that in places like western Ukraine, outright attacks on religion would cause him many problems. This situation became even more intense after Nazi forces advanced and occupied former Soviet territories. There civilians could see a marked difference in the way the church was treated by the state, and this had a certain effect on morale. One example, from the Kiev region:

                                     1917   1940 (USSR) 1942 (Nazi occupation)
Churches                 1710       2                    318
Monasteries          23       0                       8
Priests                       1435     3                   437
Monks and nuns   5193       0                   387

Given this reality, Stalin eventually decided the church would be a useful instrument to improve the image of the Soviet government along the front lines of the war. 
  In addition, the Orthodox Church (under Sergei's active leadership) also proved to be a significance force in encouraging patriotic feelings in the country. On the day the Soviet Union was attacked, Sergei issued a statement calling all Orthodox believers to defend the homeland - "our Orthodox church has always shared the fate of the people. Together with the the people the church went through trials and was comforted by its successes. And the church will not leave the people even now. It blesses with a heavenly blessing the upcoming heroism of all the people." This time around, it wasn't a KGB statement, but his own personal initiative. He and the few other leading bishops left alive and free (a total of 4!) organized offerings to help pay for the war effort. Sergei petitioned Stalin to allow the Church to open a bank account for  donations as the church plans to finance the building of a division of tanks (40); Stalin agreed. This not only had the effect of drawing Stalin's attention to the potential usefulness of the church, it also de facto meant that the church could act as a legal entity (i.e., by having a bank account) for the first time in decades. The tone toward the church in the Soviet press changed almost immediately - there were now very few attacks on Orthodoxy.
  Sergei continued to support the war effort. A typical example - just after Novgorod was overrun by the Nazis, Sergei made an emotional appeal to the clergy of the Moscow region: "just recently in St. Sophia's Cathedral in Novgorod the Great, in a place where for almost a thousand years the Orthodox liturgy was celebrated, a Lutheran pastor has served [i.e., presided at the liturgy]. Let the same not be repeated here, in the heart of holy Rus." Sergei 

Artistic representation of St. Sophia's in the 1940s.

fails to mention two things: 1. there had been numerous Lutheran congregations in Novgorod, all of which were shut down by the Soviets 2. The Soviets had shut down St. Sophia's itself and turned it into an anti-religious museum in 1929.  Another example, from a statement issued in November 1942: "On this 25th anniversary of the Republic of the Soviets, in the name of our Clergy and of all the believers of the Russian Orthodox Church, faithful children of our Fatherland, I salute with cordiality and piety, in your person, the leader chosen by God [emphasis added], the leader of our military and cultural forces, who is guiding us to triumph over the barbarous invasion, to the prosperity of our country in peace, towards a radiant future for its peoples. May God bless by success and glory your valorous exploits for our Fatherland."
  At any rate it wasn't until 1942 that the regime began to openly acknowledge the Orthodox Church as a partner in the war effort. In that year permission to celebrate the Easter vigil in the capital was given for the first time. By the fall of 1943, Stalin was ready to "reward" the Orthodox church for its efforts, and the "directed rebirth" of the church began. On September 3, 1943, the three functioning Orthodox Metropolitans met with Stalin to determine the conditions of the church's new status, and a few days later church leaders met to officially elect Sergei as patriarch, more than 15 years after he took the reins of what was left of church administration. (Stalin was particularly open to allowing this to happen at this time since later that month a delegation from the Anglican Church would be visiting). The gathered clergy issued a statement - "We are deeply touched by the sympathetic relationship of our Leader of all the people - the Head of the Soviet government, J.V. Stalin - to the needs of the Russian Orthodox Church and to our humble efforts, ...we give our synod-wide thanks to the government."

