Tikhon Shevkunov looks too elegant and does not really fit into the image of an Orthodox monk, which Dostoevsky introduced into Western notions. His beard is unkempt, but only a little; the chin is too sharply defined; and the head of his thick and shoulder-length hair is too thick. His television appearances are too flawless to fit the image of the insane, self-flagellating hermit of The Brothers Karamazov. Father Tikhon is a clear picture of a movie star with her characteristic self-confidence - and he even looks a little like Russell Crowe.
If the monks of Dostoevsky sit in their unheated cells, then Tikhon cannot be called a recluse. When I interviewed him in December, he had just returned from China and was about to go to latin america. Whitewashed walls and bulbous domes Sretensky Monastery in the center of Moscow, led by Shevkunov, this is not an island of spiritual reflections, isolated from the modern world.
If you call the monastery, the switchboard operator will answer you. Need WiFi? No problems. Enter the outbuilding and you will see the largest publishing house of Russian Orthodox Church. Go to the Internet, and there you will find the most famous and most popular Orthodox website, Pravoslavie.ru, created in 2000.
“On Mount Athos, they only recently got electricity, and in Sretensky, all the monks have iPads,” laughs Tikhon’s friend Yevgeny Nikiforov, head of the Orthodox radio station Radonezh, referring to the Greek monastery, which, by the standards of the Orthodox faith, is the gold standard of asceticism and seclusion. “Of course they need these iPads for their preaching work,” he begins to sound serious when he notices me taking down his words.
Father Tikhon enjoys much more influence in the church than befits his modest title of archimandrite. This is mainly due to his connections in the Kremlin. One story is constantly told about him, which Shevkunov neither confirms nor refutes: that he is a confessor of Vladimir Putin. The only thing he talks about is that once Putin (most likely at the moment when he headed the secret service of the FSB - and he headed it from 1998 to 1999) appeared at the gates of the monastery. Since then, the two men have been openly and very publicly in touch with each other, and Tikhon has accompanied Putin on trips around the country and abroad, solving church problems. However, according to persistent rumors, it was Tikhon who led the former KGB colonel to Orthodox faith and became his confessor, or godfather.
Father Tikhon appears to be very knowledgeable about Putin's religious life: in 2001, he gave an intriguing interview to a Greek newspaper stating: “Putin is indeed an Orthodox Christian, not just in name. This is a person who goes to confession, takes communion, and understands his responsibility before God for the high service that is entrusted to him, and for his immortal soul.
It also seems that Tikhon has influence - he is almost single-handedly leading an anti-alcohol campaign in Russia, achieving amazing results: just before the New Year, the Russian parliament banned the sale of alcohol after 11 pm.
When I persistently begin to ask about the real extent of his influence, Tikhon answers sharply, saying only that he and Putin are well acquainted. However, the priest refuses to answer the question of whether he is Putin's confessor. "If you want, you can believe these rumors, but I'm definitely not spreading them," he says. You won't find the word "Putin" in Shevkunov's autobiography, Unholy Saints, which became a literary sensation in Russia last year and a major best-seller in 2012, beating even Fifty Shades of Grey, when translated into Russian.
Whatever the answer to the question about the confessor, the Kremlin considers it useful not to deny anything in this regard. "It's a very personal question," says Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, "and I just don't know." Although he confirmed that Tikhon is "very popular" and that Putin and Shevkunov know each other well. “No one can know for sure whether he is a confessor or not. If someone knows that you are a confessor, then you are no longer a confessor.”
Father Tikhon studied at the Institute of Cinematography. In 1982, at the age of 24, he was baptized and found himself in the unique position of a very influential person like others. historical figures who were in close proximity to the government, which listened to them. True, he insists, and not without reason: “I am not Cardinal Richelieu!”
Strictly speaking, he is right, says Yevgeny Nikiforov. “Our confessions do not contain much concrete information. You just say, "I stole" or "I committed adultery." You can add a few specific details, such as how many times it happened, how often it happened. But you don't have to go into details. If some foreign intelligence service seizes Father Tikhon and tortures him, he will be able to tell them very little.
Georgy Mitrofanov, a St. Petersburg priest, says that the fashion for confessors has only recently appeared in the ranks of the Russian business and political elite. “This is an interesting phenomenon that appeared when rich Russians began to join the church.”
“Most people don't have a personal confessor. The majority go to confession in overcrowded churches, doing it like on a conveyor belt. The rich want something personal, and some see it as a form of psychotherapy, says Mitrofanov. “However, the confessor in this case is in a very vulnerable position, as they become very dependent on their intercessor.”
