Window on Eurasia

Russian Officers Denounce ‘Clericalization of the Military’

Paul Goble

Vienna, June 29, 2006 – A group of Russian officers has denounced what it
calls the unconstitutional “clericalization” of the Russian armed
forces and says that by promoting that development, the Orthodox Church
and some in the higher command are spreading Islamophobia and thus
undermining the military’s cohesion.

The group, which calls itself the International Union of Soviet
Officers and which is headed by two flag-rank officers, released its protest on June 23 in response to a decision by the Baltic Military District to
allow the Moscow Patriarchate to hold a meeting in a military facility of priests who have been working with soldiers and sailors.

The document specifies that holding the Fourth All-Russian Assembly of
the Clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church in that facility “crudely
violates the principles of freedom of conscience and of a secular state
and is illegal.” And it adds that it was a violation “even of the currently operative Constitution of the Russian Federation.”

The protest, the text of which was sent to the Portal-Credo.ru news
service and is now available online at
[http://www.islam.ru/pressclub/islamofobia/rpcnago/?print_page], then
proceeds to detail what it says is not only an unconstitutional but
increasingly debiliating development.

First, it says that “the patriotism of the present-day Russian Orthodox Church is a myth. It is capable only of blessing imperialistic or fraticidal wars. As a result, operations directed against band formations in Chechnya are now [falsely] presented as a conflict between Christians and Muslims.

Second, the protest adds, “today the Russian Orthodox Church is generating xenophobia in the Army” by suggesting that some religions are better than others and by “sowing national and religious hatred and antagonism,” actions that are “transforming military
collectives into arenas” of inter-ethnic and –inter-religious conflict.

And third, it continues, senior commanders of the Russian Armed Forces
are foolishly and illegally promoting this “clericalization” of the
country’s forces apparently out of the mistaken belief that involving
the Church in military activities will improve discipline and morale.
Such an assumption is totally wrong, the protest letter says.

Because commanders have been willing participants in this process, the
protest continues, it is now possible to hear at places where soldiers take the military oath, “Your army is Orthodox – Let the Orthodox Serve in It!” Such slogans, the protest says, will inevitably undermine the unity of the armed forces.

The protest carefully notes that the Union of Soviet Officers is “not
against religious organizations but insists on respect of the laws of
the country by the Russian Orthodox Church and other religious organizations,” something that the protest suggests is not now the
case.

And it concludes by saying that “from the command of the Armed
Froces, we demand the observation in the Armed Forces of the Constitutional
principles of a secular state and the training of soldiers in the
spirit of genuine internationalism and th equality of soldiers regardless of
their attitudes toward religion.”

The extent of support for such a protest is uncertain, but there is one
aspect of this case that may prove significant: The authors of this
document are clearly more Soviet than religious themselves, but their
views about the place of religion in public life clearly coincide with
those of many non-Orthodox religious groups such as Islam.

Consequently, there is a very real possibility that these two trends of
opinion – one religious, the other not -- could link up, something
that might prove to be a challenge to the role the Orthodox Church
seeks to play in Russian military and perhaps more generally to the role the
Patriarchate aspires to in Russian society as a whole.