  By early 1945 the number of active bishops had more than doubled, and there were more than 10000 functioning churches in the USSR (granted most were in the newly occupied territories, but there was a limited degree of church-openings in Russia proper as well). Over the next 10 years over 70 diocese were organized, dozens of monasteries were re-opened, tens of thousands of priests were able to serve, many of them after having studied in one of the newly-opened seminaries. The Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate came out regularly, and splinter groups from the Moscow Patriarchate were eliminated or driven underground. At the same time, everything that the official church did was carefully controlled; no bishops were appointed without KGB approval, and the church remained on very shaky legal ground. (There is one interesting story about the church's vulnerability in those days: Stalin asked - "Why don't you have enough personnel?" He knew perfectly well why - these people had been executed according to his orders in the preceding years. But Sergei found a different answer - "One of the reasons is that we prepare a priest [for service] and instead he becomes a Marshal of the Soviet Union."This was a not-so-veiled reference to Stalin himself, who as a young man had studied in seminary. Stalin apparently liked the answer and allowed the church to open up a theological institute in Moscow.)
  There are diametrically opposed interpretations of Sergei's actions as leader of the church. Some feel that he was a traitor to the faith, while others believe that all the compromises he made were worth it in order to guarantee the survival of the Russian Orthodox church. In any case it is clear that his leadership set the tone for the relationship between the church and the government until the end of the Soviet period.
  While it is outside of the realms of this meeting, those who are familiar with Russian history know that, while Sergei's experiences were extreme, they fall within the pattern of church/state relations established in Russia for many centuries. And while the Patriarchate could occasionally act as a force counter to the tsar in Russia's first Patriarchal period (as was the occasion, however rarely, in the Byzantine Empire from which Russia inherited its Eastern Christian tradition), after Peter the Great the Church was always at the mercy of the state. Patriarch Tikhon's attempt to establish the "inherently neutrality: of the church in the early Soviet period is outside of the tradition of Russian Christianity. And this was not just the position of politicians - as a rule church leaders have also believed that it is in the best interests of the faith to be close to those in power. 
  Knowing this history help us understand the life of the Russian Orthodox Church today. For example one can find a number of parallels between the path of Patriarch Sergei and the current Patriarch, Kirill. Both spent years serving the church abroad and did much to build bridges between the church and educated members of society. Both, after becoming the leader of the church, seemed to have found it necessary to “prove” their Orthodoxy. Both Sergei and Kirill were correct in their analysis that there was a danger of splinter groups forming on the “right wing” of the church. Sergei especially thought about the underground church, while Kirill had to deal with the effects of a situation that began shortly before his election – the activity of Bishop Diomid from Anadyr and Chukotka (Far East), who became a “non-commemorator,” i.e., he stopped praying for the Patriarch, because of the latter's “heretical” stance on certain issues (e.g., openness to dialog with other confessions.) And as Sergei was assisted by Stalin, the current Patriarch also receives much support from the country's most powerful leader, President Putin. It is not surprising that when a group like Pussy Riot comes along and aims their criticism directly at the heart of the the problem - the close relationship between the church and the state - the government takes swift and decisive action to silence them.  
  When we take this situation into account we can come to a better understanding of the barriers for reform in the Russian Orthodox Church today, as well as the difficulty it has in finding a critical, prophetic voice. The Lutheran Church in Russia comes from a similar background, and in some ways faces a similar challenge. At the same time, though, the utter lack of power of our church can be used for the sake of the Gospel – if other Christians find it hard to turn a critical eye toward the government and society, might we find the courage to step into that void?

More thoughts on the situation in Russia and Ukraine

Over the past few weeks I've been thinking a lot about how to understand recent events in Ukraine; even as I struggle to understand it myself, I also wanted to write something here that might give readers in the West some sort of parallel to help them understand the situation. Here's the best I've come up with so far:

Canadian Prime Minister Harper and acting Ukrainian leader Yatsenjuk.
This picture  inspired my far-fetched analogy comparing Canada and Ukraine.

Let's imagine for a moment that the government in Canada was suffering from a period of significant instability. For almost a decade the people had high hopes for the country's development, but were sorely disappointed by political leaders who were ineffective or corrupt. Protests began in Ottawa; tens of thousands demanded that the government resign. Some of the strongest voice of protest came from Quebec, where political leaders had decided to move away from the idea of independence and toward a re-visioning of Canada as a whole. After months of protest and confrontation with the government, the protesters took power. The country's new leaders said that the country's way forward was to emphasize Canada's independence (in terms of language, culture and economy) from the United States; there was great fear among English-speakers (especially in the western provinces) that they would be

repressed. The atmosphere was tense. And strange things started happening - crime was on the rise, militias started to take over government buildings, there were rumors that English would be banned and that U.S. military men were secretly working in the country.... Relatively quickly, politicians in British Columbia decided to separate from Canada. They organized a referendum, and many more voted for union with the U.S. than for remaining with Canada.