Priest Mitrofanov doubts that Putin has a real confessor, "except for himself." He says that several years ago he asked Father Tikhon if he was Putin's confessor, to which Tikhon replied in the negative. “But that was a long time ago, and a lot could have changed since then,” Mitrofanov notes.
The connection between Putin and Father Tikhon seems odd for a number of reasons, but the first and foremost is historical. Visitors to the Sretensky Monastery may not see the unremarkable stone cross unless they specifically look for it. He stands in a garden adjoining one of the white walls of the monastery. Monks in cassocks look after him, and women in headscarves kneel in front of him as if they have found eternal bliss. “The cross was erected in memory of Orthodox Christians, martyred and killed in this place during the years of turmoil,” is written on the bronze plate installed on the side.
The cross was erected on this site in 1995, and it seems to exist in tragic symmetry with the building, located just one block from the monastery at the other end of Bolshaya Lubyanka Street. This is the headquarters of the former KGB, an organization that, in its various incarnations, shot and imprisoned more than 300,000 church employees in the name of the official atheism that had reigned in the country since 1917. In Soviet times, the 600-year-old Sretensky Monastery was closed and the barracks of the NKVD (predecessor of the KGB) were placed there. It is said that its territory was often used for executions.
Much has changed today. The building on Lubyanka, which houses the successor to the KGB, the Federal Security Service, now has its own Orthodox chapel. The newly opened and reconstructed Sretensky Monastery has become a symbol of the awkward alliance between the church and its former persecutors. It is the center of a spiritual renaissance in Russian ruling circles, with a disproportionate number of former KGB officers who flooded the Kremlin 12 years ago, following Putin.
According to Father Tikhon, now one should not dwell on the ruin that the organization, which actually rules Russia today, caused to the church. He believes that this should not become a reason for a public confrontation in society, but it should not be particularly hidden either. It is like a stone cross in the garden of a monastery - visible only to those who are looking for it.
Father Tikhon says he will never come to terms with the Soviet period in Russian history. And yet, he does not believe that contemporaries should be held responsible for the crimes of the NKVD and the KGB. “They have nothing to do with it. It's like blaming american soldier in what happened in Vietnam,” says the priest.
Instead of looking for someone to blame, Father Tikhon wants to build a single arch of historical Russian statehood out of the 70-year Soviet past. While working for the Soviet state, many of these KGB officers actually served Russia, he said. “The intelligence officers I knew were doing their job on behalf of the Russian state,” he says, “and it would be absolutely wrong to say that they are guilty of repression.”
Needless to say, such views are held by a minority in the church, especially among the rank-and-file clergy, who previously belonged to the group of dissidents. However, such views are welcomed and even cultivated by the Kremlin leadership, which is striving with all its might to redeem its atheistic past and take advantage of the church's reputation. According to a 2010 survey, the church is the second most trusted institution in Russia, despite the fact that only a small number of Russians go to church regularly. Falling popularity ratings and rising street protests in Russia have prompted Putin to quickly take over the church, according to analyst Geraldine Fagan, who studies religious freedoms in Russia and recently wrote the book Believing in Russia (Believing in Russia). .
“Russians identify with the Orthodox Church as the only major public institution that has survived and survived in the troubled history of this country. So Putin wants to capitalize on an image of the permanence and sustainability of Orthodoxy in a context where his own legitimacy is being eroded,” Fagan said. Sretensky Monastery is at the very center of such efforts. The head of a Moscow public relations firm once jokingly referred to the monastery as "the Kremlin's ideological department." But really, this is no joke.
Once saturated with ideology from top to bottom, Russian political life has been influenced by overarching doctrines and programs for centuries. Therefore, many believe that the uncomfortable vacuum that was left after the disappearance of communism is now beginning to be filled by a politically tinged and active Orthodox Christianity, which is supported by Father Tikhon. Shevkunov himself denies that he is anyone's ideologist, but this label stuck to him firmly, especially after 2008, when he became the director and protagonist of a documentary and a controversial political parable about the collapse Byzantine Empire"Death of an Empire. Byzantine Lesson. This film was shown three times on central television in prime time.
