“What is happening in Ukraine with Orthodoxy is not persecution”

– Father Alexander, earlier it was easier to deal with literature: there is male, there is female. And now, it turns out, also “batyushkovskaya”?

– The division is conditional, it is often impossible to put up some kind of boundary pillars: this is male, and this is female. And about the priesthood, I can say the following. The fact is that the priest, in addition to serving, also confesses. In addition to what he confesses, he also talks. And often one has to dig very deeply into the everyday affairs of parishioners. Up to such spheres into which another writer cannot penetrate in any way. We see the hidden – and we can show a person in all its fullness. But a secular writer has to think, for him the authorship prevails over life. This is the first. And the second is that a priest evaluates any act based on Christocentrism. The fates of his characters are refracted from the point of view of the Commandments of God. A secular writer, regardless of his gender, does not have this.

— A priest who takes confession and a psychologist who consults a patient at a difficult moment: what is the difference between them?

– I will be a little harsh, and not everyone will agree with me, but I do not quite understand what psychology is. Psyche is the soul, something immaterial. But a psychologist, if he is an unbeliever, influences the soul with material instruments. And the Orthodox psychologist too. Why doesn’t psychology take root in seminaries? They tried to introduce this discipline, but even the programs were not really compiled in pastoral psychology.

— Why did so many poet-priests appear in the 1990s–2000s? Sergei Kruglov, Konstantin Kravtsov, or geographically closest example to you – Father Dimitry (Tribushny) from Donetsk combine serving God and creating poetic works.

Poetic talent is a gift from God. I personally know Father Dimitri, we met in Moscow at the Golden Knight award ceremony. I received this award for prose (for the book “Monastery Apples and Other Stories.” – B.S.), and he – for poetry. I can’t say that I am a great connoisseur of his works, but I read from time to time. So many priests, poets, composers, artists appeared because the priest is not only a cassock, a living heart beats under it and interesting thoughts can arise in my head, maybe interesting hobbies. Or they may not be – there are “requirement executors”. Everyone is doing the right thing, but they serve, as they say, “not for the sake of Jesus, but for the sake of the couscous bread.”

Is your next book already being written? What will it be about?

– It is written, but, unfortunately, more slowly than you want. I can’t sit down at the table and say: that’s it, I’m writing. Even Winnie the Pooh, in order to compose a chant, needed a special poetic mood.

But there will be a book – new stories, reflections (notes). And, most likely, it will include a large section dedicated to Optina Pustyn. We are working on it together with Father Melchizedek (Artyukhin). Or there will be two books separately – Optina and short stories. I hope to finish everything before Easter – you just need a little time and health.

— On one of the covers of your books we see a cat. Basically everyone loves cats these days – so I can’t help but ask you about the place that animals occupy in creativity.

– Who is the most faithful friend? Dog or cat. They demand almost nothing, but they love you and protect you and stay until the end. Why is that? God sent them to you to take out all the bad things from you. It would seem that a dumb creature, and the manifestation of her love is often more important to you than human relationships. Tomos is sitting next to me now – a lop-eared cat, his granddaughter gave me. I didn’t call him that in honor of the “Tomos” that Bartholomew gave to the “OCU”, this is a real Tomos, alive and loving.

— Since we have mentioned the Ukrainian schismatics, “kindled” by the Ecumenical Patriarch, let’s talk about the fate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Schema-Archimandrite Zosima (Sokur) from the St. Nicholas Monastery in the Donbass bequeathed, in the event of Ukraine’s withdrawal from Moscow, not to agree to autocephaly (legal or illegal), but to go under the omophorion of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’. Is your temple currently under the jurisdiction of the UOC?

— Our temple belongs to the Russian Orthodox Church. We were the first in the Donbass to come under the omophorion of the Moscow Patriarch.

– And how many parishes in the LPR today belong to the ROC?

— Our Rovenky diocese consists of 140 parishes. All obey Patriarch Kirill. After the Feofanovsky gathering (the Council of the UOC of the Moscow Patriarchate, held in the St. Panteleimon Monastery in the Feofaniya park in Kiev, where a decision was made on independence from the Russian Church. – B.S.), we do not commemorate the Ukrainian metropolitan at all. This does not mean that we do not pray for him, but he has been removed from the order of commemoration of church hierarchs.

I can say that in the Lugansk diocese the majority wants to go to the Russian Orthodox Church, but the process has not ended – I don’t want to discuss it, we are neighbors, I know and love them all.

— And what is the situation with the jurisdiction of temples in the DPR?

– Most of the priests of the Donetsk diocese also do not commemorate Onufry. The situation is similar in the Gorlovka diocese. The problem is only with the Severodonetsk diocese on the territory of the LPR, there is a pro-Ukrainian bishop. But everything is changing very quickly. In some parishes, the Metropolitan of the UOC is commemorated, while in others they forgot about him, they believe that he did wrong.

– Why, despite the public break with Russian Orthodoxy, do the UOC in Ukraine continue to “pressure”, searches and arrests continue?

– In May, they needed to show firmness, but they went on about the politicians. They wanted to show themselves as a structure loyal to the authorities. Purely secular factors came into play and they began to dominate church life.

But I’m trying to understand why when we were pounded for nine years in a row, it was not condemned in any way. And when Russia began to liberate Donbass, so that this would stop, so that women and children would not be killed, the UOC declared Russia an “aggressor”. And since they considered us to be the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, why has no one come to us for so many years?

What is happening in Ukraine with Orthodoxy is not persecution, it is the result of Theophania. If then the UOC had declared that it was in unity with the Moscow Patriarchate, then there would have been persecution. And just goes “ideological processing.”

– According to Orthodox historiography, Byzantium ceased to exist as a state, because it went into union with the Catholics. All repeats?

Is Byzantium alone an example here? Let us recall the famous Union of Brest, when the then Bishop signed one thing, but came to Moscow and began to say something else. What did it lead to?

The mechanism is always the same: spiritual submission to the West.

“The Lord punishes us with the West,” as Theophan the Recluse said. Lavrentiy Chernigovsky wrote about the same. Zosima knew back in 1994 that everything would be like this.

– Can you predict what will happen to the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra? Will it be completely taken away and forcibly handed over to the “OCU”? Will it be schismatic in a year?

– The Kiev-Pechersk Lavra was and will remain Orthodox. The Pochaev Lavra was under the Uniates for quite a long time. And nothing – back returned. So it’s not going anywhere here either.

– Rovenki, where is your temple located, is this the rear as of January 2023? Or is the city under attack?

– Recently, it has not been flying to us, although it used to happen often. We have a strategically important city, large enterprises. We hear only planes, we are talking, and Russian aviation is flying to the front line. The Ukrainian positions are 150 kilometers away. This is far, but at the current level of armaments, not as far as it seems. Thank God, air defense works well and does not miss anything. They also tried to shoot at us with “Points U” – at the very beginning of the special operation. But we don’t have men — everyone is defending their homeland.