Now, if you imagine this situation and you're an American, how would you react? What should the U.S. do? It seems to me that many of us would surprise ourselves by saying that we should let B.C. in...and that we might be open to Alberta and Saskatchewan joining them, if that is the will of the people. 

It seems to me that if we use this (very far out) example, we can imagine, to a degree, why people in Russia are so overwhelmingly for annexing Crimea. They see that it is the will of the local people, and we are, after all, one people, with cultural differences that are really not any more significant than the differences within our own countries (e.g., the difference between Washington and Louisiana or Michigan and Hawaii...or, in Russia, between the Northern Caucasus region and Siberia or the Far North and Moscow.)

...and yet, there is another side to this story. What would happen if we were in the opposite position, if some territory wanted to leave the U.S.? Russia had that situation with Chechnya, and we know how Moscow reacted to that. And how would Washington (and probably most of the country) react if New Mexico voted to secede from the U.S. and join our neighbors to the south? They would be able to name lots of reasons to justify that action...but how would we feel about that? 

Europeans can probably imagine this situation even clearer. What if the enclave of Russia between Poland and Lithuania, Kaliningrad, voted to return to Germany, becoming Koenigsberg once again? And what if, on the other hand, Bavaria decided to go its separate way from Germany?

Estonian President Toomas Ilves recently said that the annexation of Crimea represents “a complete and utter collapse of the fundamental assumptions of security in the post-World War II order." If you're looking at this situation from the Baltic states (or perhaps even from Russia's other immediate neighbors) this situation is, truly, very troubling. And I understand that, even if I cannot pretend to understand really what Ukrainians must be feeling about the situation in Crimea. But what I would hope is that this reexamination of questions of security does not turn in to the West uniting to treat Russia as an enemy. Instead what needs to happen, from my point of view, is a new commitment on all sides to the rule of law in international affairs, to firm commitment to international agreements that favor the long-term and the common good over the short-term and national interests. It means remaining committed to democratic principles and democratic processes even if these are sometimes very inconvenient. 

The West has very little opportunity to effectively respond to the annexation of Crimea not because of questions related to military power, but because of a lack of moral authority. As Masha Lipman says in this article from the New Yorker: "Russia has become strong enough, Putin seems to suggest, to be as bad as the United States: to do as it pleases, to legitimate its aggression, and to act without a go-ahead from the U.N. And yet, at the same time, Putin claims that, unlike the United States, Russia does nothing wrong or lawless."

I believe that one of the reasons President Putin is sometimes shown in such negative light in the Western press is that he points out (with sharp wit, I might add) the hypocrisy of Western politicians when they condemn those who do not uphold human rights, etc. What he and his diplomats add, however, is a layer of cynicism to the whole question, an approach that seems to be reflected in Васька's comment on my last post below. Russians frequently say that democracy and the rhetoric of human rights are simply an ideological facade that allows the powerful to do what they want , when and where they want. Freedom, rule of law, and democratic structures (and independent judiciary and legislature, fair elections, etc.), this line of argument goes, are all illusions created by the powerful to control those who are weaker.  

And so in this situation, we have hypocrisy vs. cynicism, with the "little guys" (who are not so little! Ukraine is a big, populous and important country in Europe!) stuck in the middle, frequently suffering because of battles between the two. 

The question that many are asking now is - where does this stop? Is it possible that other territories in eastern Ukraine will want to join Russia? What would be Russia's reaction if they do? Will there be an echo effect around the globe, with new annexations taking place in areas of territorial dispute based on the principles of the right of local self-determination (+ a strong "friend" ready to take you in)? And will the West come to a reasonable conclusion about this situation - i.e., that we can no longer continue to demand that others hold to standards that we ourselves do not keep? 

As a Christian living in this country I cannot share the joy that many are feeling about the triumph of "historical justice." Although it could quite possibly be the case that Crimea will have a better chance to thrive as a part of Russia than it did as a part of Ukraine and while I'm sure that Moscow will pump billions of dollars in to supporting development in the region, this whole situation has already done so much to harm relationships between Russia and the West (not to mention Russia and Ukraine!) that it is hard to imagine an outcome that is positive overall. As I see it the Gospel call us to remove barriers between people; the upshot of these events will be more separation, more distrust, more (I'm sad to say) hate. 