Hardliners in Russia are infatuated with the idea that Russia is the "third Rome," the heir to the Orthodox greatness of fallen Byzantium. And the main message of the film reinforces this historical connection, while at the same time justifying the anti-Western worldview in historical terms. The Fall of an Empire embellishes the role of the Ottoman Turks, who captured Constantinople in 1453, and argues that Byzantium is rotten from the inside, succumbing to ideological predators from the envious West.
In the film, there is a statement that instead of preserving traditions, Byzantium began reforms at the behest of Western (Venetian) bankers, who in the film wear carnival masks with a very long noses to make it clear who is who. The individualistic culture of the West weakened the resolve of Byzantium and destroyed its hierarchical values. Society has lost faith in its rulers.
The film caused a scandal in the ranks of the liberals, who called it a model of eccentricity and obscurantism. Today, he would make no impression on the air, where laudatory odes to state power, historical revisionism, and accusations against Kremlin opponents who allegedly carry out subversive activities with foreign money dominate. In other words, Tikhon was a little ahead of his time. But now he finds it difficult to draw attention to himself in the midst of the political elite's all-out movement towards conservative nationalism and xenophobia, which began after Putin's return to a third presidential term in May last year.
According to the Russian constitution written in 1993, Russia is a secular state. But she recently flirted with religious law rather risquously, bizarrely denouncing the punk band Pussy Riot, whose members became global martyrs after being sentenced to two years in prison (one later released) for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred."
The prosecution documents allege that the three defendants in balaclavas, who performed the punk prayer “Virgin Mary, drive Putin away!” in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, violated Articles 62 and 75 of the Trullo Cathedral, which was held in the seventh century under Emperor Justinian. According to these articles, the salt and pulpit in Orthodox churches only priests can ascend. Although there was no reference to the canons of the Council of Trullo in the verdict of the judge in this case, he nevertheless mentioned as expert opinion the decision of the fourth-century Council of Laodicea, according to which "the solea and the pulpit have a special religious significance for the faithful."
Many in the church believe that the state has overdone its zeal in its cloak of ecclesiastical authority, and that this scandal has given rise to a quarrel between representatives of the higher clergy, such as Patriarch Kirill, and clergy who disagree with him, many of whom seek reform. “These medieval canons have nothing to do with state law,” says Priest Mitrofanov. "They simply used the church as an 'ideological cover', just like the Soviet courts used communist ideology as a justification for their decisions."
Innokenty Pavlov, who left the church in 1993 and became a well-known liberal opponent of the Orthodox establishment, doubts that anything other than political expediency is behind the new piety of Russian leaders.
“Our leaders seem to have learned one useful thing in his scientific atheism class,” he laughs. - Voltaire said that if God does not exist, he must be invented. So they thought it was a good idea and decided to bring it to life.”
Even Father Tikhon signed a petition calling for a reduction in Pussy Riot's prison terms. He sharply criticizes the behavior of the members of this group, saying: "The state must respond to this, otherwise it's just not the state", and also "If they had done this in Westminster Abbey, they would definitely have received a prison term." At the same time, Shevkunov notes: "But two years is too much."
Apparently, realizing that he was overdoing it with his uncompromising image, Father Tikhon recent times trying to show the softer side of his nature. He raises money for the monastery's children's center, which takes care of 100 disabled children and is funded jointly by the monastery and the state.
“If you're looking for a 'symphony' of church-state power, here it is,” Father Tikhon says, using a fifth-century Byzantine term for theocratic rule. “This is an example of how the church and the state work together for the benefit of the people.”
There is no better evidence of Fr. Tikhon's softening of late than his autobiographical book, Unholy Saints and Other Stories. It is devoted mainly to the memories of the older generation of clergymen, Tikhon's teachers. Shevkunov in this work presents a rather subtle, nostalgic portrait of the time when life was simpler. Unlike the movie, the book lacks the boastful jingoistic nationalism and there is no political propaganda from the current regime. This is a fairly well-written and compelling work about the life of monks in the Soviet Union.
In fact, Father Tikhon was spurred on a long journey to the heights of secular and spiritual power in Russia by the terrible impressions of the séances in 1982. Then he studied at the Institute of Cinematography and was called Georgy Shevkunov. The decision to be baptized in the pre-perestroika Soviet Union was not easy to make. But Shevkunov had good reasons for that.
Being an amateur spiritist, he along with a group of friends showed an interest in the occult. They found that with a few candles, a planchette and correct location can "establish contact with completely incomprehensible, and yet absolutely real entities" from the world of spirits, which Shevkunov writes about in the book. New acquaintances introduced themselves as Napoleon, then Socrates, then even Stalin. But suddenly something terrible happened.