If you're the praying kind, please keep the people of this region in your prayers. May God grant wisdom and compassion to all involved in order to reduce the chances of greater conflict.

The Situation in Ukraine - a strange point of view

My experience in Ukraine is limited; much of it came many years ago. Yet one thing that

struck me about the country then that is, quite obviously, playing itself out now is the fact that the country is very complicated. It seemed like (as in the old joke about a different ethnic group) for every 2 Ukrainians you'd find 3 opinions about any given issue. Maybe that is why I always felt refreshed by my visits there - here to the east there is the tendency to push toward extreme positions, and if you find yourself in a minority position you tend to have a hard time.

So when the dominant voices in the Russia media cover events in the Ukraine, I'm frustrated and disappointed (to put it mildly), but not terribly surprised at what I hear - "The people on Maidan all fascists;" "They are given payments / training / arms by Western secret service agents;" "The new, so-called government in Kiev wants to forbid people from speaking Russian..."At the same time, I wonder why other media sources (from what I can tell about what is being read / said / seen in the U.S., for example) would be just as simplistic in their analysis - "The crowds on Independence Square oppose corruption and seek equal rights for all;" "Russia undermines the Ukrainian democracy movement;" "Putin planning Soviet Union Lite..." 

These approaches are not helpful. I see a much healthier search for understanding developing on social media among the pastors and other church leaders that I know, both in Russia and in Ukraine. (And, in fact, among Novosaratovka graduates throughout the former Soviet Union). While some are subject to the general patriotic feelings that tend to arise at such times, most tend to be self-critical of their own countries and to search for paths to help their sisters and brothers on the other side of the border.  

To say that the situation is complicated is not to say that every side is equally right or wrong.  I hope that all of those responsible for violence in this conflict will face trial, and that this will open up a new, peaceful chapter in the history of Ukraine. I hope that Ukraine, Russia and the other powers engaged in this situation will all learn to respect international law, to build democratic institutions and trust them, to reject the temptation to put aside rule of law for expediency's sake. 

I know that I'm not alone in these hopes. Yet the voices speaking in this way are not well heard. Perhaps part of the reason is that some lack (or have forgotten about) the unique point of view we can have when we really try to apply our faith to complicated situations. I, personally, am convinced that everything looks so much different in the light of the cross. When we consider our own, common, frail human state in contrast to the One who created us for so much more, how can we possibly busy ourselves with condemnation, with jockeying for power and influence? The cross puts into perspective the idiotic and dangerous games we play, pretending to be much more important than we actually are. The cross calls us to be thankful that we have no utterly drowned in our own faults, and calls us to strive toward a new point of view, and a new way of being. A way that has something to do with love.

(As a side note - as I was preparing this text, I found pictures on Facebook from a Pastor in Ukraine (who last month was beaten at a peaceful protest) whose congregation held an event showing an example of how games are not always negative, but can help us deal creatively with a situation. I'm sure the costume party they threw helped them to deal with the stress that they must all be feeling.)

Siberian Circuit Riders

Earlier this week, I arrived back in Novosibirsk after a trip that lasted two days short of a month. The train took me as far west as the capital of the Urals, Yekaterinburg, and as far east as Lake Baikal.   

The enormous distances in Russia do mean that quite a bit of time was spent simply on the road. While that has a beauty of its own (even in 3rd class train wagons!), the more significant part of the journey involved visiting the people of our congregations. 

My traveling partner for most of the journey was also my boss - Pastor Helmut Grimmsmann, the Asia Secretary of my employer the Evangelical Lutheran Mission of Lower Saxony. I very much enjoyed Helmut's company - asking him about his experience as a missionary in the Central African Republic (25 years!) and reflecting with him about the theology and practice of mission service.

I felt like we were 21st-century, Siberian versions of the circuit riders of the Old West, traveling from one congregation to the next. As a rule Helmut would usually preach and I would translate; it was fortunate for me (since my knowledge of German is so very slim) the Helmut is completely fluent in English. We would then usually have "tea" (which is, more often than not, a very richly prepared mix of sandwiches, salads, cakes and candies) and talk with the people about whatever problems or issues might be facing them. 

Our congregational building in the mining town of Anzhero-Suzhdensk

Visiting with the older women after worship
(while the younger women are preparing "tea")

By the time we arrived in the south-central Siberian region of Khakasia, we had been away from home for more than a week; it would be fair to say that we were not exactly fresh. Yet five intense days of visits in the region lay ahead. One of the Abakan congregation's recent adult confirmands, Marina, took us into her home that first morning and for the next few to follow; her hospitality (and the hospitality of our long time member, Erika, who housed us in Chernogorsk) made it easier to prepare for the days of worship service, business meetings, and many kilometers of road that lay ahead.

The church council president in Abakan, Alexander, made our "circuit riding" possible by driving us faithfully from Kuragino and Roshchinsk in the east to Shira and Bograd in the west. In between he showed us some of the natural and man-made wonders of the region, including the Sayano-Shushenskaya Hydroelectric Dam and, together with folks from Bograd, the Borodino cave.

As we traveled I was struck again how every congregational situation in the region is unique - some are tied with German-Russian heritage, others are not. Some are open and welcoming, others are tightly knit. Some are urban, others are rural. A person with such rich missionary experience as Helmut, however, was able to provide both challenge and comfort to each of them. I was challenged, too, not only by tasks, on the one hand, as translator and the other hand as area dean, but also by Helmut's approach. While in my ministry I have put great effort into being understood by the congregation (i.e., coming as closely as possible to their mindset and values in order that they might hear the Good News in a way they could accept), Helmut put more emphasis on the way the Gospel brings something new into our lives. With such an approach he risked being misunderstood (or, even more likely, not understood at all) by many people in the congregation; on the other hand I was impressed by his willingness to take risks and challenge his listeners' assumptions. I saw that this really resonated with some congregational members, especially those around the “edges” of the church. 

Helmut (foreground) and the congregation in Bograd

Some of the questions that came up repeatedly in our time in the Abakan region were: the need to think creatively about finding long term solutions for community space when in most places we do not own our own, the necessity to improve congregational singing and worship leadership training for lay leaders. In addition Helmut and I thought about and discussed how our congregations' identity and mission are related to the issues above. One of the instruments we use in the U.S. to  help congregations understand better who they are and who they want to be is the mission and/or vision statement. In the coming months I'll be thinking about ways to help our congregations analyze themselves so that they might become more focused on the way God does and can use them as an instrument of challenge and grace in their environments. 

Krymsk

One of the strongest impressions from the past month comes from our first days in southern Russia. As we made our annual camping trip to Abrau-Durso, we drove through torrential rains. We knew that this was not convenient for setting up camp; we had no idea that the rain would be the cause of a tragic situation for our neighbors. Because of the isolation of our location a few days past before we even learned what had happened about 50 miles away in the city of Krymsk. We had driven through there before the rain started...and by the time we drove through again, many residents had lost their homes.

As I see it, no one is completely safe from natural disasters, and human decisions about where (in this case, in a valley) and how (in this case, mostly in cinder block homes) to live contribute to the circumstances that sometimes lead to tragic results. Yet, this case was different from disasters I've witnessed in the past. This time I saw a distrust towards the government that would make even my fellow Montanans look government-friendly in comparison. Immediately there were all sort of rumors about the tragedy...and the circumstances around it certainly were strange. A large portion of Krymsk was washed away by a huge wave; people were asking, “how can rain lead to a wave?” There must have been dam broken somewhere, was the conclusion. And how could that happen? “The government blew it up” as a way to avoid the possibility of flooding for a more well-off area, people speculated. And government emergency services and the region's governor, while denying any wrong-doing, were very slow in coming up with alternative answers. Officials spoke of around 160 deaths, while “everyone knew” that the local morgue, which holds up to 400, was full and that a grocery store warehouse was being used to hold more bodies. My apologies for the gruesome nature of such details, but it reflects the real thoughts and words of people in the area. The government did not help their case at all; it is clear that emergency warning systems didn't work, and that those with the right connections knew ahead of time about the approaching disaster...while the most vulnerable (the poor and elderly) were left to fend for themselves.

Despite all these very sad aspects of the tragedy, I witnesses once again the way Russians, when moved by pity for the neighbor, can be moved to give of their (sometimes very limited) resources to show support. Even more impressive were the efforts of volunteers who traveled to Krymsk in order help with cleanup; for Russia, this is a rather new mark of developing civil society.