One day, a group of friends managed to get in touch with the 19th-century writer Nikolai Gogol - or so it seemed to them. But he was in a terrible mood, and the youth recoiled in horror when Gogol, in a fit of extreme irritability, told them all to commit suicide by taking poison. They rushed out of the room, and the next day they went straight to the church, where they were sharply reprimanded by the priest. The stupid youth did not actually come into contact with Gogol, the clergyman said. They just fell victim to a clever prank. Most likely, some small demon did it. He advised them all to be baptized.
People from the generation of Tikhon were researchers of everything spiritual, and because of this, many of them were attracted to Christianity. The Soviet ban on religion made it even more attractive - a kind of forbidden fruit. Yevgeny Nikiforov, who is in his fifties, laughs today, remembering the eccentricities of the generation of the 1980s.
“First we studied yoga, then we learned Sanskrit, then we read New Testament. We were all the same at the time. And only later did we mature spiritually,” he says. - Nobody knew anything. The KGB even thought that karate was a religion. We watched films with Bruce Lee and thought it was some kind of mysticism. Can you imagine?
According to Father Tikhon, he was attracted to Christianity (apart from trying to escape from the devilish possession) that one thought became obvious to his generation: “all the great people of the world and Russian history” - he calls Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Kant, Goethe and Newton - “ all those whom we trusted, whom we loved and respected, all of them thought about God “completely differently than we do.” On the other hand, "those who did not inspire any sympathy" - Marx, Lenin, Trotsky - "all these destructive revolutionaries who led our state to what it has become, they were all atheists." For him, the choice was clear.
Shortly after his baptism, Shevkunov settled within the walls of the Pskov-Caves Monastery, that former hermitage in northeastern Russia. It was one of two active male monasteries that remained in the country by the 1980s out of almost a thousand monastic cloisters that existed before the 1917 revolution. In 1991 he was tonsured a monk with the name Tikhon, and in 1995 he became archimandrite of the Sretensky Monastery.
Tikhon's autobiography is devoted mainly to "unholy saints", whom he calls his teachers. These people suffered from Soviet regime much more than him. The confessor of Father Tikhon himself, the now deceased archimandrite of the Pskov-Caves Monastery, John (Krestyankin), had his fingers broken during interrogation by the NKVD in 1950, and then sent to the Gulag for five years.
“Thank God, I didn’t have such serious conflicts as my predecessors,” Tikhon says today. - In the 1980s, we did not have such repressions; they could destroy your professional life, to forbid you to study, not to give you a prestigious job, but nothing more.
But although something akin to anger appears in his prose from time to time, the book "Unholy Saints" is written in a restrained, in the spirit of forgiveness, and is mainly devoted to personal memories of various quirks and sweet weaknesses of the older generation of priests. Critics say the book is remarkable because it does not say that, apart from clashes with the authorities, the clergy often compromised. Many accuse the priests of working for the KGB, which essentially managed the appointments to church hierarchy until the end of the 1980s.
No one knows more about this painful page in the history of the church - about the cooperation of high-ranking clergy and the KGB - than the former priest and liberal reformer Gleb Yakunin, who was excommunicated in 1997 partly because he criticized it. Speaking of the supernatural success of Tikhon's new book, Yakunin admits that he and his wife liked The Unholy Saints. At the same time, according to him, there is only “half of the story”, moreover, its positive half. He dismissively calls the book "socialist realism" (meaning the socialist school of official art, devoted exclusively to depicting happy and contented workers and peasants).
Yakunin himself spent five years in prison in the 1980s. In 1992, at the urging of then-president Boris Yeltsin, Yakunin received access to the archives of the fourth department of the fifth department of the KGB, which dealt with religious groups, and studied the reports of agents for a month. He never received a file with the names of agents, and he managed to find out their identities only by comparing the agent nicknames and the content of their reports with official information about the activities of high-ranking clergy.
For example, he found intriguing notes on the travel itineraries of Agent Mikhailov, who, according to his reports, traveled to New Zealand and Australia in February 1972, and in January 1973 to Thailand, where he participated in meetings of the World Council of Churches.
Comparing these records and news from the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, Yakunin found that at that time such trips were made by a certain Archimandrite Kirill, who worked in the church's department of external relations. In 2009, after four decades of climbing the church ladder, burly and grey-bearded Kirill became the patriarch of the Russian Church. The Church maintains that Kirill was never a KGB officer or agent. Representatives of the patriarch declined to comment further.
According to Yakunin, the KGB penetrated the church so deeply that "literally the entire episcopate was recruited as informants." There is no incriminating evidence on Father Tikhon, talking about his connections with the KGB - he was too young to become an attractive target for recruitment. However, the people he writes about have been compromised by such connections. For example, in the mid-1980s, he worked for two years as an assistant to Father Pitirim, who headed the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate. Yakunin calls him by the pseudonym that the KGB allegedly assigned to Pitirim - "Abbot".
“I have respect for Father Pitirim, and would not like to throw stones at him,” Father Tikhon says somewhat ambiguously on this subject.
Twenty years later, the church's compromises are still the subject of painful debate in church circles. Instead of expelling former agents, the church is expelling from its ranks those who raised this issue, in particular, the priest Yakunin.
“The Russian Church created Russia,” Father Tikhon says. - Russia can sometimes be obedient child and sometimes a child who rebels against his parents. But the church has always felt its responsibility for Russia.”
Charles Clover is the head of the Moscow bureau of the Financial Times.
The appointment of a bishop to the Pskov cathedra, whom the media call "Putin's confessor", caused a wave of conspiracy theories on the topic: the future Patriarch or an honorary exile?
The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, which, as it met in St. Petersburg, appointed the Bishop as the ruling bishop of the Pskov Metropolis Tikhon (Shevkunova). At the same time, he will retain the post of head of the Patriarchal Council for Culture.
Bishop Tikhon is a very media figure. Bishop Yegoryevsky, vicar of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia (Western Vicariate of the capital), a well-known church writer, screenwriter and journalist, he often attracts media attention. Tikhon is called the "confessor of President Putin", which the bishop himself never confirmed, but did not refute either. 
The appointment generated an explosion of comments.
The candidacy of the future patriarch is almost determined, - writes a well-known church dissident deacon Andrey Kuraev. - The Charter of the Russian Orthodox Church does not allow vicar bishop be a candidate for the patriarchal throne. Bishop Tikhon will now have the experience of managing a metropolitan. Hopefully many years old. I believe that over the coming years he will not lose his current status of "leader of popular sympathies."
However, other commentators speak of "honorable exile".
A friend of Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov), Andrey Kuraev, happily announces that a new patriarch has been chosen today. Following him, the blogger Venediktov writes about this. But it is not at all clear why they are so happy. Surrounded by Patriarch Kirill, there are other joys. On the contrary, they believe that the intrigue, in which the people of the patriarch, the abbot of the Valaam monastery Pankraty, Metropolitan Varsonofy, as well as Medvedev and Sechin, were involved, successfully ended with the removal of Shevkunov to the Pskov cathedra, writes the telegram channel "Nezygar" claiming to have insider information.
According to a source, Tikhon Shevkunov had plans to take a chair in St. Petersburg, the channel writes further. - As a result, he turned against him all the main groups in the Russian Orthodox Church. The last straw was Shevkunov's intervention in the Ukrainian question and participation in the organization of negotiations with Filaret of Kyiv through ROCOR.
The appointment of Tikhon (Shevkunov) as Metropolitan of Pskov can be considered as a real promotion only in one case - if there is real plan his promotion to the patriarchate, - says the deputy director of the "Center for Political Technologies" Alexey Makarkin. - For this, Kirill needs to resign, but he is clearly not going to do this. And the precedent for the departure of the patriarch was in the 17th century, and even then with a big scandal - in the conditions of the beginning church schism, at the cathedral with the participation eastern patriarchs who replaced Nikon. If there is no close prospect of the patriarchate, then the transfer of Tikhon can be regarded as very honorable, but removal from Moscow to a provincial see.
Metropolitan Tikhon replaced Bishop Eusebius (Savvin) at the Pskov cathedra. The retired metropolitan quite often came under fire from the media for his methods of managing the diocese and the conflict with the late priest Pavel Adelheim, popular in liberal circles.
In any case, the Pskov department is not only prestigious (due to its antiquity), but also a rich department due to the presence in it of the famous Pskov-Caves Monastery - one of the two monasteries in Russia that were not closed during the Soviet era. In it, Tikhon began his church activities as a novice in the 1980s, recalls Makarkin.