Yet, once again, the government's reaction shows an enormous degree of mutual distrust. After the initial wave of public reporting on the event, lawmakers proposed a bill that would control and limit the efforts of volunteers; a need, it was said, that was recognized after volunteers in Krymsk “spread ugly rumors.”

I don't pretend to know what really happened in Krymsk. What is clear enough, though, is that the people do not trust the government and vise versa. This situation is in no one's best interests, and it multiplies the negative effects of tragedy.

Russian Summer 2012

Despite the fact that we did not visit my homeland this summer, this July we probably came close to covering as many miles as those years when I was in the U.S. on“home assignment.” We were on the coast of the Black Sea and the Sea of Japan, the banks of the rivers Angara and Ob. My mind is still filled with many and various impressions; in my next few posts, I'll share some of them with you. For now - a few pictures.


The places we visited (all near Russia's southern border) are marked with green.

Our "dacha" near the Black Sea (Abrau-Durso)

Abrau lake with an Orthodox church in the background

My wife Natasha took this picture and shared the following insight: 

"Do not lean!" (written on the train door window) is not only good advice

for using public transport, it is also an appropriate reminder to take care

of the ecological wonder that is Lake Baikal.

Reflecting in Irkutsk

Vladivostok's new suspension bridge disappearing into the fog.

On the Sea of Japan south of Vladivostok



Russia Day

The paradoxical nature of Russia was well-captured in the
recent art exhibit "Rodina" ("Motherland,") which opened
at the end of May after twice being banned.

It is appropriate that the holiday named "Russia Day" is one that provokes ambivalent or even paradoxical reactions among those who live in the nation for which the holiday was named. It couldn't really be Russia Day otherwise.


While June 12 was never officially "Independence Day," that is what many people called it for a number of years. And they asked themselves - "Independence? From what? From whom? Wasn't it better to be together (even with tension) than to 'enjoy' the kind of 'independence' we have now?"



The images above contrast various aspects of society
and culture today and in Russian history.

And now, more than 20 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, on a day that was intended to invoke national pride and be a signal of a new way of organizing society, some opposition leaders and ordinary citizens are being harassed just because they want to make their voices heard. On the other hand the country is working hard on many fronts to improve its image and the standard of living of its citizens. There are many, many ways in which Russians can now truly celebrate independence.

Paradox exists both on the level of society as a whole and on the level of interactions between individuals. I've frequently been surprised here both by the way upstanding people could be openly aggressive and offensive, while I've had some of my most interesting (and sometimes quite intellectually and spiritually challenging) conversations with those are drunk or who live a life of crime.




A fire blazed on the upper levels of one
of Novosibirsk's most modern
buildings...while a Soviet-era firetruck
 stands by helplessly.

The fact that this country is full of paradox is why I was attracted to it from the beginning. Russia provides no simple answers. In fact, it is much better at supplying no answers at all, but instead dwelling on the "eternal questions" - "Who is to blame?" "What is to be done?"
Because of this, very little is settled and stable here. As a consequence few people experience a true and deep happiness. Even as a guest in this country, I am not immune to this situation. And, of course, Russia's complicated past and paradoxical present affect the life of the Lutheran church here as well. We as a church still do not“fit in” in so many ways, and it sometimes feels like Lutheranism could fall between the cracks of all of Russia's contradictions.


Yet, maybe we don't need to fit in exactly. Maybe it is enough to share a love for the questions and to avoid the easy answers. We might not be happy, but we are authentic. And true to life, with all its paradoxes.

That is what I will be celebrating as this “Russia Day” draws to a close here in Siberia.



Even after living here more than a decade,
I am sometimes confused by the
things that I see. This picture is
from my neighborhood.



If you look very closely at the picture with
the car parts, you'll see this church
 in the background.

May Flowers

In my last blog post I promised to provide pictures of May flowers. I've been suprised to see here in Siberia how much time and energy people put into growing tulips, narcissus,  etc. even in the public courtyards that are otherwise simply bare ground, weeds or worse. Perhaps in this way they compensate for the harshness of the winter. In any case I know that observing their efforts to cultive beauty despite real challenges (social and climactic (!) conditions) is one of the things that brings me happiness. The first two pictures are from outside our church building.