All this conspiracy is based on secular journalists' misunderstanding that the Church lives in its own time. And accordingly it is controlled, - he argues in a conversation with IA FederalCity writer Pavel Ganiprovsky. “Everything is done in a measured and unhurried manner. Therefore, to say that the appointment of Vladyka Tikhon as a bishop of one of the key Russian dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church is an honorary reference, just on the basis that Patriarch Kirill is clearly not going to retire now, means not understanding the algorithm of church personnel policy. Never Bishops' Cathedral will not elect a bishop as Patriarch who has not ruled the diocese himself for at least a few years. And Vladyka Tikhon was only a vicar and did not manage anything on his own. That is, he was simply promoted to obtain the necessary “qualification”. And from this point of view, yes, Vladyka Tikhon is the successor His Holiness Cyril, who, of course, is not going to retire in any way now. Another thing is that in a few years the situation can change very much.
Metropolitan Tikhon himself confirmed several years ago that he could not be elected Patriarch at the present time: Archimandrite Tikhon, aka Georgy Alexandrovich Shevkunov, was born in 1958. Graduated from the screenwriting department of the All-Union Institute of Cinematography. Soon after graduating from VGIK, he went to the Pskov-Caves Monastery, where he was a novice for nine years, and then took monastic vows. He returned to Moscow, worked in the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Ten years ago, Shevkunov first appeared in print as the only ideologue of the fundamentalist direction of the Russian Orthodox Church, publishing an article Church and State, in which he openly laid out his concern for democracy. A democratic country, quotes Father Tikhon Frei Lapse Vireau, will inevitably strive to weaken the most influential Church in the country, putting into action the old principle of divide and rule. This statement seems important in connection with the fact that the Russian media call Father Tikhon the confessor of President Putin, that is, a person who influences the worldview of the leader of the state.
In church circles, Tikhon is spoken of as a well-known intriguer and careerist. The first step in his brilliant ecclesiastical career, the certified screenwriter took shortly after his return to Moscow from the Pskov-Caves Monastery in 1991. Then he initiated a brawl near the fire in the Donskoy Monastery, where he lived. According to investigators, the culprit of the fire was a drunken monastery watchman who fell asleep with a lit cigarette. Shevkunov also accused agents of Western intelligence services sent to us under the guise of believers of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad of malicious arson. (By the way, at the moment, foreigners, despite the long-standing brawl, support Father Tikhon. According to rumors, they see him as the main candidate for the post of the next Patriarch of All Russia.) They say that the certified screenwriter himself is not out of place to take the highest church post in Russia.
There is information about the connection of Father Tikhon with the KGB. Perhaps later these connections helped him get to know Vladimir Putin better. One of the parishioners of the Sretensky Monastery is a close friend of Father Tikhon, Lieutenant General Nikolai Leonov. He served in the KGB from 1958 to 1991. In the 60-70s he worked in the First Main Directorate (PGU) of the KGB of the USSR, was the deputy head of the department. (Putin also served in PSU in the 1970s.) Tikhon (Shevkunov) and Nikolai Leonov are members of the editorial board of the Russian House magazine, the one that is printed on the basis of the publishing house of the Sretensky Monastery. Leonov is a political commentator for the program of the same name, which airs on the Muscovy channel, and Shevkunov is also the confessor of both projects of the magazine and the TV show. Among the frequent guests of the Russian House are representatives of the Russian National Unity (RNE) and the Black Hundreds.
Papa Tikhon is also known for more global projects. He was one of the activists of the canonization movement royal family. Led crusade against the tour of the magician David Copperfield in Russia, informing the flock that the magic tricks of this vulgar American Woland put the audience in bondage from the darkest and destructive forces. And whatever is his popular battle plan with satanic barcodes and individual taxpayer numbers (TIN). In the barcodes and TIN, according to Father Tikhon, the number of the beast 666 is disguised. In addition, the universal organization of accounting subordinates the Orthodox to total control from the secular, anti-Orthodox, from the point of view of Tikhon, state. His article Schengen area dedicated to this global problem, was published in the RNU Russian order. Despite the fact that Pope Tikhon denies his connection with the Russian Nazis, their views are very, very close.
Here are the reflections of the holy father on censorship. Censorship is a typical tool in a normal society, one that should cut off everything extreme. Personally, of course, I am for her both in the religious field and in the secular field. As far as state censorship is concerned, society will come to a sober understanding of the need for this institution before the deadline or later. Let us recall how Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin in his youth scolded censorship and did not rhyme with it otherwise than with the word fool. Later, he advocated censorship. The last thought of Tikhon, nevertheless, baffled the researchers of A.S. Pushkin. Well, Pushkin did not write this!
Tikhon was one of the first to congratulate Putin on his accession to the throne and then publicly rejoiced at the timely departure of Yeltsin, condemning the era of Yeltsinism.
Papa Tikhon hides the history of his acquaintance with Putin. But he advertises his closeness to the first person in every possible way. In circles around the church, they say that the rumor, just as Tikhon is the confessor of the president, was started by Tikhon himself. The certified screenwriter himself does not confirm the rumor, but does not refute it either, flirting: What are you trying to make of me some kind of Richelieu? Nevertheless, journalists from Moscow publications firmly wrote, according to Tikhon, that Vladimir Putin confessed to him all the way. It is he who instructs the president in the spiritual life.
In any case, the certified screenwriter Tikhon actively uses his real (or imaginary) proximity to the president. As they say, now the Patriarch himself is more afraid of him.
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Awarded the Orders of Lenin, the Red Banner (three times), Patriotic War 1st degree, Red Star, medals.
MOSCOW, May 18 - RIA Novosti, Sergey Stefanov. Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov), appointed head of the Pskov Metropolis, on Sunday, before leaving for Pskov, will say goodbye to the inhabitants and parishioners of the Sretensky Monastery on the territory of the monastery, the monastery reported.
"May 20, with the blessing holy patriarch Kirill, before leaving for the Pskov Metropolis, Metropolitan Tikhon (Shevkunov) will Divine Liturgy and say goodbye to the brethren, students of the Sretensky Theological Seminary, staff and parishioners of the Sretensky Monastery," the monastery noted.
The service will start at 10:00.
"Leaves to come back again"
On the official portal of the Sretensky Monastery, parishioners leave numerous comments with words of sadness from parting with their beloved governor and the expression hot support him in his new ministry.
“There is such sadness in his eyes… It is evident that it is very difficult for him to part with his native Sretensky Monastery,” Olga wrote in the comments to the photo essay dedicated to the meeting of Vladyka Tikhon in the Sretensky Monastery after he was elevated to the rank of Metropolitan on May 17.
“And I have a feeling that you will still return to Sretensky one day. As they say, leave in order to return again,” Marina wrote in turn.
The reader, who signed Evgeny, noted that Metropolitan Tikhon "the time has come to return to his native land - to strengthen the Pskov-Caves Monastery" and wished the bishop "God's help" in his labors. It was in Pechory that the future metropolitan began his monastic path in the 1980s.
“Both joyful and sad. Father Tikhon was one of those few shepherds, thanks to whom it seems much easier to live and go to church, especially in today’s increasingly cosmopolitan and mercantile Moscow,” wrote Igor Pisarev.
And the “reader from the Moscow region” probably expressed the general wish of the parishioners: “I would like the future governor to be from the brethren of the Sretensky Monastery and preserve in him the spirit that was under Bishop Tikhon.”
From Pechora to Moscow - and back
The press secretary of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill, priest Alexander Volkov, previously told RIA Novosti that Bishop Tikhon (Shevkunov), who was appointed the ruling bishop of the Pskov Metropolitanate, would no longer be able to act as abbot of the Sretensky Monastery and rector of the Sretensky Theological Seminary. The decision on a new governor and a new rector has not yet been made, the Holy Synod will have to approve the candidacy. At the same time, Shevkunov will retain the position of head of the Patriarchal Council for Culture.
On Thursday, during a festive liturgy in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior on the occasion of the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord, Patriarch Kirill elevated Bishop Tikhon of Pskov and Porkhov to the rank of metropolitan in connection with his appointment by the Synod as the ruling bishop of the Pskov Metropolis.
Shevkunov began his monastic journey in the Pskov diocese - in 1982, after graduating from the screenwriting department of the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK), he entered the Pskov-Caves Monastery as a worker, and then a novice. Subsequently, Tikhon (Shevkunov) became abbot of the Sretensky Monastery, the Moscow courtyard of the Pskov-Caves monastery.
Vladyka Tikhon is known as a writer. In just one year, the circulation of his book "Unholy Saints", published in 2011, exceeded 1 million copies. In 2012, the collection was shortlisted for the "Big Book" award and became the winner of the reader's vote. Metropolitan Tikhon is also a film director, among his works are "Pskov-Caves Monastery" and "Death of the Empire".
Viceroy of the Sretensky Monastery, confessor of the Putin family.
Archimandrite Tikhon, aka Georgy Alexandrovich Shevkunov, was born in 1958. Graduated from the screenwriting department of the All-Union Institute of Cinematography. Soon after graduating from VGIK, he went to the Pskov-Caves Monastery, where he was a novice for nine years, and then took monastic vows. He returned to Moscow, worked in the publishing department of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Ten years ago, Shevkunov first appeared in print as one of the ideologists of the fundamentalist direction of the Russian Orthodox Church, publishing the article "Church and State", in which he openly expressed his attitude towards democracy. “A democratic state,” Fr. Lapse Vireau quotes Father Tikhon, “will inevitably try to weaken the most influential Church in the country, putting into action the ancient principle of “divide and rule.” This statement seems important in connection with the fact that the Russian media call Father Tikhon the confessor of President Putin, that is, a person who influences the worldview of the leader of the state.
In church circles, Tikhon is spoken of as a well-known intriguer and careerist. The graduated screenwriter made the first step in his brilliant church career shortly after his return to Moscow from the Pskov-Caves Monastery in 1991. Then he initiated a scandal around the fire in the Donskoy Monastery, where he lived. According to investigators, the drunken monastery watchman, who fell asleep with a lit cigarette, became the culprit of the fire. Shevkunov also accused agents of Western intelligence services sent to us under the guise of believers of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad of “malicious arson.” (By the way, now “foreigners”, despite a long-standing scandal, support Father Tikhon. According to rumors, they see him as the main candidate for the post of the next Patriarch of All Russia.) They say that the certified screenwriter himself is not averse to occupying the highest church post in Russia.
There is information about the connection of Father Tikhon with the KGB. Perhaps later these connections helped him get to know Vladimir Putin better. One of the parishioners of the Sretensky Monastery is a close friend of Father Tikhon, Lieutenant General Nikolai Leonov. He served in the KGB from 1958 to 1991. In the 60-70s he worked in the First Main Directorate (PGU) of the KGB of the USSR, was the deputy head of the department. (Putin also served at PSU in the 1970s.) Tikhon (Shevkunov) and Nikolai Leonov are members of the editorial board of the Russian House magazine, which is published on the basis of the publishing house of the Sretensky Monastery. Leonov is a political commentator on the program of the same name, which airs on the Muscovy channel, and Shevkunov is also the confessor of both projects - the magazine and the TV show. Among the frequent guests of the Russia House are representatives of the Russian National Unity (RNU) and the Black Hundred.
Father Tikhon is also known for more global projects. He was one of the activists of the movement for the canonization of the royal family. He led a "crusade" against the tour of the magician David Copperfield in Russia, informing the flock that "the magic tricks of this vulgar American Woland" put the audience "in dependence on the darkest and most destructive forces." And his most famous project is the fight against "satanic" bar codes and individual taxpayer numbers (TIN). In the barcodes and TIN, according to Father Tikhon, the “number of the beast” is disguised - 666. In addition, the universal accounting system subordinates the Orthodox to total control from the secular, anti-Orthodox, from the point of view of Tikhon, state. His article "The Schengen Zone", dedicated to this "global problem", was published in the RNE "Russian Order". Despite the fact that Father Tikhon denies his connection with the Russian Nazis, their views are very, very close.
Here are the reflections of the holy father on censorship. “Censorship is a normal tool in a normal society, which should cut off everything extreme. Personally, of course, I am for her - both in the religious field and in the secular field. As for state censorship, sooner or later society will come to a sober understanding of the need for this institution. Let us recall how Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin in his youth scolded censorship and did not rhyme with the word "fool". And later he advocated for censorship. The last phrase of Tikhon, however, baffled the researchers of A.S. Pushkin. Well, Pushkin did not write this!
Tikhon was one of the first to congratulate Putin on his "accession" and then publicly rejoiced at the timely departure of Yeltsin, condemning the "era of Yeltsinism."
Father Tikhon hides the history of his acquaintance with Putin. But he advertises his closeness to the first person in every possible way. In church circles, they say that the rumor that Tikhon is the president's confessor was started by Tikhon himself. The certified screenwriter himself does not confirm this rumor, but does not refute it either - he flirts: “What are you trying to make of me some kind of Richelieu?” Nevertheless, journalists from Moscow publications confidently wrote from the words of Tikhon that “Vladimir Putin constantly confesses to him. It is he who instructs the president in the spiritual life.”
In any case, the certified screenwriter Tikhon actively uses his real (or imaginary) proximity to the president. As they say, now even the Patriarch himself is afraid of him.
